Kristen Bell Breaks Down Her Career, from 'Gossip Girl' to 'Frozen'

I would get feedback from an audition like,

Well, you're not pretty enough to play the pretty girl,

but you're not quirky enough or weird enough

to play the weird girl.

And I was like okay, so does that just mean like

I can't be an actor?

Like what does that mean?

That was what I was getting feedback on

on every single audition.

[calm instrumental music]

Hi, I'm Kristen Bell,

and this is the timeline of my career.

Lookin' for trouble?

[Blond Man] Should you been in bed, Schuster?

Don't think you're gonna bum any beer off of us either.

Yeah, get your own.

I was living in Michigan and had already discovered

my love of theater and music and acting so I was auditioning

for anything I could get my hands on

and this movie called Polish Wedding came and shot

in Detroit with Claire Danes and Gabriel Byrne

and I was cast as like disgruntled teenager number one.

And I was very nervous but I was also incredibly excited

and tried to keep my cool 'cause at that time, and still,

Claire Danes is just so worship worthy.

She's just such an incredible force.

But I tired to play it really chill.

Yeah, I had braces, I was in the background,

I think we were like smoking and drinking on a street corner

and that was my first film experience.

I just wanted to talk to him.

He wouldn't even come and see me.

He said he would come and see me.

In 2004, I was living in Los Angeles

but I had trained theatrically in New York

and this David Mamet movie came up and I spoke Mamet.

He's one of those playwrights where you kind of have to

known the way he writes, it's very specific, and I was like,

Oh, I would love to do that 'cause I'm in that world.

I've studied the way that he writes.

And I auditioned and I think I remember,

even though I had been in L.A. for like a year or two,

I remember saying to the casting director,

I just moved here from New York,

to try to appear more exotic and attractive.

I think I said that for a few years

when I lived in L.A. [chuckles]

I used to sit there.

The only reason I was allowed pass the velvet ropes

was Duncan Kane.

He used to be my boyfriend.

I did Veronica Mars right after I did Spartan.

We shot the pilot of Veronica Mars in San Diego.

The show got picked up and we shot for the next three years

in San Diego and I commuted from Los Angeles to San Diego

every Friday and Monday.

So Fridays we shot really late and I drove back to L.A.

at around seven or eight in the morning

and then I left for work in San Diego at four in the morning

on Sunday.

And I did that for three years, which was difficult

but I do feel like I earned my stripes on that show

putting in a lot of effort.

My high school experience was different than Veronica's

but everyone, every human being on the planet

can relate to feeling like an outcast.

Sometimes, it's actually even the people

who seem to fit in the most that feel the most left out.

And Veronica Mars was kind of where I discovered

that I could do comedy because prior to that

I was doing guest stars on TV shows

and they were all really dark roles

and I was very much like into acting

and they just wrote these beautiful sassy one liners

on Veronica Mars that were the things you wish you said.

Like when you get in bed at night

and you sort of punch yourself and you go,

Oh, I should have said that to that guy.

That would have been the perfect zinger.

Do you even know how to play poker?

No, but it must be really hard if all you guys play.

That was the language Veronica Mars spoke in

so it was very empowering to play this girl

that was wise beyond her years

and always fought for the underdog.

I think discovered a lot about my personality

and who I wanted to be through playing Veronica.

Hey, Upper Eastsiders, Gossip Girl here

and I have the biggest news ever.

I'm a big fan of just saying what you need

in a polite way.

And the CW had just canceled Veronica Mars

and I was saying, Oh okay, I need to find a job.

And I had heard that they were doing this pilot called

Gossip Girl and I realized that the cast was probably

five years younger than I was at that time

but there was a narrator

and that she was sort of a substantial portion of the show

and I just called Dawn Ostroff and said,

Hey, so remember last week

when you canceled 'Veronica Mars'

can I just be this narrator and stay in business with you?

And she said, Yeah, that sounds great.

Let me check.

And then they offered me the part

which was so much fun 'cause I think

that was the only role that I've never gotten a note on.

I walked in and they said, Just make this sassy and catty.

And we all know what that voice sounds like in our head.

And over the however many years I did that role,

I don't think I ever got an adjustment.

I seem to be a part of these projects that keep coming back

which I'm thrilled about

because I've had a pretty good experience

on every project I've worked on.

And I like the fact that it can be these reunions

and we all get together again.

I don't know what the new Gossip Girl is going to be like

or look like but I'm excited to do it again.

Dust off the old sassy voice.

Peter.

Hey, hi.

What are you doing here?

