January 12, 2021 • 38 mins
Actor Kristen Bell (The Good Place, Frozen, Veronica Mars) has a happy marriage that requires a lot of work, and she’s good with that. She considered a life in the theater as a student at NYU, even making it to Broadway before graduation. However, on a whim, she moved to Los Angeles and has been starring in movies and TV ever since. Like her most memorable characters, Bell is plucky, relatable, and very funny. That’s her lane and she’s good with that, too. She tells Alec, at 40, she’s more comfortable than ever in her skin, more aware of her voice and what she needs to be happy, lessons she strives to model every day for her daughters, and her legions of devoted fans.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the
Thing from My Heart Radio. My guest today is Kristen Bell,
a true force of nature. Kristen is a classically trained
actor who landed a role on Broadway and a revival
of the Crucible with Liam Neeson and Laura Lenny before
she even graduated college on a whim. She and a
(00:25):
friend moved to l A soon after, and she's been
starring in TV and movies ever since. From her breakout
role as the teenage private detective Veronica Mars, to Princess
Anna in the Frozen movies to the more recent Eleanor
Shellstrap on NBC's The Good Place, Kristen has made her
name by being plucky, relatable, and when the role calls
(00:47):
for it, very funny. I caught up with Kristen Bell
in Los Angeles, where she lives with her husband, the
actor and podcaster Dax Shepherd, and their two young daughters. Currently,
I'm in a motor home parked on our front lawn
at all times because I'm married to hill Billy. Actually
we just got it a couple of days ago over
(01:10):
um over quarantine. His main objective was to buy a
motor home because we do go camping and go to
this glamous sand dunes a couple of times a year,
so we we rent motor homes. But we found a
good deal and when in Texas he went down to
get it, he drove it back and it is now.
I'm not gonna I'm not joking with you right now.
Look at where it's sitting. So this is the motor home,
(01:31):
right and that's my house. That's my house, So that's
my front window. Were to the definition of hillbilly is
you have a house, you're both working, you're both doing well.
You buy a house worth millions of dollars in l A.
And your husband was like, I want to have a
motor home on the front law and baby, Um, I'm lucky.
This man has all his teeth. Honestly, I'm lucky he
has all his teeth. That's the truth. But I will
(01:54):
give him credit. She's gorgeous. Her name is big Brown.
She's absolutely ship brown color. And it's sitting right outside
my front window. And I don't hate it. I love it.
We we come out here and play in it, and
we're gonna plan on camping in it. A ton and
I'm not I'm not mad at it. How's the quarantine
going for you with your family? Shockingly okay? I mean,
(02:15):
you know, mainly because of our privilege. We don't live
in a one room apartment. We like have a backyard,
we can go outside and and uh, my my kids
can you know, run around the house again, because we've
got a house with a couple of bedrooms. So I'm
incredibly grateful for that. My my husband and I started
out quarantine like in the midst of a big fight,
(02:37):
like you know those sort of not fight but yes fight,
those like every three years, that sort of marriage house
cleaning that has to happen, where like the resentments have
been built and it's coming to a head and you're
both going to go back to the therapist. And we
were like right there, and then the doors closed on
the whole world and we were like, oh shit, Yeah,
you're hiking through a cave and the walls collapsed and
(02:58):
you're stuck inside the cave together. Yeah. It was intense
to say the least, but it did force us to
talk vulnerably in order to get over some of the
resentments in the sort of housekeeping that needed to happen.
About how we were not meeting each other's love languages, etcetera, etcetera,
and we did it pretty well. How does he not
(03:19):
meet your love language? Well? Or I don't meet his,
that's the question. So everybody has different ways that they
feel that they are loved. Right, for me, it's pre production.
If if I come home from work and you have
ordered me food, there's a burrito in the fridge. For me,
I'm like, damn, this guy loves me. He was thinking
she might be home from work and she might want
(03:41):
a burrito like he thought about me. For him, it's
meeting him at the door. He could give a ship
what's in the fridge. He doesn't care if I've ordered
him dinner. So if I'm sitting up in my bedroom
where I'm playing with the girls, or I'm on my
computer or watching TV and I don't sort of like
meet him with a hug, He's like, I could care
less what's in the fridge. I want to see you.
I want His is very much physical affection, as in
(04:03):
like eye contact, hand on the shoulder when we're on
the couch. He wants to be snuggling. Yes, I love you,
and which we do all the time. But you know,
after thirteen years, it does become a sort of passing phrase,
which we try not to make it. Whereas I'm less
um physical, I don't need anyone to jump up, I
want I'm like, everybody stay stated, I'm fine. I'm the mom,
and I'm you know, doing my own thing, and I
(04:24):
want to take care of everybody else. But it was
just stuff like that, and I would be like, but
I ordered you dinner. He's like, but I don't care
about dinner. I want you to get up off the
couch and give me a hug. And so it's those
little things love language wise, where we have to remember
that the other person needs something that we don't need.
