Speaker 1: This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the
Speaker 1: Thing from My Heart Radio. My guest today is Kristen Bell,
Speaker 1: a true force of nature. Kristen is a classically trained
Speaker 1: actor who landed a role on Broadway and a revival
Speaker 1: of the Crucible with Liam Neeson and Laura Lenny before
Speaker 1: she even graduated college on a whim. She and a
Speaker 1: friend moved to l A soon after, and she's been
Speaker 1: starring in TV and movies ever since. From her breakout
Speaker 1: role as the teenage private detective Veronica Mars, to Princess
Speaker 1: Anna in the Frozen movies to the more recent Eleanor
Speaker 1: Shellstrap on NBC's The Good Place, Kristen has made her
Speaker 1: name by being plucky, relatable, and when the role calls
Speaker 1: for it, very funny. I caught up with Kristen Bell
Speaker 1: in Los Angeles, where she lives with her husband, the
Speaker 1: actor and podcaster Dax Shepherd, and their two young daughters. Currently,
Speaker 1: I'm in a motor home parked on our front lawn
Speaker 1: at all times because I'm married to hill Billy. Actually
Speaker 1: we just got it a couple of days ago over
Speaker 1: um over quarantine. His main objective was to buy a
Speaker 1: motor home because we do go camping and go to
Speaker 1: this glamous sand dunes a couple of times a year,
Speaker 1: so we we rent motor homes. But we found a
Speaker 1: good deal and when in Texas he went down to
Speaker 1: get it, he drove it back and it is now.
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna I'm not joking with you right now.
Speaker 1: Look at where it's sitting. So this is the motor home,
Speaker 1: right and that's my house. That's my house, So that's
Speaker 1: my front window. Were to the definition of hillbilly is
Speaker 1: you have a house, you're both working, you're both doing well.
Speaker 1: You buy a house worth millions of dollars in l A.
Speaker 1: And your husband was like, I want to have a
Speaker 1: motor home on the front law and baby, Um, I'm lucky.
Speaker 1: This man has all his teeth. Honestly, I'm lucky he
Speaker 1: has all his teeth. That's the truth. But I will
Speaker 1: give him credit. She's gorgeous. Her name is big Brown.
Speaker 1: She's absolutely ship brown color. And it's sitting right outside
Speaker 1: my front window. And I don't hate it. I love it.
Speaker 1: We we come out here and play in it, and
Speaker 1: we're gonna plan on camping in it. A ton and
Speaker 1: I'm not I'm not mad at it. How's the quarantine
Speaker 1: going for you with your family? Shockingly okay? I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, mainly because of our privilege. We don't live
Speaker 1: in a one room apartment. We like have a backyard,
Speaker 1: we can go outside and and uh, my my kids
Speaker 1: can you know, run around the house again, because we've
Speaker 1: got a house with a couple of bedrooms. So I'm
Speaker 1: incredibly grateful for that. My my husband and I started
Speaker 1: out quarantine like in the midst of a big fight,
Speaker 1: like you know those sort of not fight but yes fight,
Speaker 1: those like every three years, that sort of marriage house
Speaker 1: cleaning that has to happen, where like the resentments have
Speaker 1: been built and it's coming to a head and you're
Speaker 1: both going to go back to the therapist. And we
Speaker 1: were like right there, and then the doors closed on
Speaker 1: the whole world and we were like, oh shit, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're hiking through a cave and the walls collapsed and
Speaker 1: you're stuck inside the cave together. Yeah. It was intense
Speaker 1: to say the least, but it did force us to
Speaker 1: talk vulnerably in order to get over some of the
Speaker 1: resentments in the sort of housekeeping that needed to happen.
Speaker 1: About how we were not meeting each other's love languages, etcetera, etcetera,
Speaker 1: and we did it pretty well. How does he not
Speaker 1: meet your love language? Well? Or I don't meet his,
Speaker 1: that's the question. So everybody has different ways that they
Speaker 1: feel that they are loved. Right, for me, it's pre production.
Speaker 1: If if I come home from work and you have
Speaker 1: ordered me food, there's a burrito in the fridge. For me,
Speaker 1: I'm like, damn, this guy loves me. He was thinking
Speaker 1: she might be home from work and she might want
Speaker 1: a burrito like he thought about me. For him, it's
Speaker 1: meeting him at the door. He could give a ship
Speaker 1: what's in the fridge. He doesn't care if I've ordered
Speaker 1: him dinner. So if I'm sitting up in my bedroom
Speaker 1: where I'm playing with the girls, or I'm on my
Speaker 1: computer or watching TV and I don't sort of like
Speaker 1: meet him with a hug, He's like, I could care
Speaker 1: less what's in the fridge. I want to see you.
Speaker 1: I want His is very much physical affection, as in
Speaker 1: like eye contact, hand on the shoulder when we're on
Speaker 1: the couch. He wants to be snuggling. Yes, I love you,
Speaker 1: and which we do all the time. But you know,
Speaker 1: after thirteen years, it does become a sort of passing phrase,
Speaker 1: which we try not to make it. Whereas I'm less
Speaker 1: um physical, I don't need anyone to jump up, I
Speaker 1: want I'm like, everybody stay stated, I'm fine. I'm the mom,
Speaker 1: and I'm you know, doing my own thing, and I
Speaker 1: want to take care of everybody else. But it was
Speaker 1: just stuff like that, and I would be like, but
Speaker 1: I ordered you dinner. He's like, but I don't care
Speaker 1: about dinner. I want you to get up off the
Speaker 1: couch and give me a hug. And so it's those
Speaker 1: little things love language wise, where we have to remember
Speaker 1: that the other person needs something that we don't need.