Came here to murder you. [laughs]

I did not actually read the script

before I auditioned for Sarah Marshall.

I remember Judd Apatow was the biggest thing at that moment

in comedy and everyone was pining to work with him

'cause he was just producing such great material.

And I had gotten an audition at 10 a.m.

on a Saturday morning but I was shooting Veronica Mars

in San Diego so I got the sides that I was to memorize

on a Thursday night, then I worked on Veronica Mars,

memorized it during my lunch break,

and then drove to Los Angeles on no sleep

and just walked right in to the audition room.

It was mostly a blackout for me 'cause I was so tired

but somehow managed to book that role.

And then when I finally ended up reading the script

it was the same caliber that you're used to seeing

from a Judd Apatow production

and just fell in love with Jason Segel

and Nick Stoller and Shauna Robertson,

all the people who made that movie beautiful.

And the funny thing about that was

I was shooting Sarah Marshall in Hawaii

and I got a call that Veronica Mars was going

to be canceled, it wasn't going to be picked up

for another season.

And one day later, I shot the scene where Sarah Marshall

says, My show has been canceled.

I'm washed up and I don't matter anymore.

So I was able to draw on a lot of personal feelings

for that scene.

I'm really freaked out right now, okay,

because seemingly the only actresses

that actually can survive are the ones who show their cooter

and excuse me, but I refuse to do that.

I have a little dignity

and I don't have the frame to support plastic surgery.

I would tip over. And I'm not gonna do that.

I'm not going to exploit myself.

The cool thing about that movie I think,

what I learned from that was I really gravitate towards

playing characters who are inherently unlikable on the page

and figuring out a way to get you to root for them

because everybody has something likable, relatable,

identifiable about them.

Even the people that are written like you know

terrible human beings on a page.

When I read Sarah's part I thought,

Oh, this girl, you know her ego is huge, she's a narcissist

but she's still a human being.

And the way Jason Segel wrote that movie was so special

'cause he gave his character

a lot of character defects, as well.

So there were reasons that you believed he and Sarah

were falling apart.

But after that movie, I sought out roles

that had a lot more dimension in the characters.

[grunts] Please tell me I'm almost there.

Does the air seem a bit thin to you up here?

I was only cast in that movie

because I had auditioned for Tangled and was not cast

and the casting director Jamie Roberts had said,

You're not right for this

but I think you're right for something else.

And right after my audition for Tangled

I sat down with Chris Buck, who was our director on Frozen

and he said, You know, in about three years

I'm gonna be doing this movie

and it's gonna be called 'Anna and the Snow Queen'.

And at that time it was something totally different.

And he stayed in contact with me.

I mean he's really the whole reason that I have this part.

He stayed in contact and they kind of built the role

around me and asked us to share a lot of personal stories

about how we wanted these two girls to interact

to get a really strong real sisterly dynamic,

which is why I was able to make Anna so spunky.

But I think what feels best about that movie

is that because I was involved since its inception

and was like the first one cast,

I think that I was really able to shape that role

into a love letter to my 11 year old self.

Most princesses that you see on screen,

or at least the ones that I did when I was 11,

they weren't nearly as clumsy as I was,

they didn't talk too much,

they didn't wear their heart on their sleeve

as much as I did and they just weren't as weird or quirky

and I really wanted to represent

all the little weirdos out there.

I mean I used to eat my dinner next to the dog,

like in a dog dish with my face

when I was like five, six, seven years old.

So I was like, I like my dog better than you guys

and I'm gonna eat down here.

It's just, you know, a little off the beaten path.

[upbeat techno music] ♪ I don't care ♪

♪ You're on a ♪

All the cliches about parenting are true

that's why they're so annoying [calm instrumental music]

and that's why they're cliches

but parenting is really hard

and I had just started to experience it

and I got a call from Mila Kunis, who is a friend,

and she said, I'm doing this movie called 'Bad Moms'

and so are you.

And I was like, Okay, great.

So she was the one who brought me onto the project.

She's like, Just trust me, you'll read it, you'll love it.

And she was right.

It poked fun at all the things that I was experiencing

at that time.

The like drop-off culture and how gross kids can be

and it was everything I needed at that moment

so I was very excited to be a part of that movie

because I was going through those exact same things

in my life.

Whereas when I was doing Veronica Mars I was 25 years old

playing 16, this was a project

where I was actually experiencing all those things

at those moments.

And this sort of like mom vibe has very much become,

I think, who I am or at least what drives me

with looking for roles that, I guess, show women

in the forms of womanhood and motherhood simultaneously

and yet that dissonance that can be there.