So we have to think in the other person's love
language in order to properly show what we feel. One
(04:48):
time I was at a party and Seinfeld is at
another table. They cut up the couples so that Jessica
was at my table and I'm sitting there with Jessica
Seinfeld and we're talking, and I said to her, you
realize that if you look him in the eye every day,
and look him in the antica and really let it count,
let it breathe, and say, Jerry, I love you more
(05:09):
than anything in the world. He will do whatever you
ask him to do for the rest of your life.
And she started to cry. She had like tears from look,
I'm from that school, like I want you to still
be my girlfriend. I want the romance I want we have.
My wife and I are locked in a big house
with five kids. So as I tell people, it's like
the little rascals meets the shining every day here at
(05:29):
my house. But I said to my wife, you know,
if you just said that to me, took two seconds
to tell me that every day I could go on
that that's the oxygen that I need, you know. Yeah,
And it's it's really healthy to be able to communicate
that to your partner and not to make any no,
you know, no one can be generalized or I don't
want to make this broad and sweeping. But I've known
a lot of a group of men like that where
(05:51):
it actually is quite simple. It's just presence. It's being
uh present with them and communicative in the simplest way
of just a reminder that the foundation exists and that
you are still attracted to and love them. Whereas my
love language is like let's go I'm a human doing
and not a human being. I'm working on that in therapy,
becoming less of a human doing. Why now, what do
(06:13):
you think? What are the pitfalls of the one versus
the other? Why? Well, a human being exists more a
human doing, has a huge to do list and is
accomplishes a ton. But then maybe on your deathbed you're like,
did I even experience any of it? Because I've got
my fingers in a lot of different pots and I'm going, going, going,
all the time. And that's why I like, I think
of someone, order them dinner, scratch it off my list.
That proves I love them. That doesn't work for everyone.
(06:36):
That doesn't work for everyone, Alec, I'm learning for you.
Was show business in the blood in the family? Was
your show business people in your family? No? Well, my
father is a news director still is UM. So he
was the only person that was ever I mean, he
was on the radio for a while. He's got a
voice like yours is just smooth and wonderful. And I
(06:56):
was the only one that ever um showed any signs
of wanting to perform. And it wasn't really even wanting
an audience so much as I sang a lot when
I was little. I have a very musical brain and
a very I'm very auditorially sensitive, like I can't really
have a conversation when music is on. I feel almost
(07:16):
like I'm hearing voices inside my head because such a
big portion of my brain focuses on the music, which
is annoying and also great. But so I sang a
lot when I was little, and then my mom got
me into voice lessons and I studied like Operetta's for
a year or two, and then in my ninth grade year,
my teacher gave me after school homework of Green Finch
(07:39):
and linnet Bird from Sweeney Todd. And I had never
sang in English before, I was only singing in Italian,
and I was like, oh my god, what is this.
I can understand this character's perspective. So then I became
obsessed with musical theater. But again, no one else did it.
And my father was the only one that was hesitant,
not in a way that would ever hold me back,
but just like he hires and fires the journalists at
(07:59):
his station, and so he'll watch a new news reporter
and be like, I can't hire her, I can't hire him.
And he was scared of the rejection, but other than
that hesitation, everyone was like, sure, we don't know what
you're doing, but good luck. And they were pretty supportive.
But no one else was in performance of any kind.
(08:21):
Actor Kristen Bell, that early introduction to Sondheim took her
from the suburbs of Detroit to New York City. Another
actress with a flair for comedy, as Ellie Kemper, We
talked about her getting cast as the unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt.
They basically said, we're developing a new show. We don't
know what it is, but good do you have met you?
(08:43):
We met in May and then I met them again
in July and they pitched the actual idea to me.
I thought they were joking because the premise of the
show I know, and I was like, they were pranking me.
You can hear the rest of my conversation with Ellie
Kemper a Here's the thing dot org. After the break,
we talked about what advice Kristen offers to aspiring actors today.
(09:14):
I'm Alec Baldwin and this is here is the thing
we're talking today with Kristin Bell. She discovered her love
for acting in middle school. I started doing a lot
of like local theater in Detroit, and then it was
less of a like putting a stake in the ground
saying this is what I'm gonna do. And what happened
(09:35):
was I was sixteen and went into Mr Franklin's office
in my high school when he's like the guy who
helps you pick colleges in the high school, and he
was like, well, you want to pick you know, college,
that a career, that's something you love, So what do
you love? And I was like, well, I love doing
musical theater. He goes, well, you can study theater and
I was like, great, so much thanks by Like I
never it was, it just occurred to me. It never
(09:56):
occurred to me to change what I loved. And I
was like, well, I guess just keep doing what I'm doing.