Speaker 1: So we have to think in the other person's love
Speaker 1: language in order to properly show what we feel. One
Speaker 1: time I was at a party and Seinfeld is at
Speaker 1: another table. They cut up the couples so that Jessica
Speaker 1: was at my table and I'm sitting there with Jessica
Speaker 1: Seinfeld and we're talking, and I said to her, you
Speaker 1: realize that if you look him in the eye every day,
Speaker 1: and look him in the antica and really let it count,
Speaker 1: let it breathe, and say, Jerry, I love you more
Speaker 1: than anything in the world. He will do whatever you
Speaker 1: ask him to do for the rest of your life.
Speaker 1: And she started to cry. She had like tears from look,
Speaker 1: I'm from that school, like I want you to still
Speaker 1: be my girlfriend. I want the romance I want we have.
Speaker 1: My wife and I are locked in a big house
Speaker 1: with five kids. So as I tell people, it's like
Speaker 1: the little rascals meets the shining every day here at
Speaker 1: my house. But I said to my wife, you know,
Speaker 1: if you just said that to me, took two seconds
Speaker 1: to tell me that every day I could go on
Speaker 1: that that's the oxygen that I need, you know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And it's it's really healthy to be able to communicate
Speaker 1: that to your partner and not to make any no,
Speaker 1: you know, no one can be generalized or I don't
Speaker 1: want to make this broad and sweeping. But I've known
Speaker 1: a lot of a group of men like that where
Speaker 1: it actually is quite simple. It's just presence. It's being
Speaker 1: uh present with them and communicative in the simplest way
Speaker 1: of just a reminder that the foundation exists and that
Speaker 1: you are still attracted to and love them. Whereas my
Speaker 1: love language is like let's go I'm a human doing
Speaker 1: and not a human being. I'm working on that in therapy,
Speaker 1: becoming less of a human doing. Why now, what do
Speaker 1: you think? What are the pitfalls of the one versus
Speaker 1: the other? Why? Well, a human being exists more a
Speaker 1: human doing, has a huge to do list and is
Speaker 1: accomplishes a ton. But then maybe on your deathbed you're like,
Speaker 1: did I even experience any of it? Because I've got
Speaker 1: my fingers in a lot of different pots and I'm going, going, going,
Speaker 1: all the time. And that's why I like, I think
Speaker 1: of someone, order them dinner, scratch it off my list.
Speaker 1: That proves I love them. That doesn't work for everyone.
Speaker 1: That doesn't work for everyone, Alec, I'm learning for you.
Speaker 1: Was show business in the blood in the family? Was
Speaker 1: your show business people in your family? No? Well, my
Speaker 1: father is a news director still is UM. So he
Speaker 1: was the only person that was ever I mean, he
Speaker 1: was on the radio for a while. He's got a
Speaker 1: voice like yours is just smooth and wonderful. And I
Speaker 1: was the only one that ever um showed any signs
Speaker 1: of wanting to perform. And it wasn't really even wanting
Speaker 1: an audience so much as I sang a lot when
Speaker 1: I was little. I have a very musical brain and
Speaker 1: a very I'm very auditorially sensitive, like I can't really
Speaker 1: have a conversation when music is on. I feel almost
Speaker 1: like I'm hearing voices inside my head because such a
Speaker 1: big portion of my brain focuses on the music, which
Speaker 1: is annoying and also great. But so I sang a
Speaker 1: lot when I was little, and then my mom got
Speaker 1: me into voice lessons and I studied like Operetta's for
Speaker 1: a year or two, and then in my ninth grade year,
Speaker 1: my teacher gave me after school homework of Green Finch
Speaker 1: and linnet Bird from Sweeney Todd. And I had never
Speaker 1: sang in English before, I was only singing in Italian,
Speaker 1: and I was like, oh my god, what is this.
Speaker 1: I can understand this character's perspective. So then I became
Speaker 1: obsessed with musical theater. But again, no one else did it.
Speaker 1: And my father was the only one that was hesitant,
Speaker 1: not in a way that would ever hold me back,
Speaker 1: but just like he hires and fires the journalists at
Speaker 1: his station, and so he'll watch a new news reporter
Speaker 1: and be like, I can't hire her, I can't hire him.
Speaker 1: And he was scared of the rejection, but other than
Speaker 1: that hesitation, everyone was like, sure, we don't know what
Speaker 1: you're doing, but good luck. And they were pretty supportive.
Speaker 1: But no one else was in performance of any kind.
Speaker 1: Actor Kristen Bell, that early introduction to Sondheim took her
Speaker 1: from the suburbs of Detroit to New York City. Another
Speaker 1: actress with a flair for comedy, as Ellie Kemper, We
Speaker 1: talked about her getting cast as the unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt.
Speaker 1: They basically said, we're developing a new show. We don't
Speaker 1: know what it is, but good do you have met you?
Speaker 1: We met in May and then I met them again
Speaker 1: in July and they pitched the actual idea to me.
Speaker 1: I thought they were joking because the premise of the
Speaker 1: show I know, and I was like, they were pranking me.
Speaker 1: You can hear the rest of my conversation with Ellie
Speaker 1: Kemper a Here's the thing dot org. After the break,
Speaker 1: we talked about what advice Kristen offers to aspiring actors today.
Speaker 1: I'm Alec Baldwin and this is here is the thing
Speaker 1: we're talking today with Kristin Bell. She discovered her love
Speaker 1: for acting in middle school. I started doing a lot
Speaker 1: of like local theater in Detroit, and then it was
Speaker 1: less of a like putting a stake in the ground
Speaker 1: saying this is what I'm gonna do. And what happened
Speaker 1: was I was sixteen and went into Mr Franklin's office
Speaker 1: in my high school when he's like the guy who
Speaker 1: helps you pick colleges in the high school, and he
Speaker 1: was like, well, you want to pick you know, college,
Speaker 1: that a career, that's something you love, So what do
Speaker 1: you love? And I was like, well, I love doing
Speaker 1: musical theater. He goes, well, you can study theater and
Speaker 1: I was like, great, so much thanks by Like I
Speaker 1: never it was, it just occurred to me. It never
Speaker 1: occurred to me to change what I loved. And I
Speaker 1: was like, well, I guess just keep doing what I'm doing.
