Q: Tell us about your character.

KB: I play Jill Gerard who is a fictional journalist and probably experienced what a lot of people in 1988 experienced… a lot of young journalists, especially the ones who were fighting their way up the ladder in that she heard about the story and felt that it could be her big break so she pitched it to her news station KABC in Los Angeles and volunteered to fly out there and was really excited about it until she got here and realized how bleak and expensive and cold and difficult it would be. And throughout the course of the film it turns out that her instincts were right and that it becomes such a huge news story that she is bumped off of the story, but she kind of refuses to accept that.

Q: How are you like and unlike her?

KB: I’m a fighter like she is. I don’t think I’m as much of a fighter as she is. I have a lot of qualities that Jill has, just not extremist Jill. I don’t know that I would volunteer to go to Barrow, Alaska, and I also don’t know what it’s like to try and be a female reporter in 1988. And I think she’s probably pushed up against the wall and bullied a lot and so she had to make a name for herself and do something extreme, but she’s a workaholic and I love to work, though I wouldn’t categorize myself as a workaholic. I don’t think I’m that much like Jill, now that I’m explaining it.

Q: How much comedy do you get to do with your character?

KB: A little bit, not a ton, not necessarily the type of comedy that I think I’ve done before. This is more like comedy that rears its head through funny situations, not necessarily by (drum noise) jokes. But you know there’s a certain level of comedy that you just get without doing anything when you put all of these human beings in the frigid weather and you dress them up like crazy snowmen and you have them stand out on the ice and their teeth are chattering. I mean that’s just kinda funny to watch, so there’s really nothing slapsticky about it. It’s more comedy that comes about when you’re up against all odds I guess.

Q: What kind of advice would you give to someone who is wanting to pursue something whether it’s acting or being a reporter or just going after a goal?

KB: A self-help book? No, I mean I’m definitely not probably qualified to give out that kind of advice, but for me personally just keeping your goal in mind every day and kind of having that be your mantra that you wake up to every morning is really important. I think that, I don’t know, if you want to be an actor you just need to be acting, you need to be experiencing, acting in some way or another at all times. You can’t just be experiencing everyone else’s acting. Like you can want to be an actor or you can want to be a movie buff. I think those are kind of two different things. I don’t know, I’d say if you want to be an actor get involved in community theater if that’s the only thing available to you because it’s a great sort of way to work your way up and I have no idea what to do if you want to be a reporter because I dropped my minor in journalism so I certainly did not do it right.

Q: Did you have your fill of Alaska here or do you think you’d want to come back if there was another production that you were offered?

KB: You know the cold is not the problem with me. I actually love the cold because I grew up in Detroit and I love bundling up and there’s a lot of cute stuff you can do with warm weather clothes, so it doesn’t get boring, but it’s the lack of sunlight that’s really getting to me and I may be turning into a vampire, for real. Like I’m having really dark thoughts, you know what I mean and I’m enjoying the night time. Last night, not a joke, I slept 12 hours. What human does that? Who needs to do that? Someone is not as familiar with sunlight would be doing that. I think for me personally because I’m spoiled and the fact that LA has such great weather and is so motivated by outdoor activities, it has been difficult adjusting here. It’s gone in weird phrases because the first couple weeks and, I’m sure you guys have met all the people in this movie and they rule and we have a really good, fun group and we’ve been having a blast off camera with each other, but then you hit kind of weird pockets where you’re like “oh I haven’t seen my family in a couple weeks” or “where is the sun” or “the food is unfamiliar,” so I think that for a short amount of time I would definitely come back to Alaska because it’s so beautiful and I don’t mind the cold, but staying here in the winter for an extended period of time without the sun, it takes a lot of Zen focus. As far as the beauty of Alaska, if you ever have a “ah-ha moment like oh my God I can’t believe I’m in Alaska” – I did, one of the first weeks I came up here I climbed Mount Alyeska which is like this big resort in Girdwood and it’s called Alyeska. It’s this hotel that has a tram that’s usually for skiing or the summer for mountain biking and it goes to the top and it was 30 degrees when you went to the top of the tram and when you hit the top of the mountain it was maybe 70-75, it was hot up there at the top of the mountain. It was a really foggy day so there were all of these crazy, beautiful mountains that you were on the summit of and then the pool beneath you was just full of clouds so we were taking all these funny pictures of us diving into the clouds like we were jumping off the mountain and when I was standing at the top of Alyeska I was thinking — this is real, this is why people move to Alaska cause some people need this around them all the time, you know? Which is totally understandable because it’s completely authentic and mesmerizing.

