Kristen Bell

Kristen Bell (born July 18, 1980, Huntington Woods, Michigan, U.S.) is an American actress who rose to fame starring as a high-school sleuth in the teen crime series Veronica Mars (2004–07, 2019). She has worked steadily since, starring in such hits as the television series The Good Place (2016–20) and Nobody Wants This (2024– ) as well as the Disney film franchise Frozen (2013 and 2019), for which she lent her voice to the character Princess Anna.

Early life

Bell is the only child of Lorelei (née Frygier) Bell, a registered nurse, and Tom Bell, a television news director. She was raised in Huntington Woods, a suburb of Detroit, where her parents, who divorced when she was a child, lived near each other and shared custody. Each remarried, and Kristen Bell grew up with several siblings from her parents’ second marriages. “All of this sounds like a lot of instability for a kid,” Bell told The Wall Street Journal in 2022, “but, actually, it was the opposite. I became acclimated to having many more adults who loved me.”

First acting roles

In 1992 Bell auditioned for a community production of Raggedy Ann and Andy. She was cast in what she described to the New York Daily News in 2004 as “the complex dual role of the banana in the first act and the tree in the second act.” Her mother helped get her an agent, and shortly thereafter Bell secured parts in television commercials. As a junior at Shrine Catholic High School in Royal Oak, Michigan, Bell landed the lead role of Dorothy in the school’s production of The Wizard of Oz. She graduated in 1998 and made her film debut the same year, appearing in an uncredited role in the comedy-drama Polish Wedding.

Education and stage roles

Bell enrolled at the New York University (NYU) Tisch School of the Arts to study musical theater, where she appeared in a campus production of the musical Hair. She also had a part in an Off-Broadway production of Reefer Madness: The Musical. In 2001, just four credits shy of earning a degree, Bell left NYU to make her Broadway debut, as Becky Thatcher in a musical version of the novel The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. The next year she appeared in a Broadway revival of The Crucible, with Liam Neeson and Laura Linney.

First TV roles

Encouraged by friends, Bell moved to Los Angeles in 2002 and quickly landed guest roles on television series including the dramas The Shield, Everwood, and American Dreams (all 2003). She also starred alongside Tim Matheson and Sean Young in the television movie The King and Queen of Moonlight Bay (2003), in which she played a teenager who spends her last summer before college getting to know her estranged father.

Veronica Mars

After playing the kidnapped daughter of the U.S. president in the well-received David Mamet-directed film Spartan (2004), Bell landed the lead role in the new television series Veronica Mars. The show’s original three-season run, in which Bell portrayed a high-school student trying to uncover the truth about her best friend’s murder, has been called one of the best teen shows of all time. It became a cult favorite, and fans raised $5.7 million through crowdfunding to help finance the 2014 Veronica Mars movie, in which the beloved gumshoe, now about to graduate from law school, returns to her hometown of Neptune to help solve a murder. Bell also returned for the 2019 television revival, which ran for one season.

Early films, TV after Veronica Mars, and personal life

While working on the original run of Veronica Mars, Bell reprised her role in Showtime’s adaptation of Reefer Madness (2005) and had parts in such films as the mystery thriller Deepwater (2005) and the dark comedy Roman (2006). When Veronica Mars ended in 2007, Bell joined the cast of the superhero crime series Heroes for a 12-episode story arc (2007–08) and narrated the teen drama series Gossip Girl (2007–12). She reprised the role in the Gossip Girl revival in 2021.

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Bell had her first major box-office success starring in the romantic comedy Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008), playing a television star who, while vacationing with her new boyfriend (played by Russell Brand), runs into her ex-boyfriend (Jason Segel) at the same resort. She followed up with appearances in the comedies Couples Retreat (2009), When in Rome (2010), Get Him to the Greek (2010), and You Again (2010). Bell also guest starred on the TV series Party Down in 2009 and 2010. Between screen roles, she began dating actor Dax Shepard; they married in 2013 and have two daughters, Lincoln Bell Shepard (born 2013) and Delta Bell Shepard (born 2014).

Frozen

Returning to a regular role on television in 2012, Bell starred in House of Lies, a dark comedy about a team of morally ambiguous management consultants led by Marty Kaan (played by Don Cheadle). Bell also provided the voice of Anna, princess of Arendelle, in Disney’s hugely successful Frozen (2013). The fairy tale earned more than $1.28 billion worldwide and became the highest-grossing animated film at the time. Songs from the movie’s soundtrack landed on the Billboard Hot 100, with three featuring Bell’s vocals: “For the First Time in Forever,” “Love Is an Open Door,” and “Do You Want to Build a Snowman?” Bell reprised the role in the 2019 sequel, which was another massive hit, grossing more than $1.45 billion worldwide.

The Good Place and other projects from the late 2010s

With the end of House of Lies in 2016, Bell took on the lead role in the acclaimed comedy series The Good Place, created by Michael Schur. Starring alongside Ted Danson, Bell portrayed Eleanor Shellstrop, a flawed woman who mistakenly ends up in a paradise-like community and strives to become a better person. The show was nominated for many awards during its four-season run, with Bell nominated in 2019 for a Golden Globe for best actress in a musical or comedy television series.

While working on The Good Place, Bell starred with Melissa McCarthy in the big-screen comedy The Boss (2016), playing an underappreciated assistant who helps her disgraced boss rebuild her empire, and with Mila Kunis and Kathryn Hahn in the comedy Bad Moms (2016), about three overworked mothers who rebel against the high expectations of being a caregiver. She returned for the Bad Moms sequel, A Bad Moms Christmas (2017). Bell also starred in Like Father (2018) as a workaholic who was left at the altar and ends up on her honeymoon cruise with her estranged dad (played by Kelsey Grammer).

Nobody Wants This and other projects from the 2020s

In the 2020s Bell had lead roles in such films as Queenpins (2021) and The People We Hate at the Wedding (2022) as well as the miniseries The Woman in the House Across the Street from the Girl in the Window (2022), a thriller parody. She soon had another hit with the Netflix series Nobody Wants This (2024– ), playing an outspoken, agnostic podcaster who falls in love with a newly single rabbi (played by Adam Brody). Bell and Brody were praised for their onscreen chemistry, and both were nominated for Golden Globes, as was the show.