Every person gets to live in a home that perfectly matches

his or her true essence.

Cool, so I guess that's why my house, for example,

is this adorable little cottage whereas other people

might have homes that are bigger.

Like that one.

[Michael] Exactly.

Mike Schur and I met when I was 18 years old

in the halls of Saturday Night Live

where he was the head writer and where one of my friends was

an intern in the set design department.

And I was like, Ooh, can I come with you?

And we had met a few times because we both

were children there.

And then throughout the course of the next 15 years,

I'd run into him and I always just adored him.

And then when he started to create

the best television out there

with The Office and Parks and Brooklyn Nine-Nine,

I was always desperate to work for him

but I didn't think he remembered me.

And then one night I got a call on my voice mail that said,

Hey Kristen, it's Mike Schur.

I'm not sure if you remember me but I have this project

and I think you need to be a part of it.

And I was like freaking out.

And we sat down for lunch, for like a four hour lunch,

and discovered we were both very preoccupied

with what it means to be a good person.

So it was just like all these stars aligning

of me finally being able to work with Mike,

getting the opportunity of my dreams,

having it be the subject matter of my dreams

and living out the happiest four years I've had.

[audience laughing]

Being on stage feels like someone else

but also more yourself than you've ever felt.

This was the brainchild of a documentarian

named Jason Cohen who came to Will Gluck

at Olive Bridge Entertainment and said,

I have this crazy idea

and I just want to reunite musical theater casts

because I've polled people and in any room,

95% of the people were a part of their high school

musical theater.

And especially right now, there are very few things

that bring us all together,

that we've all experienced, right.

We always talk about how much we disagree in America

or on earth.

Well, I'm different 'cause of this thing.

We all know what high school feels like, right.

Everyone has that pit in their stomach

when we say high school.

And almost everyone was a part of their theater show.

So we thought what if we reunite millennials

and baby boomers and just capture that spark

of reintroducing yourself to someone you already know.

And the show actually turned out better then we thought

because there's this electricity when you see people who

can relive moments from their high school better.

They almost have that Veronica Mars ability

because it's a human story

more than it is about musical theater

but people have made amends or stood up for themselves,

rekindled love, come out of the closet.

It's like all these beautiful things wrapped up in one

and I'm very, very proud of it.

It's funny I was so concerned with acting

in the beginning of my career and I feel like

as it's gone on non-scripted television

that tells more human-interest stories is what I have

been gravitating towards the last couple of years.

Hello Bello came out of this idea

that my husband and I had where we both grew up in Michigan

but when we had kids we could walk into any boutique

and buy any baby product we felt was great for our baby

and not look at the price tag.

And we just, in the pit of our stomach, knew that was unfair

and we wanted to fill a void in the market

where you could bring sort of premium products

to all parents.

They wouldn't have to chose between their baby

and their budget.

And I think one thing I've learned is that I've always seen

problems in the world but now that I have this career

I realize I can be leverage.

I can walk into a company and say,

I see a problem in the marketplace

and I would like to fix it.

And you can fix it with this,

and you can say Dax and I are involved

and we will have integrity behind the mission

and it will be a good company.

And it has so far.

I mean, we just turned a year

but we've given over a million diapers away

and to 70 different organizations.

We made sure going in

that we have a 20% first responder discount,

like all of these things

that when I'm going to bed at night,

I wanna see happen in the world I'm able to leverage

because of having done some movies and television.

And the company doesn't go away like the movies or TV does

so we just turned a year old and we're celebrating by,

we're giving parent expecting or new in America and Canada

a free pack of diapers, like on us.

And everyday that I sort of live that mission

through this company I feel more and more excited

to take on more business opportunities

and, I don't want to say less acting

but if this was where my career ended acting wise,

I think I'd be okay with it.

I remember early on getting feedback

that I wasn't enough in either category.

Like I would get feedback from an audition like,

Well, you're not pretty enough to play the pretty girl

but you're not quirky enough or weird enough

to play the weird girl.

And I was like okay, so does that just mean

like I can't be an actor?

Like what does that mean?

That was what I was getting feedback on

on every single audition.

But, I think as I've grown older those boxes have changed

and they've almost gone away

and it's like this huge gray area now

of all these beautiful stories that you can tell

that have dimensional people

that don't have to be one thing.

It's not the '80s where you have to have the popular girl

and then the nerd who gets the guy.

It's not that anymore.

And I'm really grateful for that

and I think it opens up a lot of opportunities

for everyone to play and pretend,

which is the most fun part.