Q: What initially drew you to the part when you first read the script?

KB: Well when I first read it I was initially already excited because Ken was directing it and he’s a really good director and he has an unbelievable reputation for being the nicest man alive. And he knows how to make movies. He knows how to make funny movies, but he also knows how to real movies and I identified with Jill I guess in this way in that in my imagination I would have been Jill because my father was a news director and so I grew up kind of playing with teleprompters and running around his set and commenting on how I didn’t like that anchorman’s tie and then he wouldn’t be allowed to wear it on air again. You know, silly stuff like that. I was always at my dad’s station so I was very familiar with – and that’s why I started a minor in journalism when I was in college, so I think I was just kind of taken with the well, “what if I never wanted to act and what if I’d just stayed on that path?” I also really liked the situation that Jill was in, in that she had no choice but to be a fighter because there weren’t a lot of – it’s like Veronica Corningstone, there were just no female anchors. It’s a very interesting scenario as opposed to something very general which is like oh I want to move up in my station. She really has to prove herself if she’s going to move up in 1988 because they weren’t that keen to promote females I guess.

Q: Do you have any funny stories from being on set with everyone?

KB: I mean, I’ve been hearing rumors of a lot of sprinting today and yesterday but I don’t know if I have any funny anecdotes other than freezing.

Q: National Guard stories?

KB: We visited the base here where apparently – we had gotten all the actors together and just thought that this was something we should be responsible for and we can spread a little love and say thank you with the troops here. And it turned out, it was kind of a bummer because it turned out to be a drill day and there were like 15 people there. There were like 15 of us and 15 of them so we literally just socialized for like an hour, so it was kind of one-on-one contact, but it was wonderful and I think that visiting the base was important. Is that what you meant? But it was cool, it was really cool. And I know that a lot of the army guys had sort of been teaching Dermot the real skills of what you need to have, so it was a way to go say thank you and see their base. They were appreciative even though they couldn’t draw in big numbers.

Q: The seals?

KB: Oh that was fun. And that was so long ago. You know what happens when you go on location is like the first 2 weeks you are so excited and everything is new. You’re like I’m definitely going to do that, I’m going to summit everything, I’m going to see everything. And then the more you get here, the sort of quaintness tends to wear off and wear on you, so when we first got here though we got to go to the Aquatic Life Center. And so we got a backstage tour of the sea lions and stuff and it was really cool and they let you sort of interact with them which was really fun. It’s not really funny, but I liked it.

Q: What do you think the overall message of the story is?

KB: That’s not an easily answerable question because there are a lot of different points of view that fall into this story. It seems as though it’s about a whale rescue, so you feel like “oh it’s a heart-warming animal activist story.” The actuality of it is that it’s based on a book called “Freeing the Whales: How the Media Created the World’s Greatest Non-Event” which – might be the elephant in the room, but we all know it’s happened. Some things are sensationalized that are not actually a story. I think the reason this script is so interesting is because there are a lot of different points of view – one being what the book was about, which is this particular scenario of whales being trapped. It happens every year and it’s kind of survival of the fittest since the ones that aren’t smart enough don’t make it out into the ocean. So the fact that someone caught it on camera and that everyone around the world flipped out and said we have to see them, we have to see them. The new kids up here were like “wait, what?” It has nothing to do with – culturally there, they have been surviving on the whales up here forever and we may disagree with it, but it’s their culture, you know what I mean? And from an anthropological point of view you have no right to tell them that that’s wrong. As crazy as it may be to us because I think we sense such an intelligence from them, I think the title kind of reigns it in because I don’t know anyone who hates whales, but it’s just kind of an interesting cross-fire to know that the Inupiats were like “we should be harvesting them.” This is what happens every year, you guys just don’t come here and then we’re fighting like – no, this is the year we have to save them because we witness it. It’s just there’s a lot of different themes to the movie and I don’t even know that, until I see it I’ll know exactly which one Ken is focusing in on or maybe there’s not one. I think the reason that I liked the script so much is because there is so many different things to take away from it. If you are an animal activist you will read it and see that this is about a whale rescue. If you are a journalist you could read this and see how – wow, this is a big story to break. If you’re another type of journalist or a critic you could read it and say – that was completely sensationalized, it never should have been a story, it was ridiculous and it’s like more comment on the human behavior around it. I think there is so many different opinions inside this script and that is one of the reasons I liked it.