Speaker 1: And where'd you go? N y U. I applied early
Speaker 1: admission to n y U, and I told my parents
Speaker 1: I sent in my Northwestern application that I didn't because
Speaker 1: I wanted I put all my focus on early admission
Speaker 1: in n y U. Thankfully I got in. Then I
Speaker 1: moved to New York and I was in the Tish
Speaker 1: School of the Arts for two and a half years
Speaker 1: and then I left my middle of my third year
Speaker 1: because I booked Tom Sawyer and then The Crucible with
Speaker 1: Liam Neeson and Laura Lenny, and then Reefer Madness, and
Speaker 1: then a couple of shows in New York, and then
Speaker 1: moved to d C to do the Kennedy Center uh
Speaker 1: Sondheim Rep. And then I moved to l A on
Speaker 1: a whim. So it was all theater. You didn't finish you, No,
Speaker 1: I did not. I do not have a degree in
Speaker 1: anything I went there. I went to gw in Washington
Speaker 1: for a pre law program, but finished in theater at
Speaker 1: n y U. I left there in nineteen eighty but
Speaker 1: went back in to graduate fourteen years later. Did you
Speaker 1: have to take a class because so much of their
Speaker 1: grades around attendance. They wig ave to all my acting
Speaker 1: classes from my practical experience acting the last fourteen years.
Speaker 1: And I had to write a paper. And I wrote
Speaker 1: a sixty five page paper on the applicability of method
Speaker 1: acting to the career of someone who was still active
Speaker 1: in film and theater. And there was only one person
Speaker 1: who met the criterion. I interviewed Pacino for nine hours
Speaker 1: at his house up in West just Oh. I wonder
Speaker 1: for you, I mean, you're obviously from a very different
Speaker 1: generation than I am, and you're much younger than I am.
Speaker 1: What's your advice to young actors, because I sometimes struggle
Speaker 1: with that whether they should study acting in college. It's expensive,
Speaker 1: Like I'll say to them if I had it to
Speaker 1: do over again, get a degree in a subject where
Speaker 1: you can just read a lot of great books, philosophy, literature, history,
Speaker 1: because this is the great time for you to read,
Speaker 1: because as I've gotten older, the thing I missed most
Speaker 1: is time to read. And then I'll say to them,
Speaker 1: you go take acting classes somewhere. How do you feel
Speaker 1: about that? I think that's actually now, in my infinite wisdom,
Speaker 1: after turning forty, I think that that's probably the right
Speaker 1: thing to say a because previously my only critique of
Speaker 1: n y U was that I didn't feel that they
Speaker 1: gave um enough practical actors experience, Like we once in
Speaker 1: a while had like a casting director come in, but
Speaker 1: it was really like there was this you were so
Speaker 1: built up because you were studying all these fancy plays
Speaker 1: and performing them, but you didn't realize how small your
Speaker 1: world was. And I remember sneaking out of classes to
Speaker 1: go audition because I had gotten an agent right when
Speaker 1: I moved to New York. And I also it was
Speaker 1: in my favor that I looked a lot younger than
Speaker 1: I was, So when I was eighteen, I was still
Speaker 1: playing thirteen and I remember sneaking out and once I
Speaker 1: was caught and they were like, you shouldn't be auditioning,
Speaker 1: And I'm like, well, what the hell are you training
Speaker 1: me for? Like if I'm not supposed to be auditioning,
Speaker 1: because the nerves you feel when you audition can be
Speaker 1: debilitating for the vast majority of us, Like even I
Speaker 1: mean I still have them sometimes, but definitely had them
Speaker 1: early on. And every actor I know that's working was like,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, I used to get super nervous, so nervous
Speaker 1: that I, you know, choke all my words, or that
Speaker 1: I would burp, or that I would have the shakes
Speaker 1: or whatever. I think you need to learn how to
Speaker 1: handle that as much as you need to learn how
Speaker 1: to study these classic plays. I think that's an incredib
Speaker 1: like just getting ahold of your being is incredibly important.
Speaker 1: And I didn't. I don't feel like there was enough
Speaker 1: stress put on that about how do you manage your
Speaker 1: cortisol levels when you really really want something, so I
Speaker 1: think getting into scary situations. I was in this beautiful,
Speaker 1: little like um bubble of studying Alexander technique. And when
Speaker 1: I explained that to my husband and he was like, well,
Speaker 1: what is that, I'm like, what's sort of like body
Speaker 1: work and you're, you know, you're in like loose clothes
Speaker 1: and you're touching each other. And he's like, you did
Speaker 1: this in fucking college. And so now he always jokes,
Speaker 1: he's like, let's just throw some sweatpants on, let's work
Speaker 1: it out Alexander style. But I think that's very safe,
Speaker 1: and I don't think acting safe or should be safe.
Speaker 1: The first job I had, I got a job on
Speaker 1: a soap opera in New York, and I thought to myself,
Speaker 1: this is I mean, privately, I'm sitting there on the
Speaker 1: set and I say the same thing every day I
Speaker 1: commit here. I'm like, oh, Greta, I love you. Oh God, Greta,
Speaker 1: if you only knew how much I love you, Greta,
Speaker 1: please understand. And I'd be on the subway trying to
Speaker 1: memorize my lines. It was all such a pain in
Speaker 1: the acid, and then it hit me, this is hard
Speaker 1: to do well. The udahg and respect for acting things
Speaker 1: like the first thing you gotta get to is that
Speaker 1: it's not easy even if you have a shitty part.
Speaker 1: I tell people, just be One of the best things
Speaker 1: in the movie, even if you you were walking and
Speaker 1: go dinner, is serve and learning where you fit into
Speaker 1: because I also find there's so much bringing people up
Speaker 1: in a lot of like acting classes that I took of,
Speaker 1: like well where are you coming from? Where are you
Speaker 1: coming from? And to be honest, the thing that I've
Speaker 1: learned mainly in film and television is when I read
Speaker 1: a script, now I'm not looking at it from my
Speaker 1: point of view, I'm looking at it from the director's
Speaker 1: point of view because I'm going and and here's the
Speaker 1: other thing is sometimes it doesn't give a hoot if
Speaker 1: I feel it, it matters if the audience feels it.
