Kristen Bell was interviewed for Heroes The Official Magazine issue 5 available at newstands, comic shops and book stores everywhere.
She's Electric
Interviewed by Abbie Bernstein:
Source: Heroes The Official Magazine
Season two of Heroes saw the introduction of several new faces to the cast, and Kristen Bell's character Elle certainly made a big impact. As the slightly unhinged daughter of Company Leader Bob, she kept audience members and the Heroes themselves on their toes... We caught up with the popular actress to find out more about electric Elle...
It's hard to imagine anyone playing Heroes' Lively, laboratory-raised, lightning-throwing, deeply conflicted character other than Kristen Bell. Perhaps this is because the evolution of Elle has been heavily influenced by the actress. As Heroes creator/executive producer Tim Kring explains: "When you cast an actor with as much personality as Kristen has, we try to tailor the character a little closer to the actress."
Michigan-born Bell studied acting in school and was soon performing theatre professionally. She made her Broadway debut in 2001 as Becky Thatcher in the musical The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and went on to appear with Laura Linney and Liam Neeson in the 2002 revival of Arthur Miller's drama The Crucible. Her first onscreen role was in the TV series The O'Keejes. On the big screen, Bell's credits include David Mamet's Spartan, the horror thriller The Pulse, the title role in the new comedy Forgetting Sarah Marshall, and as one of the leads in the upcoming Fanboys. On TV Bell has racked up an impressive number of guest and recurring roles in just a few years, including a turn as a young prostitute on HBO's Deadwood; concurrent with Heroes, she's the heard-but-not-seen voice of the narrator on the CW's Gossip Girl. However, prior to Heroes, Bell was best known and beloved for her three years starring as UPN's teenage sleuth Veronica Mars. The last season of Veronica overlapped with the first season of Heroes, which was a favorite topic of conversation on the set, according to Bell.
"I'm a huge fan of (Heroes)," Bell reveals. "I watched it from the first episode and I joked with the writers that Heroes was the water- cooler conversation at Veronica Mars on set. l put feelers out there at Comic-Con and let them know what a fan I was of the show, I think with the secret hope that one day I could be a part of it..:"
HEROES MAGAZINE: What's most exciting about Heroes for you?
KRISTEN BELL: When I caught the [first] season premiere, it was just so engulfing that I couldn't think about anything else. I'm not kidding when I say it was the water-cooler conversation when we were working on Veronica Mars. We would come to work and the entire camera crew was standing around and would be like, ..Did you see what happened last night? And did you see who Claires father is?' There are hooks that people are able to sink into you when telling a story that I think Tim [Kring] has mastered and I think (Veronica Mars creator) Rob Thomas mastered for the much smaller but certainly avid [audience] that we had on Veronica Mars. It makes you want to be involved. I think also they're really smart shows and they 're a little harder to follow, which I really respect, because when you credit the audience with intelligence, you tend to attract intelligent viewers.The medium for me is the difference. I certainly love and miss theatre. Film is so much tun as well, and it's a little bit more like camp, because you're usually on location and you have a couple of months of time with people that you get really close with and then it's sort of like end-of-the-summer syndrome. With TV I really like the security and I like the sense of family. I like knowing who I work with. I work in this business because I like performing and I also really like the creative relationships. And I think coming forth with people that you love and being able to see them on a daily basis is a really special thing. Not that many people get to absolutely love what they do, and I'm lucky to be one of those people.
HEROES MAGAZINE: Was it intimidating for you to join a cast that had already been working together for a season?
KRISTEN BELL: There was anxiety and nerves, certainly, but nothing about it has been hard. They are some of the nicest people I've really ever worked with, and having had social relationships with a few of them, I'd heard through the grapevine what a great job it was. It's not just an excellent show, it's really fun to be a part of an ensemble that really supports each other. I think to find all that in one setting is very hard. Clearly, that says a lot about what comes down through the grapevine, starting with Tim Kring. Every time you loin a different job or a different show, I feel it's kind of like changing schools. It's that anxiety of, "Is everyone going to like me? Is this going to be fun? Am I going to do well?" And the warmth that I was greeted with, it felt like I was starting a school that all my friends already went to.
GEEK GIRL? KRISTEN BELL ON HER NERDY SIDE... "I think Comic-Con is my geeky guilty pleasure. I think the geekiest of all my pleasure at Comic-Con is that I definitely try to get pictures with every single person who dresses up, because the people who come in full costume absolutely fascinate me. Having done Fanboys, anything Star Wars is now wonderful and fascinating to me. I'm still learning about it all. And all my friends are fanboys, so I'm learning about it all from them. I've just been so embraced by this community that I love it. Now I'm sort of coming into my own as a fangirl and seeking things out, like in Los Angeles, they had a double bill of Tron and The Last Starfighter. I just thought, 'I want to see that at least once in my life..."'
HEROES MAGAZINE: In some ways, that's a pretty exact analogy. You've known some of your Heroes cast-mates off-screen for years already ...
KRISTEN BELL: Yeah (laughs). I have known Hayden Panettiere [Claire Bennet] since she was eight - we met in New York. We have the same agent. I was just then in college and met her in some plays that I did in New York. She was a lovely little girl. Even then, at eight years old, you could tell that there was something so alarmingly special about who she was and what she was going to be able to accomplish as a performer. l kept up a relationship with her, just socially, and having joined the cast now, it's been really nice, because I think really good girlfriends are so rare to find in L.A. She's a really tool, honest girl, and so we've become closer through the show. We always used to joke about trying to play sisters or friends in a project, and we might not be either of those in this show, but it's still fun to get to work together.