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Kristen Bell didn’t exactly leave TV behind when “Veronica Mars” ended its run in 2007. She had a recurring part on “Heroes” and guested on a couple episodes of “Party Down” — and you can hear her every week as the voice of “Gossip Girl.”

But she’ll have her first regular role on a series since “Veronica” when Showtime’s dark comedy “House of Lies” premieres. At the Television Critics Association press tour on Wednesday (Aug. 3), Bell talked with Zap2it about what appealed to her about the series — about a team of anything-for-business consultants — how she sought out the new gig and moving between film and television.

Zap2it: Are the characters political consultants?
Kristen Bell: Really anything. It’s basically a group of cutthroat management consultants that will do whatever is necessary to get the job and the after-work. It’s murky as to what they actually really do, which I think is the actual description of consultants. If someone has a problem, we come and fix it — you’re downsizing, you need to stop fighting, whatever needs to be done. And their moral compasses are a little bit wonky. … But there’s a dynamic between the four of us — Don Cheadle, me, Josh Lawson and Ben Schwartz — that’s very fun. We travel together all the time, we spend 100 hours a week together. So it’s kind of our life as traveling salesmen.

Would you call it a comedy, a dark comedy, what?
It’s a dark comedy — a dark dramedy, I’d say actually. Tonally, it’s very Showtime.

What about the role appealed to you?
I’d been searching for the right TV project. I knew I didn’t want anything built around me, for the reason of it’s difficult to be No. 1 on the call sheet. It’s a very different workload than No. 2. But also I wanted to find a writer or creator who had a story to tell, who wasn’t just like, “OK, what can we do with her?” I didn’t want it to be sold on me; I wanted to be part of a good project. And I trust Matthew Carnahan ["Dirt"], our creator, implicitly. I think he’s very funny, he’s very dark, he’s very provocative. I think Showtime also has a lot more they can do with storylines — what they show, the subject matter they broach. And working with Don Cheadle is not a bad thing. He’s pretty exceptional, both as a human being and as an actor, and I just feel like I’m learning a lot from him. I’m trying to absorb how he works.

Other than not being in every scene, what’s different about being part of an ensemble vs. being the star of a series?
When you’re No. 1 on the call sheet, when you completely represent a show, there’s so much more that’s required of you. You’re in every frame of the show, but there’s also the publicity aspect that’s a reality for us. There’s just a lot more on your shoulders, a lot more pressure. There’s a lot more pressure when you’re the main component of a show, and I didn’t want that pressure. I wanted to have fun, and this has actually been really fun.

Can you talk more about your character?
I don’t know if I can. A lot is revealed in the first three episodes. She’s very compartmentalized. She has a lot of issues.

I’d imagine that in a show called “House of Lies” the people probably aren’t squeaky-clean.
Yeah — she’s very flawed. All the characters are kind of flawed. So the dynamics are a little bit deeper — no one is exactly what you think they are. That’s partly because their line of work bleeds over into their personal lives. They’re chameleons. They transform into whatever the client needs them to be and do whatever they need to get the job. If you need us to be firm, we’re firm. You need us to be soft, we’re soft. You need us to rub your back, we’ll rub your back. The ability to transform to get what you want is what bleeds into my character’s personal life.