Speaker 1: So like I could say I want to do a
Speaker 1: hundred more till I feel it, and I hope that
Speaker 1: someone in the crew would go, no, no thanks. We
Speaker 1: need to go home to our families because we are
Speaker 1: also human beings employed in the same industry that you are.
Speaker 1: It doesn't matter. You have to you have to trust
Speaker 1: in the director that they're getting what they need to get.
Speaker 1: But you really have to be thinking about is the
Speaker 1: audience feeling this and whether you need to just trust
Speaker 1: the director, you need to watch the take, whatever it is.
Speaker 1: But it's about how you fit into a bigger story.
Speaker 1: And I don't necessarily know that that was ever taught
Speaker 1: to me until I started getting really good direction and saying, well,
Speaker 1: I feel like my character would do this, and then like,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't know someone like I was on
Speaker 1: Deadwood in the in the very beginning of my career,
Speaker 1: and David Milt would be like, well, I don't, but
Speaker 1: but this is what I need to have happen. Oh
Speaker 1: my god, the best has like eight rescue dogs following
Speaker 1: him around on the set. I don't know how I
Speaker 1: got this job un Dead when I only did a
Speaker 1: couple episodes, but it was a very cool role. It
Speaker 1: was like a young girl who came into town with
Speaker 1: her brother and she starts working at the horehouse and
Speaker 1: then she tries to like take everyone for a ride,
Speaker 1: and she sleeps with Kim's character and she stabs powers
Speaker 1: booth and it was and then I get beaten and
Speaker 1: shot in the center of town, right, so I only
Speaker 1: read the sweet scenes, and then when I got the role,
Speaker 1: I read the sort of other side of her where
Speaker 1: she goes crazy. And I said to him like, I
Speaker 1: don't know if I can do this, and he goes, no,
Speaker 1: I know you can. And then I went home and
Speaker 1: I felt so insecure. I'm like, does he think I'm evil?
Speaker 1: Because these scenes are really evil. So I had a
Speaker 1: great time working with him, but I also found that
Speaker 1: he was one of the kindest people I've ever worked with.
Speaker 1: Every Friday on Deadwood, that was a difficult show to shoot.
Speaker 1: It was in Santa Clarita. There were a ton of horses,
Speaker 1: which means their ship smell everywhere. There was at the
Speaker 1: atmosphere that they pump in, which means everyone's breathing in dust.
Speaker 1: All of these things, tight corsets, blah blah blah. Wasn't
Speaker 1: physically comfortable long hours. And every Friday at lunchtime, he
Speaker 1: would gather everybody into the one of the saloons and
Speaker 1: I would watch him give away ten dollars. He'd put
Speaker 1: in a fish bowl, all these little tickets and he'd say,
Speaker 1: okay for a sevent d prize. Joe Gripp and he'd
Speaker 1: say thank you, so much for working here. I love
Speaker 1: you guys. Okay for a two hundred dollar prize and
Speaker 1: he would just give away a ton of his money
Speaker 1: as he has created numerous shows, and you know, what,
Speaker 1: can I tell you something? So I said to myself
Speaker 1: when I saw him do it, I was like, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna do that if I ever make it, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: do that that. I'm going to do that one day.
Speaker 1: This is going to be my example. And I've done
Speaker 1: it on my last couple of shows and it feels
Speaker 1: you can't imagine a better feeling. And I expect I
Speaker 1: did it for I just finished a movie called Queen
Speaker 1: Pins that was an indie that spent all of our
Speaker 1: budget on COVID safety, and I mean COVID safety like
Speaker 1: you have never seen. Because I was so hesitant to work.
Speaker 1: We shot it. We had a huge COVID team. Everyone
Speaker 1: got PCRs every day, not just rapids. You had to
Speaker 1: have a K of ninety five. They had to bring
Speaker 1: an air scrubbers every hour to scrub the entire air
Speaker 1: in the room. No more than twelve people. And I
Speaker 1: knew it was stressful for people, and I was like,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna milch it. I'm gonna milt it. And it
Speaker 1: was so wonderful. But here's what I did, because I
Speaker 1: also from you know, just reading freakonomics. You just have
Speaker 1: to incentivize people. So I said to our COVID consultants,
Speaker 1: who were from U C. L A. I was like,
Speaker 1: what if we just incentivize them. What if I get
Speaker 1: grub hub to give us everybody two fifty dollar gift
Speaker 1: certificates so they're encouraged to eat at home, and then
Speaker 1: the next week we get the in and out truck,
Speaker 1: and then then and then the other week subsequent weeks,
Speaker 1: I put five or ten grand in a bucket and
Speaker 1: I say, this is the I did not get COVID
Speaker 1: this week bucket, And you're only in here if you
Speaker 1: didn't get COVID. And we pull a name, and I
Speaker 1: gotta say nobody got COVID because everyone wanted to be
Speaker 1: in the bucket. Oh well, I'm sure some people were
Speaker 1: sitting there going, well, it's the least you can do it.
Speaker 1: But five grants into the fish bolshop with all that
Speaker 1: frozen money. She got to God, Oh, you'd think right.
Speaker 1: I've been doing some animated films. I did the movie
Speaker 1: Boss Baby and we're just finishing the sequel now. People
Speaker 1: say to me, how do you feel doing that? I'm like,
Speaker 1: the is the greatest movie I've ever made. I love
Speaker 1: doing those movies because the audience so receptive as kids,
Speaker 1: you know, and here you are to have been part
Speaker 1: of this, like unbelievably Titanic success. Was that fun for you?