And where'd you go? N y U. I applied early
admission to n y U, and I told my parents
I sent in my Northwestern application that I didn't because
I wanted I put all my focus on early admission
in n y U. Thankfully I got in. Then I
moved to New York and I was in the Tish
(10:17):
School of the Arts for two and a half years
and then I left my middle of my third year
because I booked Tom Sawyer and then The Crucible with
Liam Neeson and Laura Lenny, and then Reefer Madness, and
then a couple of shows in New York, and then
moved to d C to do the Kennedy Center uh
Sondheim Rep. And then I moved to l A on
(10:37):
a whim. So it was all theater. You didn't finish you, No,
I did not. I do not have a degree in
anything I went there. I went to gw in Washington
for a pre law program, but finished in theater at
n y U. I left there in nineteen eighty but
went back in to graduate fourteen years later. Did you
have to take a class because so much of their
grades around attendance. They wig ave to all my acting
(11:01):
classes from my practical experience acting the last fourteen years.
And I had to write a paper. And I wrote
a sixty five page paper on the applicability of method
acting to the career of someone who was still active
in film and theater. And there was only one person
who met the criterion. I interviewed Pacino for nine hours
at his house up in West just Oh. I wonder
(11:21):
for you, I mean, you're obviously from a very different
generation than I am, and you're much younger than I am.
What's your advice to young actors, because I sometimes struggle
with that whether they should study acting in college. It's expensive,
Like I'll say to them if I had it to
do over again, get a degree in a subject where
you can just read a lot of great books, philosophy, literature, history,
(11:41):
because this is the great time for you to read,
because as I've gotten older, the thing I missed most
is time to read. And then I'll say to them,
you go take acting classes somewhere. How do you feel
about that? I think that's actually now, in my infinite wisdom,
after turning forty, I think that that's probably the right
thing to say a because previously my only critique of
(12:02):
n y U was that I didn't feel that they
gave um enough practical actors experience, Like we once in
a while had like a casting director come in, but
it was really like there was this you were so
built up because you were studying all these fancy plays
and performing them, but you didn't realize how small your
(12:24):
world was. And I remember sneaking out of classes to
go audition because I had gotten an agent right when
I moved to New York. And I also it was
in my favor that I looked a lot younger than
I was, So when I was eighteen, I was still
playing thirteen and I remember sneaking out and once I
(12:44):
was caught and they were like, you shouldn't be auditioning,
And I'm like, well, what the hell are you training
me for? Like if I'm not supposed to be auditioning,
because the nerves you feel when you audition can be
debilitating for the vast majority of us, Like even I
mean I still have them sometimes, but definitely had them
early on. And every actor I know that's working was like,
oh yeah, I used to get super nervous, so nervous
(13:06):
that I, you know, choke all my words, or that
I would burp, or that I would have the shakes
or whatever. I think you need to learn how to
handle that as much as you need to learn how
to study these classic plays. I think that's an incredib
like just getting ahold of your being is incredibly important.
And I didn't. I don't feel like there was enough
stress put on that about how do you manage your
(13:26):
cortisol levels when you really really want something, so I
think getting into scary situations. I was in this beautiful,
little like um bubble of studying Alexander technique. And when
I explained that to my husband and he was like, well,
what is that, I'm like, what's sort of like body
work and you're, you know, you're in like loose clothes
(13:46):
and you're touching each other. And he's like, you did
this in fucking college. And so now he always jokes,
he's like, let's just throw some sweatpants on, let's work
it out Alexander style. But I think that's very safe,
and I don't think acting safe or should be safe.
The first job I had, I got a job on
a soap opera in New York, and I thought to myself,
(14:07):
this is I mean, privately, I'm sitting there on the
set and I say the same thing every day I
commit here. I'm like, oh, Greta, I love you. Oh God, Greta,
if you only knew how much I love you, Greta,
please understand. And I'd be on the subway trying to
memorize my lines. It was all such a pain in
the acid, and then it hit me, this is hard
to do well. The udahg and respect for acting things
(14:27):
like the first thing you gotta get to is that
it's not easy even if you have a shitty part.