It almost sounds like you’re getting to play several different characters.
There are many facets to my character’s personality, and every time they come up with a new one they’re like, “Oh yeah, and she’s this, and she believes this. Which could be directly contradictory to something we’ve already established, but that’s what they’re asking me to do, and it’s really exciting as an actor.

“House of Lies” is scheduled to premiere in January.

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Kristen Bell breaks hearts, Dave’s included.

Kristen Bell is the furthest thing from a bridezilla.

The Scream 4 actress, who’s currently engaged to Dax Shepard, told Us Weekly she’s not planning to walk down the aisle — ever.

“We’re just not having a wedding, so there’s no story to report there,” she announced at the FriendFactor benefit in NYC on Tuesday. “I mean, we’re still getting married, but we’re going to do it whenever we feel like it.”

“The fact that he asked me to marry him is of a little more importance than me planning a party,” she added.

Wedding ceremony or not, Bell — who recently filmed a pilot for Showtime’s House of Lies — told Us that things have never been better with the Parenthood actor, 36.

“He constantly keeps me laughing: when I’m sad, mad, frustrated, annoyed. Regardless of what it is he can lighten the mood. He’ll do anything that the mood requires,” she gushed. “I can’t get frustrated and that is a very powerful weapon. Comedy is a very powerful weapon. He’s so funny that it’s overwhelming.”

“I really don’t have bad days, you know what I mean?” Bell, 30, continued. “Even if it’s me being frustrated, he’ll make a joke about me and it’ll be so genuinely funny that I have to laugh.”

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In celebration of the February 8, 2011 release of You Again on Blu-ray and DVD, we have this fun Q&A with Kristen Bell, one of the stars of the movie.

Q: What was it like playing the unattractive unpopular girl? (at least the teenage version of your character).
A: “It was awesome because pretty girls aren’t funny. They’re not, it’s just a fact. And they are usually not very interesting. Sorry, pretty girls.”

Q: What made the role particularly interesting?
A: “Playing Marni was fun for me because the part involved wearing prosthetics, which I like. I had to look unattractive with acne, which I enjoyed as a character actress. I actually wanted to go much further playing this high school acne-prone adolescent and I was pulled back (laughs). I wanted whiteheads on all the centers of my zits because I thought that would look realistic. I had very bad skin as a young teenager, everybody did, you don’t know what to do and you’re applying hot compresses. It’s real and it’s funny. But they definitely pulled me back for Marni. They said ‘no, I think that’s enough acne.’ I also wanted her to look hunched, because when you’re timid and paranoid about being bullied, your body kind of freezes, and so a lot of kids go through high school really slumped over.”

(more…)

Kristen talks about her obsession with Ted Danson, working with Cher, and hiding foot heat pads in the bust of her red carpet dress. Plus, Kristen professes her love of “Jersey Shore,” and her fiancé, Dax Shepard, has agreed to leave her to Pauly D in his will.

She’s the belle of Neutrogena!

On Tuesday, Scream 4′s Kristen Bell was named the face of Neutrogena Naturals. “I am thrilled to be the new face of Neutrogena Naturals because this naturals line really speaks to me,” Bell tells UsMagazine.com.

The Neutrogena Naturals line — which contains two facial cleansers, a facial scrub, a bar soap and a lip balm — uses advanced technology to pioneer a new, natural approach to skincare.

“As someone who uses a lot of natural products, it’s exciting that Neutrogena is introducing a naturals line that not only works and is enjoyable to use, but also doesn’t contain any dyes, chemical sulfates, parabens or petrochemicals,” Bell, 30, tells Us.

Bell joins fresh-faced stars Jennifer Garner, Diane Lane, Gabrielle Union, Hayden Panettiere, Vanessa Hudgens, Miranda Cosgrove, Susie Castillo and Emma Roberts as the latest member of the Neutrogena family.

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Kristen Bell talks about the challenges of the movie’s dance routines