Speaker 1: So fun? It's been fantastic, And it's been the biggest
Speaker 1: honor to be somehow important to children that you've never met,
Speaker 1: so much so that you can make someone's day, or
Speaker 1: that you can send a kid who is in the
Speaker 1: hospital a message, and it really you can bring a
Speaker 1: smile to someone's face, and that is something I do
Speaker 1: not take lightly. I have a lot of respect for
Speaker 1: the fact that I have that little superpower now and
Speaker 1: I use it as much as I possibly can. You know,
Speaker 1: your generation, you're so youthful looking and you're just turned forty,
Speaker 1: and I'm want to ask you about that. What's that
Speaker 1: been like for you in terms of because you still
Speaker 1: look so young, what's changed for you about the business
Speaker 1: and what you want now that you've been doing it
Speaker 1: for twenty two years. So in the beginning of my
Speaker 1: career up until the last I would say five or
Speaker 1: six years. I was just hungry and I was willing
Speaker 1: to stay on that hamster wheel of I need to
Speaker 1: read everything. Who got that? Who should I be meeting?
Speaker 1: Is there a new best director that I should be having?
Speaker 1: In general, with all the things that you think you
Speaker 1: need to do. And I was getting offered a lot
Speaker 1: of romantic comedies or things that were I felt like
Speaker 1: I had done, and I just desperately wanted like the
Speaker 1: new Michelle Williams script, you know what I mean. I
Speaker 1: was like, I just want to be like an indie
Speaker 1: actor and I want to be like respected. And my
Speaker 1: husband would sit in bed and he's like, why don't
Speaker 1: you stay in your lane? It's so much funner when
Speaker 1: you stay in your lane. You like you can spread
Speaker 1: your wings, but don't disregard what you have because some
Speaker 1: girl who's an actress right now is like, God, I
Speaker 1: just want to be a goofy girl in a rom com.
Speaker 1: Somebody is saying that right now, and you have that opportunity.
Speaker 1: Don't ship on that. And like also sometimes he's like, Christen,
Speaker 1: you're not as good to an actress is Michelle Williams.
Speaker 1: So she's gonna get the part, and I'm like, Okay,
Speaker 1: your said yeah, but he's not. No, he's right though.
Speaker 1: Also he's just like and guess what else, Michelle Williams
Speaker 1: can't be as quirky and as funny in a rom
Speaker 1: coom as you can, Like everyone has a lane, and
Speaker 1: he was he is all about moving into acceptance mode
Speaker 1: and you know, expectations are resentments waiting to happen, all
Speaker 1: these little a phrases he has that are that are
Speaker 1: helpful when applied correctly, and I just felt like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: it really is just my ego that I want to
Speaker 1: be like I don't know if it's acknowledged or be
Speaker 1: in every category. And the moment I said, you know what,
Speaker 1: I have a thing, right, I have a thing and
Speaker 1: it's a quirky, weird, funny, bubbly fun thing that's can
Speaker 1: be snarky and I love doing it. I do it
Speaker 1: pretty well. Why not lean into it? And that is
Speaker 1: when I felt like I started becoming happier when I
Speaker 1: stopped trying to be in everyone else's category. But what's
Speaker 1: the little piece of you in the corner, Like, forget
Speaker 1: about Michelle Williams, what's the thing you so part of
Speaker 1: you that would really love to do something that you
Speaker 1: just don't think you'll ever get a chance to do
Speaker 1: that you really would love to try. Oh, I mean
Speaker 1: something dark and serious, obviously, because I am a pretty
Speaker 1: classically trained actor, and I would love to do that.
Speaker 1: And I did that in the beginning. I mean Deadwood
Speaker 1: was a little that heavy drama really interests me. But
Speaker 1: I also know that I have a five and a
Speaker 1: seven year old. It is a priority to me how
Speaker 1: I act when I go home. And it is true
Speaker 1: that sometimes you can take a little bit of baggage
Speaker 1: home or you'll just be in a sour mood. But
Speaker 1: if you're making a comedy with Mike, sure all day,
Speaker 1: chances are you're going to come home in a pretty
Speaker 1: good mood, you know what I mean. And I've just
Speaker 1: kind of prioritized my well being as Kristen, like I
Speaker 1: always like to say, I like being an actress, but
Speaker 1: I love being Kristen. So I've prioritized that a little
Speaker 1: bit more than my like desire to spread my wings
Speaker 1: or prove to people that I can be some dramatic actress.
Speaker 1: What do you want to do that you haven't done?
Speaker 1: Um sing on Broadway? Girl, you can do that no, no, no.
Speaker 1: Do you like singing? Can you have like a proper
Speaker 1: more musical theater singing voice if you don't put on
Speaker 1: an affectation. I just don't have the vocal call. I
Speaker 1: don't have the chops and the breath. It's it's like,
Speaker 1: you know that music and singing and being able to
Speaker 1: imitate people and impersonate people. There's a fine line between
Speaker 1: the two. It's an ear. You have an ear, and
Speaker 1: I have a good ear and I and I love
Speaker 1: music and I listen to people singing and I go,
Speaker 1: oh my god. I just to be able to do that,
Speaker 1: but I don't have the equipment. But you know what
Speaker 1: that it is a muscle. I mean, look, nobody's gonna
Speaker 1: wake up one morning and sound like normal Leo butts right.
Speaker 1: That doesn't happen to everybody, But I will say it
Speaker 1: is a muscle. It is like a bicep. Like when
Speaker 1: I'm out of Like when Adina and I get called
Speaker 1: for to do some concert, we call each other. We're
Speaker 1: like a funk. When's the last time you practice? Because
Speaker 1: the reality is you shave notes off your top and
Speaker 1: you shave notes off your bottom, just like you do
Speaker 1: a bicep like you can. If you pump iron every day,
Speaker 1: your muscle gets bigger, your breath control, your ability to
Speaker 1: tap into your diaphragm, and your simplified your vocal range.
