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Creator / Kristen Bell

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"You know you love me..."

Kristen Anne Bell (born July 18, 1980 in Huntington Woods, Michigan) is an American actress and voice actress.

She is best known for playing the title character in Veronica Mars, Sarah Marshall in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Lucy in Assassin's Creed, Gossip Girl in... well, you know, Princess Anna in Frozen, and Eleanor Shellstrop in The Good Place.

Bell is married to Dax Shepard and they have two daughters.

Filmography:

    open/close all folders 

    Films 

    TV series 

    Video game roles 

    Web series 

Bell's work provides examples of:

  • Actor Allusion:
    • In Burning Love, her character references to being in a cult. Veronica visited a cult a few times in Veronica Mars.
    • In Hit And Run, she references being a sociopath which she played on Heroes.
    • Sloths are one of her favorite animals, so of course she voices one in Zootopia.
  • Actor-Inspired Element: Anna's "Wait what?" Catchphrase was something Bell added in, wanting her to be more goofy and dorky. Likewise the song "The Next Right Thing" in the sequel is partly inspired by her own struggles with clinical depression and anxiety; "do the next right thing" is her personal motivation mantra.
  • As Herself: In the Gossip Girl finale where she appears to help Rachel Bilson rehearse for the movie adaptation of Dan (alias Gossip Girl - long story)'s book. Also in iZombie when she does an audiobook recording.
  • Awesome, Dear Boy:
    • The reason she wanted to be in Frozen, citing her love for Disney movies such as The Little Mermaid (1989) and Aladdin growing up. Indeed, her tape of her singing songs from the former helped her get cast.
    • Double dose of this when she got a cameo in another Disney movie, Zootopia this time playing a sloth, one of her favorite animals. She was asked when one of the filmmakers remembered her Cuteness Proximity reaction from an appearance on the The Ellen DeGeneres Show. According to the casting director, Kristen responded in less than three minutes after they sent her a note about it, “the quickest deal ever made in Hollywood.”
  • Cast the Runner-Up: She in fact auditioned for Rapunzel in Tangled but was told she wasn't right. Chris Buck told her that in three years, he'd be working on another film she'd be perfect for. Thus she was the first one cast in Frozen (2013).
  • Celebrity Voice Actor: As the eponymous Gossip Girl she is not seen until the Series Finale (when she appears as herself) but she is certainly heard (if not credited); she also doubled as Veronica Mars's narrator and lent her pipes to The Cleveland Show, Astro Boy and the Assassin's Creed series. She also plays the lead in Frozen, and voices a sloth in Zootopia.
  • Chronically Killed Actor: Turning into something of a pattern for her. She's died in Heroes, Deadwood, and her 2 appearances in Robot Chicken have earned her brutal fatalities. Even video games aren't exempt since her character gets Killed Off for Real in Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood. Anna in Frozen is a subversion, since she freezes, then is brought back to life. The Good Place goes a bit further with Bell's character dying before the show takes place.
  • Cuteness Proximity: Suffers this around sloths. When Dax Shepard arranged for one to visit as a birthday surprise she actually sensed what had happened and cried Tears of Joy before she even saw it. It is not for nothing that she was chosen to voice a sloth in Zootopia. When she appeared on Ellen DeGeneres' show to discuss the video of the sloth incident, Ellen could not resist teasing her by saying "And now, let's bring out the cutest little sloth!", which nearly sent poor Kristen into a full-fledged freak out.
  • Dawson Casting:
    • She was well into her twenties playing sixteen in Veronica Mars.
    • Defied when she was approached to star in Gossip Girl; at 26, she was too old to play a high schooler and too young to play the mother of one. So she compromised by providing the voice of Gossip Girl.
  • Hide Your Pregnancy: In season two of Hou$e of Lie$, it is not only hidden, but digitally removed during her sex scenes. Her second pregnancy, on the other hand, was written into the show.
  • Hollywood Homely:invoked Early on in her career, she was told she wasn't pretty enough to play the lead roles but then she wasn't "quirky enough" to play the Hollywood Homely roles either. This has become hilarious given how Forgetting Sarah Marshall casts her as a glamorous TV star, and Anna in Frozen is quirkiness incarnate.
  • Huge Girl, Tiny Guy: Not usually, as she is only 5'1", but, although he does not end up as the Love Interest, she does share scenes with Danny DeVito in When in Rome, possibly one of three adult male actors shorter than her, the others being Verne Troyer and Peter Dinklage.
  • Ink-Suit Actor:
    • The physical appearance of Lucy Stillman in the Assassin's Creed series looks like a CGI version of Bell, who voices her.
    • Anna in Frozen looks a lot like Bell from the early Veronica Mars-era, with strawberry-blonde hair instead of gold-blonde. Anna even has Bell's very slight lazy right eye and some of her personality. In one interview, the movie's songwriters Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez said that when Bell was cast, she started influencing their ideas for the character:
      "The more we were working with Kristen Bell, the more, the more she influenced. We all got on the same page with who Anna was because Anna's Kristen Bell. Like Kristen Bell's mind is so fast and she's so funny... we kind of all started writing differently."
  • Jerk with a Heart of Gold: She's spoken about how she's often drawn to these characters; she likes playing roles that appear unsympathetic on the page and then finding something to help make them somewhat likable. Heroes, Forgetting Sarah Marshall and The Good Place are prominent examples.
  • Money, Dear Boy:invoked Sort of. As Veronica Mars had just been cancelled, she called Warner Bros. and asked to be the narrator on Gossip Girl as a quick paycheck. She maintains she still had fun doing so and would love to come back for a reunion show. Nine years after the show ended, she reprised her role in the 2021 revival.
  • Ms. Fanservice: Her live-action roles usually involve her beauty in some way.
  • Old Shame: She hates the fact that she starred in Movie 43 (as do most of the cast in general).
  • One-Take Wonder: According to her, Gossip Girl was the only job she did where she was "never given a note". She was just told to read the lines as sassy as possible.
  • Porn Names: Obviously not for real, but she was once asked this question in a magazine interview. Her porn name would be Chelsey Huntington, which she admitted actually sounded pretty cool.
  • Playing Against Type: She played an unsympathetic sociopath in Deadwood.
  • Promoted Fanboy: Bell was a big fan of Heroes before she appeared on the show as Elle and has said that she "always wanted to be in a Disney movie".
  • Reality Subtext:
    • The scene in Forgetting Sarah Marshall where Sarah rants about her show being cancelled was filmed the day after Kristen found out Veronica Mars had been cancelled - so she channeled her real life emotions into it.
    • Bad Moms was filmed around the time she became a mother for the first time, so she was experiencing the same issues as her character for the most part.
  • Star-Making Role: Bell got famous for playing in Forgetting Sarah Marshall. Most fans believe she was famous much earlier due to Veronica Mars, though. Anna from Frozen also is one as a voice actor and singer, particularly for people who were not aware of her work on Broadway.

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