- Kristen Bell is an American actress
- She is best known for starring in the UPN teen drama Veronica Mars and NBC’s The Good Place
- Since 2024 she has starred alongside Adam Brody in the Netflix series Nobody Wants This
Kristen Bell is another actress you will recognize if you grew up watching teen dramas. Bell starred as the titular character Veronica Mars in the show from 2004 until 2019 when a fourth season was released. Bell had another leading role in a hit TV show, NBC’s comedy The Good Place from 2016 until 2020. In 2024, she began starring alongside fellow 2000s icon Adam Brody in the Netflix comedy Nobody Wants This.
Bell has had a steady TV career but the role of Joanne and her chemistry with Brody in the Netflix series made a new generation aware of her. What you may not know is in addition to playing iconic characters, she also voices them. From 2007 until 2012, she narrated the voice of Gossip Girl on The CW series. Despite Gossip Girl being revealed only at the show’s end, many people came to know Bell for her distinctive narration style.
Read More: Who is Adam Brody, star of Nobody Wants This?
Bell is regarded as one of the 2000s’ most prominent actresses and has returned had countless television successes. Read on here to find out about her other acting roles, life, and upcoming projects.
Who is Kristen Bell?
Kristen Bell’s early life
The actress was born on 18 July 1980 in Huntington Woods, Michigan. She was born to Lorelei Jo and Thomas Michael Bell. She has six other siblings from her parent’s other relationships.
Her mother was heavily religious and this led her to attend Shrine Catholic High School in 1994. In high school, she was a part of music and drama clubs. In 1997 she played Dorothy Gale in the school’s production of The Wizard of Oz.
After graduating high school, she began attending the prestigious Tisch School of the Arts where she studied musical theatre. She was almost ready to graduate but left, instead focusing proactively on her acting career.
Acting career
Bell was privileged enough to start her acting career early. She played a small role in a Detroit production of the show Raggedy Ann and Andy. As a child even before she went to Tisch she had an agent and had private acting lessons. Locally she would appear in newspaper advertisements.
Bell’s first film role was uncredited in a film called Polish Wedding. However, her first credited film role was in Pootie Tang in 2001. Her career only began after she left Tisch and started on Broadway.
Broadway beginnings
In 1998 after leaving college she had her Broadway debut playing Becky Thatcher in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Unfortunately, the music was short-lived, and Bell’s dialogue was entirely cut from the production.
In 2002 she had bigger Broadway success starring in the revived version of Arthur Miller’s The Crucible. That same year she moved to Los Angeles to pursue acting. She had a long and strenuous screen testing process, but she did book guest roles while she was starting in LA.
A young Bell co-starred in The King and Queen of Moonlight Bay. Her big break came in 2004 – but it wasn’t Veronica Mars! She starred in the Lifetime movie Gracie’s Choice. In the movie, Bell played the titular character. In the same year, she starred in the action thriller Spartan before landing her most iconic role.
Veronica Mars and after
In 2004 Bell was cast as the titular character in the teen drama Veronica Mars. She played a private teen detective investigating the secrets of her town, as well as her best friend’s murder. She won a Saturn Award for the Best Actress on Television for the role.
She continued to star in movies alongside Veronica Mars while the show aired from 2004 until 2007. During this time, she starred in films like Fifty Pills and Pulse. After Veronica Mars ended in 2007, she wanted to join the superhero drama Heroes, which began airing the year before. She was offered a role in the hit show Lost at the same time but instead portrayed the recurring character Elle Bishop on Heroes.
Since the then 27-year-old actress wasn’t in a series regular role, she took on many projects. From September 2007 until 2012, the Veronica Mars star narrated the voice of Gossip Girl, the anonymous antagonist of the series. In the same year, she starred in the romantic comedy Forgetting Sarah Marshall and flexed her voice acting chops in the Assassin’s Creed game, which she did again for two other games.
In 2009 she started in two comedy movies, Serious Moonlight and Couples Retreat. She reprised her role in the Forgetting Sarah Marshall sequel, Get Him to the Greek.
One of her iconic musical roles was in 2010 when she starred in Burlesque alongside pop princess Christina Aguilera.
Bell’s next big TV role was on the Showtime comedy series House of Lies which aired from 2012 until 2016. Her biggest voice acting work came next in 2013 when she voiced Anna in Frozen and Frozen 2. In the summer of 2013, she filmed a Veronica Mars film, a sequel to the show.
The Good Place and other roles
In 2016 she had a voice acting role in Zootopia and starred in the comedy The Boss, as well as Bad Moms and Bad Moms Christmas the following year.
Now she was on a role because in 2016 she began starring as Eleanor Shellstrop in the NBC sitcom The Good Place. The Good Place is about a dead saleswoman who is mistakenly transported to a heaven-esque afterlife. She was nominated for a Golden Globe and a Critics’ Choice Television award for the role.
Alongside The Good Place, she starred in films like The Disaster Artist and How To Be a Latin Lover. In 2018 Hulu confirmed Bell would reprise her breakout role as Veronica Mars in a fourth season of the show. The series aired in July 2019.
2020 – Other acting work
In 2021 she returned as the narrator for the HBO reboot of Gossip Girl, which lasted for two seasons. In 2022 she starred in the Netflix miniseries The Woman in the House Across the Street From the Girl in the Window. That year she also starred in the Amazon Prime movie The People We Hate at the Wedding.
Moving on to 2024, Bell bagged herself another successful TV role in Nobody Wants This as Joanne. In October 2024 the show was renewed for a second season. Bell will reprise her role in season 2 alongside Brody and new faces.
Talking about the show she said to The Hollywood Reporter, “I’m just generally excited to do it all over again. I’m excited that people are going to be filled with anticipation. There is nothing better for an artist or a performer than to know that what you’re working on will be consumed and make people happy.”
Kristen Bell’s Marriage to Dax Shepard
We’ve spoken about her acting career, but not her love life. Well, Bell has been with her husband Dax Shepard since 2007. They got engaged in January 2010 and were married in October 2013. The couple had two daughters in March 2013 and December 2014.
And that’s all you need to know about the queen that is Kristen Bell. We will keep you updated on Nobody Wants This, so stay tuned.