Speaker 1: It goes up with practice, and it is possible. If
Speaker 1: you have an ear for tone, it is possible to
Speaker 1: expand that muscle. Well, there's times I will say that,
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, you relax, you get some sleep,
Speaker 1: you're arrested, your voice to your vocal cords fall into
Speaker 1: a certain line. There's times that I have, you know,
Speaker 1: and I'm not being cute about this, but the's time
Speaker 1: that I would sing in the shower and I think,
Speaker 1: my God, listen to me, My God, can you believe this?
Speaker 1: I'm like, you know, Charles as Nevoir has nothing on me.
Speaker 1: And my husband is going through a singing phase and
Speaker 1: it nothing is cuter to me. So he's borderline tone deaf,
Speaker 1: but he loves to sing. Okay, And here's what happened.
Speaker 1: Let me set the scene in my household. My kids
Speaker 1: could give a shit about Frozen, truly and completely. They
Speaker 1: don't want me to talk about it. They don't want
Speaker 1: to know. I minute, because you're supposed to rebel against
Speaker 1: your mom thinks she does her uncool. So they're into
Speaker 1: a ton of they love boss Baby but like frozen.
Speaker 1: They're like it's fine. So I can't even sing to them.
Speaker 1: I try to sing them to sleep there like once
Speaker 1: in a while they'll let me do it, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: I'm you know, obviously that's a burn on me. So
Speaker 1: we're doing this new UM cartoon for Stephen Conrad called
Speaker 1: Ultra City Smith's and it's a musical. And he asked
Speaker 1: Dax and I if we'd be involved because we were
Speaker 1: weirdly like just those people who didn't know Stephen Conrad,
Speaker 1: but we're like championing the Patriot when it was out,
Speaker 1: like nobody's watching this show. It's brilliant UM. So he
Speaker 1: contacted us. We were super flattered. He's like, it's a musical. UM.
Speaker 1: He hires us. We're playing this married couple. And then
Speaker 1: Dax did a recording the other day and he sang
Speaker 1: for Stephen Conrad, like just a little bit of He's
Speaker 1: sang some Whalen Jennings or something, and Stephen was like
Speaker 1: that was great. That was really great, Dax, this is
Speaker 1: gonna work out well. Dax came home in the absolute
Speaker 1: cutest mood I've ever seen him in. And he has
Speaker 1: been asking me to tape him on my telephone singing songs,
Speaker 1: and he's been posting things online of him singing songs
Speaker 1: he's in Yes on Instagram, Yes, and it's so please
Speaker 1: watch it. It's so cute. The whole time he was
Speaker 1: driving big Brown home, he was like, he's got his
Speaker 1: camera on his little dashboard and he's like, yeah, PLEASESE
Speaker 1: really let me go. It's so cute to me. Now,
Speaker 1: Veronica Mars is when I first became aware of you,
Speaker 1: and that was a big success for you, and then
Speaker 1: you did good place, you know, and you also come
Speaker 1: from a generation of people which are a lot more
Speaker 1: self disclosing about some of the things you've gone through
Speaker 1: in your life. And I'm like, you know, a long
Speaker 1: time ago, when I was first coming, there were people
Speaker 1: who they just stayed behind that wall like you were
Speaker 1: never going to find that anything about their private life.
Speaker 1: And also there were publicity arms of studios and networks
Speaker 1: that worked aggressively to protect the reputations of their stars.
Speaker 1: That does not exist anymore, as opposed to Warner Brothers,
Speaker 1: where you go down one hallway and there's the movie division,
Speaker 1: and you go down another hallway and there's the TV division.
Speaker 1: Then you got in another hallway and TMZ is there.
Speaker 1: Come on, I know I have such an issue with
Speaker 1: that as well. I'm like, how do you run all
Speaker 1: of these organizations? Why do you want me to work
Speaker 1: for you? And then you're trying to kill me. I
Speaker 1: could not agree more. My husband and I just agree
Speaker 1: on things in the world. We argue all the time,
Speaker 1: but we do not go to bed angry, and we
Speaker 1: have a beautiful marriage and we are able to make
Speaker 1: it work because we have this mutual respect. We have
Speaker 1: a desire for vulnerability. When we first started dating, we
Speaker 1: tried to keep it secret because we didn't want to
Speaker 1: be hunt. That was when like TMC was starting, you know,
Speaker 1: liket and fourteen years ago, and they were starting to
Speaker 1: like hunt people really on the street with cameras and
Speaker 1: it was scary and it just feels predator and prey um.
Speaker 1: But after a while, especially when social media you sort
Speaker 1: of started to own it and you were able to
Speaker 1: post your own things. We kind of went through this
Speaker 1: little metamorphosis. Not with our children because we keep them
Speaker 1: very separated and we keep them very private. But I
Speaker 1: have a big, big maternal chip on my shoulder, and
Speaker 1: I feel like if I'm okay being vulnerable and talking
Speaker 1: about my flaws and my marriage, especially if it can
Speaker 1: be an example for someone else, so I'm ready to, Like,
Speaker 1: I guess I'm willing to take that hit. Like Jax
Speaker 1: and I talked about what we fight about public lee,
Speaker 1: I talk about my fears and anxiety, about the fact
Speaker 1: that I suffer from anxiety and depression. And every time
Speaker 1: I'm honest and vulnerable, the reaction that I get not
Speaker 1: from like the TMZ crewd but the reaction I get
Speaker 1: from just uh engagement with fans or on social media
Speaker 1: or whatever is always positive and it keeps me going
Speaker 1: and a reminder of like, oh yeah, we're really looking
Speaker 1: to connect. And I suppose that I've just put the
Speaker 1: connecting with people above any sort of like clandestine existence
Speaker 1: that I could give you, because I wouldn't be good
Speaker 1: at that anyway. I'm too much of a talker, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean. It doesn't bother me so much
Speaker 1: to be such an open book. I kind of like it.
Speaker 1: But I also think that what is the silver lining
Speaker 1: of some kind of social media like Instagram. Well, it's
Speaker 1: kept the paparazzi away from my house because I'm posting
Speaker 1: all the pictures online myself. Yeah, exactly, I've preempted that.