Zachary Quinto [Sylar] has been a good friend of mine for almost 10 years now and I've always wanted to work with him. [As Sylar) he's pretty much the coolest thing, because he's so unpredictable and so downright evil. It's almost hard for me to watch, because its the polar opposite of Zach's personality, because he's just the kindest, gentlest, most giving person. I would love to see him and Elle face off properly one day - I think that that would be unbelievable.
HEROES MAGAZINE: What was it like going from playing the heroic Veronica to the morally-muddled Elle?
KRISTEN BELL: (Laughs) It is so much fun. I have always played about 10 years younger than I am, which is a major blessing, even in real life. My family's very petite and I have a young-looking face, I guess, so I'm thankful to my parents for good genes! That being said, as an actor, there are certain things that I'm going for in my own life, in my late 20s, things I'm experiencing, and that's what you draw upon in your acting, so I hope that I'll be accepted as playing closer to my age.
I still look a lot younger, but I'm thankful just to be out of "teenage girl" a little bit. I don't dislike it at all - I've just had a lot of it.
Id been crossing my fingers in the hopes that I could get a job soon where I could play someone who was - I like to call it "a little off" - (who) perhaps didn't have the brightest and shiniest of intentions, and this character is so conflicted and comes across as such a risk. It's so much fun to play that. Elle doesn't have many boundaries, which I think is the really interesting part of playing this character on this particular show, because the whole first season has been about very good-natured people trying to embrace these abilities and being very conflicted as to how they should use them. Elle is not that way at all. She very much enjoys her power and enjoys the emotional power it gives her over other people. [Elle has] determination and she has a very fierce and intense personality. When she wants something, she wants it and she wants it now, which I think is good when you're working with the good guys and it's really bad when you're working with the bad guys. I think that's what she'll kind of ping-pong between. She has an inability to decipher between right and wrong. That's what makes her so interesting. She always thinks what she's doing is right, but she was raised by The Company and not by a normal family. I certainly hope you'll sympathize with her in trying to understand how her childhood really messed her up, and then hopefully she'll get a little bit of redemption.
HEROES MAGAZINE: Do your fans from Veronica Mars accept you as Elle? Do you interact with your fans?
KRISTEN BELL: Well, one thing I will say about Veronica Mars fans - whether it's on a street corner or whether it's on a blog, they're definitely interactive. Its a little deeper character work when you have to really figure out someone's intentions, because I don't think even evil characters are evil. They always think they're doing something right, and it's to get to that sort of conflicted "what's the difference between right and wrong?" point, which is fun and cool to work on as an actor. I hope everybody's going to have fun with it, because I love rooting for the underdog, but it's also fun to play someone who's a little crazy.
HEROES MAGAZINE: The Heroes cast reportedly is often almost as in the dark as the audience is about what's coming next. Is it hard to play, a character when you don't know what the scenes are building towards?
KRISTEN BELL: That was one thing on the first season of Veronica Mars that we struggled with a lot - all of the actors - and I've come to the conclusion that its all about trust. I mean it when I say it - I was really lucky• that when I was pitched the character [of Elle], Tim Kring let a few facts out of the bag, which was exciting and certainly something that I would never repeat. But ultimately, l think, when you're working on a show that's centered around a mystery; it's of vital importance that you have to trust [that the writers will let the actor know what they need to know - what should I be showing, as far as being able to tell the story adequately and foreshadowing, and things like that. You just have to trust your creator and your writers and your director that if you weren't giving enough, or they needed to allude to something, they would tell you.
It's just got to be all about trust.
HEROES MAGAZINE: Do people ask you for Heroes spoilers?
KRISTEN BELL: Yeah, of course! Even among the cast, everybody's always asking everybody else who has more information. When I started on Heroes, I would just go around with a big old smile on my face (laughs), so maybe they could sense it... But I had a substantial amount of information and all the other cast-members were sort of trying to pick it out of me. But I think I do a pretty good job of just smiling through it and just knowing that I was lucky enough to be told a little bit where my character was going, to at least know her first arc. And you know, it's hard, because when you have secrets, of course you want to spill them, but you have to realize how vital it is to keep them secret and that its actually kind of fun when you know a little bit more information than everyone else.
HEROES MAGAZINE: Do your former Veronica Mars cast-mates ask for spoilers?
KRISTEN BELL: Oh my god. Every single one of them. I was having breakfast with Ryan Hansen [who played Ted Casablancs], and he of course was asking questions. Also, the I [Veronica Mars) crew watched Heroes, so I would get a lot of texts. l kind of like to hold it over their heads, I'm not going to lie to you! I'm like, "Why don't you just watch?" and they're like, "Auggh, Kristen!" (laughs)
HEROES MAGAZINE: Between Heroes and Veronica Mars, you've become something of a pop culture icon...
KRISTEN BELL: The thing about pop culture for me is that I would so much rather be on a show that people are wildly obsessed with than on a show that people just turn on because it's on prime-time television. As a performer and as a creative person on a TV show, you want people to invest in your project. You want people to love it, not just like it. And as far as the coolest fans ever, which are some of the ones I've run into - I mean, it can get really intense, I'm not going to lie. The one thing that is different about those kind of fans - because they are so invested - more times than not, when they see you, they dot* really know what to do with themselves. Its not just, "Oh, that's a person I watch on a television show;" it's, "That's the person I follow and am deeply invested in:" There's a lot of shaking and sweaty palms and tears, but it's precious. They're all kind of funny and bizarre, but at the same time they're lovely, because they're coming up to you because they support you.
HEROES MAGAZINE: How did you get to be so cool?
KRISTEN BELL: (Laughs) Oh, my goodness. I don't think I'm that cool. I just try to be nice and enjoy what I'm doing. I've been really lucky and I feel grateful for that every moment and I hope that comes across, because I love what I do and I want to keep doing it. You know what? I have the coolest friends ever. That's how I'm cool!