Biography of Kristen Bell
Kristen Anne Bell was born in Detroit, Michigan, on July 18, 1980. Like her former character Veronica Mars, Kristen Bell knows what it's like to come from a broken home: Her parents split when she was just 2 years old.
Her mother started checking out modeling agencies after several people said her daughter would look great in pictures. Before her 13th birthday, Kristen Bell had an agent and began to appear in newspaper advertisements for several Detroit retailers, including Kmart. In little time, these snowballed into TV commercials and private acting lessons.
Before she graduated from a Catholic high school near the Motor City, she sang as Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz. After graduation, Kristen Bell headed to the Big Apple to attend the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University. Just three years later, in 2001, she made her Broadway debut as Becky Thatcher in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. In 2002, she appeared on Broadway in The Crucible, opposite Liam Neeson and Laura Linney.
kristen bell in spartan
Kristen Bell took her act to Los Angeles and scored a few guest-starring roles, appearing on Everwood, American Dreams and The Shield in 2003. In 2004, she was in the cable film Gracie's Choice, playing a girl forced to help raise her sickly siblings while her mother tries to overcome a drug addiction. That same year, Kristen Bell played the president's kidnapped daughter in director David Mamet's thriller Spartan.
kristen bell is veronica mars
Then Veronica Mars came along, the role that thrust Kristen Bell into stardom. Veronica was a 17-year-old high school student who went from "in crowd" to outcast almost overnight. The show ran from September 2004 to May 2007.
In 2005, Kristen Bell was cast as Mary in the Showtime version of Reefer Madness: The Movie Musical, a role she had already played onstage. That same year, she also appeared in the big-screen hits Deepwater and The Receipt.
2006 was an equally busy year for Kristen Bell, as she added the flicks Roman, Pulse and Fifty Pills to her resume.
Kristen Bell's TV stints filled 2007. She became the narrator on the hit show Gossip Girl. She was also given the role of Elle Bishop on the wildly popular TV drama Heroes. You might think that the flame that is Hayden Panettiere would outshine all who stand next to her, but Kristen adds her own touch that acts as a beacon for red-blooded men the world over. As if her relatively small but crucial role on ensemble show Heroes weren't enough, 2008 also saw Kristen complete work on the Star Wars-driven Fanboys and Forgetting Sarah Marshall, a romantic comedy.
In the media
In 2005, Bell was named by Jane magazine as "one of the 11 people you'd most like to see naked", appearing in a simulated nude pictorial, and in 2006, Bell was selected "World's Sexiest Vegetarians" on PETA's yearly poll. She was placed #68 on Maxim's 2005 "Hot 100" list, #11 in Maxim's 2006 "Hot 100" list, and #46 in Maxim's 2007 "Hot 100" list in which she was stated to have "single-handedly saved the CW from becoming the worst network ever". In 2006, Maxim also placed Bell at the top of the "Fall TV's Criminally Sexy Investigators" List. In 2008, she was featured at #59 on Ask Men's Top 99 Women of 2008 List. Reflecting on her admitted popularity with "geeks", Bell was voted the fourth sexiest woman on TV by the staff at Wizard magazine.
She claims to have never thought of herself as womanly because she "always play[ed roles] and look and act 10 years younger than [she is]", however as she explains, "Something magical happened when I turned 25 — I looked in the mirror and was like, You might not get carded for an R-rated movie anymore. Like I didn’t have a little stick figure anymore." Bell has said that many of the characters she has played are tomboys because she was "not homely enough to play the nerdy girl and not nearly pretty enough to play the pretty girl".
Bell has been associated with the idea that "nerdy is the new cool", and she explains, "what was previously perceived as nerdy is now viewed as original. What I like about nerdiness, geekiness, is it doesn’t really matter what you’re into—it just means you’re not a follower." She has also said, "I love nerds. Comic-Con junkies are the tastemakers of tomorrow. Isn't that funny? The tables have turned." Vanessa Juarez of Entertainment Weekly commented that Bell's role on Veronica Mars, Heroes and as a Star Wars fanatic in the upcoming Fanboys has "solidif[ied] her placement at the center of the geek universe", while Rodney Rothman stated, "I guess she's cornered the market on losers." Bell's work is often compared to Sarah Michelle Gellar's portrayal of the titular character on the cult television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Frank Scheck of The Hollywood Reporter stated that Bell was "arguably the television successor [to Gellar's portrayal of Buffy] when it comes to fighting bad guys."
kristen bell in serious moonlight
Kristen Bell's 2009 projects include the comedy Serious Moonlight with Meg Ryan and the dramatic romantic comedy When in Rome with Will Arnett and Josh Duhamel.