Speaker 1: There's nothing you can get unless my wife is pregnant,
Speaker 1: unless you get me, you know, slipping on the ice
Speaker 1: and falling on my ass or something, you know, something
Speaker 1: that you're after. But hopefully your wife will post that
Speaker 1: picture of you calling and they still won't have to
Speaker 1: get it. You know, my wife would make a movie
Speaker 1: out of that. Believe she loves to let the air
Speaker 1: out of me, she always say. But one thing about
Speaker 1: this age, of this kind of self disclosure is that
Speaker 1: it gives me a chance. I'm going to tell the story.
Speaker 1: I want to talk about how I didn't drink and
Speaker 1: I didn't take drugs all through high school, very little
Speaker 1: minimum because I couldn't afford it. I didn't have any money.
Speaker 1: And when I finally had money in my pocket from
Speaker 1: working in this business I had. If I had a
Speaker 1: hundred bucks in my pocket, I was like, well, let's
Speaker 1: go have that drug and alcohol problem we've been putting
Speaker 1: off for the last five years. You know. But what
Speaker 1: do you say to people in terms of how they
Speaker 1: can seek help. Do you actively try to support people
Speaker 1: that way and say you've got to go and ask
Speaker 1: for help? Oh you mean, like if I'm talking about
Speaker 1: like anxiety and depression or or or anything like that,
Speaker 1: anything whatever the issue is. Oh yeah, well, I mean, look,
Speaker 1: I'm also like having just come out of like early
Speaker 1: stage motherhood. I you know, there's so much of I
Speaker 1: did not experience it, but I know the world of
Speaker 1: like feeling insecure as a new mom, And you're not
Speaker 1: doing this right. So I try to be very clear
Speaker 1: in that there are many different ways to find a
Speaker 1: solution to a problem. Let's just start with the basic math, right,
Speaker 1: some people, we know people. We have people in common
Speaker 1: that have stopped drugs and alcohol that have not gone
Speaker 1: to a a and we we also have people in
Speaker 1: common that did need it, like you know, my husband does.
Speaker 1: And there are many different ways to find a solution.
Speaker 1: So if it's like someone saying I'm depressed or anxious
Speaker 1: or I'm having problems in my marriage, if I were
Speaker 1: to respond, or if I were to say anything on
Speaker 1: the subject, it would be There are a variety of
Speaker 1: resources out there for talking about anxiety and depression. One
Speaker 1: is um talk to someone close in your family, open
Speaker 1: up more, start exercising. Exercising is one of the best
Speaker 1: things you can do for your mental health. You can
Speaker 1: talk to a psychologist or a psychiatrist, a medication maybe
Speaker 1: in your future, it may not be because that's not
Speaker 1: the only way. That's how I solve it. I've been
Speaker 1: on an antidepressant for years, but that's not for everyone,
Speaker 1: and I'm very clear about that. Um And then I'm
Speaker 1: also just a big I'm a therapy pusher. I love therapy.
Speaker 1: I am. I think it's Yeah, I think it's great.
Speaker 1: I mean also, I'm not opposed to any of the
Speaker 1: new kinds. I just don't know much about them. But
Speaker 1: I know when I know. I have a therapist who
Speaker 1: the first time I sat down with him, his name
Speaker 1: is Harry. He's an excellent human being. I started talking
Speaker 1: and he said, doing his hold on the second, I'm
Speaker 1: just gonna tell you, if you want me to take
Speaker 1: your hundred dollars percession and listen to you event I
Speaker 1: am so here for you. If you'd like a solution,
Speaker 1: just let me know. And I was like, uh, who, what?
Speaker 1: Who does this man think? He is being so blunt
Speaker 1: with me? But I was also very attracted to that
Speaker 1: kind of personality, which is obviously why I married my husband.
Speaker 1: The blunt cut to the chase talkers because I'm not
Speaker 1: that person. I'm a rambler. So when I said that,
Speaker 1: I I mean when he said that, I was so intrigued.
Speaker 1: I was like, well, wait a minute. Of course I
Speaker 1: want a solution. He was like, Okay, well I can
Speaker 1: tell you this. You plus this issue equals chaos. Are
Speaker 1: you in the rumor? Is this issue in the room?
Speaker 1: And I was like, okay, um, I guess this issue
Speaker 1: is in the room. This person or thing I was
Speaker 1: talking about I am, and it just I like the
Speaker 1: idea that are there are solutions out there. I'm a
Speaker 1: I'm a fixer, and I get very excited about Okay,
Speaker 1: well that's not working. Pivot find a new way to
Speaker 1: do it, because there's always a better way to do it.
Speaker 1: Kristen Bell last year she launched Happy Dance, a CBD
Speaker 1: bath and body product line designed specifically to offer some
Speaker 1: self care for other busy moms that She recently published
Speaker 1: her first children's book, The World Needs More Purple People,
Speaker 1: in hopes of encouraging more conversations in these polarized times
Speaker 1: about what we have in common. More on that after
Speaker 1: the break. If you like Here's the Thing, don't keep
Speaker 1: it to yourself. Tell a friend. You can subscribe to
Speaker 1: Here's the Thing on the I Heart radio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you get your podcasts. While you're there, leave
Speaker 1: us a review. Thanks for listening. I'm Alec Baldwin and
Speaker 1: you're listening to Here's the Thing. Actor Kristen Bell has
Speaker 1: been with her husband, actor Dax Shepherd since two thousand seven.
Speaker 1: The two are very open about the good, the bad,
Speaker 1: and the challenges of a long term relationship. I wanted
Speaker 1: to ask Kristen if it helps to have a partner
Speaker 1: who was also in the business. Yeah. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: both of us have ego sensitivity issues and it sort
Speaker 1: of depends on how often we've worked. If one of
Speaker 1: us hasn't worked in six months, one of us can
Speaker 1: start to feel low. But again we're both aware of
Speaker 1: that because of therapy. I would say for the most part,
Speaker 1: I see it as a plus. And perhaps that's because
Speaker 1: of who the man Dax is um but I know
Speaker 1: that he like we're not. He doesn't get down on
Speaker 1: me about hours because he knows. If I say I'm
Speaker 1: home at three, the scene could take till ten. It's
Speaker 1: nice not to have to deal with confusion if you
Speaker 1: have someone who's working a nine to five. Just nice
Speaker 1: to be with somebody that gets and it gets it.
Speaker 1: And also Dax is a really good director. He has
Speaker 1: written and directed a couple of movies. He wrote like
Speaker 1: a love letter to me are. His first movie was
Speaker 1: this UM independent movie called Hit and Run, and it
Speaker 1: was about a guy who was in UH witness protection
Speaker 1: program and his girlfriend finds out and they have to
Speaker 1: go on this chase away from the bad guys, and
Speaker 1: it's like does she want to go? Does she still
Speaker 1: trust him? And it literally was a metaphor for our
Speaker 1: first year of dating. I didn't know what a drug
Speaker 1: addict was or how they operated. I mean I grew
Speaker 1: up in a small town in Michigan, just outside of Detroit,
Speaker 1: where it was like, well, drugs are bad, bad people
Speaker 1: do drugs and that was the end of the conversation.
Speaker 1: And I didn't understand anything about addiction. So when he
Speaker 1: used to sit at the dinner table again and tell
Speaker 1: me like, oh, this one time I I did seventy pills.
Speaker 1: I lost three days and I didn't show up for Christmas.
Speaker 1: I would be so terrified. And I didn't. I was like,
Speaker 1: how can I trust you? And he's like, well, but
Speaker 1: that's not me anymore. Anyways. Cut to Harry saying, you
Speaker 1: know what, all she needs to hear You're saying how
Speaker 1: it was is. All she needs to hear is how
Speaker 1: it is now. You need to have that last sentence
Speaker 1: on the end of your story. And by the way,
Speaker 1: I didn't show it for Christmas. Wow, I'm so glad
Speaker 1: I don't do that anymore. Then she won't freak out.
Speaker 1: But the point is I was really I had a
Speaker 1: lot of trust issues with him our first year, and
Speaker 1: so he wrote this story about this girl who doesn't
Speaker 1: who finds something out about her partner and doesn't think
Speaker 1: she can trust him. And the point is he's a
Speaker 1: very good director. I trust his creativity implicitly, so I
Speaker 1: can have him read things. He coaches me on auditions,
Speaker 1: and that's a very safe space for me to be
Speaker 1: in because he can give me some really hard direction
Speaker 1: or just saying you're doing too much or you're you're
Speaker 1: trying too hard, and I know he wants what's best
Speaker 1: for me, so I'm able to get really difficult direction
Speaker 1: and do a better job in my career because of him. Now,
Speaker 1: one last question, tell us about the world needs more
Speaker 1: purple people with Benjamin hartrist And I'm not a writer.
Speaker 1: I am an orator at best, and barely that. But
Speaker 1: I did write a children's book this year with one
Speaker 1: of my best friends, ben Heart. Um. It came from
Speaker 1: our personal experience of seeing our kids together and seeing
Speaker 1: it just a very polarizing political culture seep into our
Speaker 1: kids daily lives of our kids were seeing in us
Speaker 1: and them and even at our dinner table, we were
Speaker 1: getting heated when we were talking about things. This is
Speaker 1: you know, over the last five years, four years, and
Speaker 1: we wanted to create some language, uh and in a
Speaker 1: children's book to help. And so, I mean, it's not
Speaker 1: crazy far off to understand that red plus blue equals purple.
Speaker 1: But it's just we didn't want our kids looking around
Speaker 1: and seeing enemies. We wanted them to see constructive conversations
Speaker 1: even within disagreements. We wanted a social identity that positions
Speaker 1: them towards their fellow humans. And so we tried to
Speaker 1: come up with five great pillars that no one could
Speaker 1: argue with on any side, and being purple means asking
Speaker 1: really great questions, laughing a lot, using your voice, being
Speaker 1: a hard worker, but also being totally and uniquely you
Speaker 1: and attentive to your own experiences. So we really just
Speaker 1: we didn't want any of this corrosive political divide to
Speaker 1: seep into our kids. We want it. It's it's it's
Speaker 1: not about anything other than looking towards your fellow human beings,
Speaker 1: listening to their experiences and telling them yours. And we
Speaker 1: like to say, the only way to be purple is
Speaker 1: to just be you, because you're the only you we've got.
Speaker 1: And it's not you know, it's not a secret that
Speaker 1: we wrote it for kids, because if we wrote it
Speaker 1: for adults, the kids wouldn't read it. But if we
Speaker 1: wrote it for kids, the adults would have to read
Speaker 1: it to them. So it's just a polite reminder that
Speaker 1: there's not en us in them. And we can still disagree,
Speaker 1: and we can still use our voice, but we got
Speaker 1: to live together, and it's okay if you disagree with people,
Speaker 1: and it's okay if someone has a different experience, and
Speaker 1: you should want to hear as many stories as possible.
Speaker 1: But we wanted our kids to have a social identity
Speaker 1: that positions them towards their fellow human beings are good,
Speaker 1: I think so. I can tell yeah, it's one of
Speaker 1: the things I'm most confident in. Actor Kristen Bell. She's
Speaker 1: been working on a new movie with Vince Vaughan called
Speaker 1: Queen Pins During Quarantine. It's about a pair of housewives
Speaker 1: who run a multimillion dollar coupon scam. I'm Alec Baldwin.
Speaker 1: Here's the Thing. Is brought to you by I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: We're produced by Kathleen Russo and Carrie Donohue. Our editor
Speaker 1: is Zach mcneie and our engineer is Frank Imperial. Our
Speaker 1: theme song is by Miles Davis.