I tell people, just be One of the best things
in the movie, even if you you were walking and
go dinner, is serve and learning where you fit into
because I also find there's so much bringing people up
in a lot of like acting classes that I took of,
like well where are you coming from? Where are you
coming from? And to be honest, the thing that I've
(14:48):
learned mainly in film and television is when I read
a script, now I'm not looking at it from my
point of view, I'm looking at it from the director's
point of view because I'm going and and here's the
other thing is sometimes it doesn't give a hoot if
I feel it, it matters if the audience feels it.
So like I could say I want to do a
hundred more till I feel it, and I hope that
someone in the crew would go, no, no thanks. We
(15:11):
need to go home to our families because we are
also human beings employed in the same industry that you are.
It doesn't matter. You have to you have to trust
in the director that they're getting what they need to get.
But you really have to be thinking about is the
audience feeling this and whether you need to just trust
the director, you need to watch the take, whatever it is.
But it's about how you fit into a bigger story.
(15:31):
And I don't necessarily know that that was ever taught
to me until I started getting really good direction and saying, well,
I feel like my character would do this, and then like,
you know, I don't know someone like I was on
Deadwood in the in the very beginning of my career,
and David Milt would be like, well, I don't, but
but this is what I need to have happen. Oh
my god, the best has like eight rescue dogs following
(15:53):
him around on the set. I don't know how I
got this job un Dead when I only did a
couple episodes, but it was a very cool role. It
was like a young girl who came into town with
her brother and she starts working at the horehouse and
then she tries to like take everyone for a ride,
and she sleeps with Kim's character and she stabs powers
booth and it was and then I get beaten and
shot in the center of town, right, so I only
(16:14):
read the sweet scenes, and then when I got the role,
I read the sort of other side of her where
she goes crazy. And I said to him like, I
don't know if I can do this, and he goes, no,
I know you can. And then I went home and
I felt so insecure. I'm like, does he think I'm evil?
Because these scenes are really evil. So I had a
great time working with him, but I also found that
he was one of the kindest people I've ever worked with.
(16:38):
Every Friday on Deadwood, that was a difficult show to shoot.
It was in Santa Clarita. There were a ton of horses,
which means their ship smell everywhere. There was at the
atmosphere that they pump in, which means everyone's breathing in dust.
All of these things, tight corsets, blah blah blah. Wasn't
physically comfortable long hours. And every Friday at lunchtime, he
would gather everybody into the one of the saloons and
(17:00):
I would watch him give away ten dollars. He'd put
in a fish bowl, all these little tickets and he'd say,
okay for a sevent d prize. Joe Gripp and he'd
say thank you, so much for working here. I love
you guys. Okay for a two hundred dollar prize and
he would just give away a ton of his money
as he has created numerous shows, and you know, what,
(17:22):
can I tell you something? So I said to myself
when I saw him do it, I was like, I'm
gonna do that if I ever make it, I'm gonna
do that that. I'm going to do that one day.
This is going to be my example. And I've done
it on my last couple of shows and it feels
you can't imagine a better feeling. And I expect I
did it for I just finished a movie called Queen
Pins that was an indie that spent all of our
(17:43):
budget on COVID safety, and I mean COVID safety like
you have never seen. Because I was so hesitant to work.
We shot it. We had a huge COVID team. Everyone
got PCRs every day, not just rapids. You had to
have a K of ninety five. They had to bring
an air scrubbers every hour to scrub the entire air
in the room. No more than twelve people. And I
knew it was stressful for people, and I was like,
(18:04):
I'm gonna milch it. I'm gonna milt it. And it
was so wonderful. But here's what I did, because I
also from you know, just reading freakonomics. You just have
to incentivize people. So I said to our COVID consultants,
who were from U C. L A. I was like,
what if we just incentivize them. What if I get
grub hub to give us everybody two fifty dollar gift
certificates so they're encouraged to eat at home, and then
(18:25):
the next week we get the in and out truck,
and then then and then the other week subsequent weeks,
I put five or ten grand in a bucket and
I say, this is the I did not get COVID
this week bucket, And you're only in here if you
didn't get COVID. And we pull a name, and I
gotta say nobody got COVID because everyone wanted to be
in the bucket. Oh well, I'm sure some people were
sitting there going, well, it's the least you can do it.
(18:46):
But five grants into the fish bolshop with all that
frozen money. She got to God, Oh, you'd think right.
I've been doing some animated films. I did the movie
Boss Baby and we're just finishing the sequel now. People
say to me, how do you feel doing that? I'm like,
the is the greatest movie I've ever made. I love
doing those movies because the audience so receptive as kids,
you know, and here you are to have been part
(19:09):
of this, like unbelievably Titanic success. Was that fun for you?
So fun? It's been fantastic, And it's been the biggest
honor to be somehow important to children that you've never met,
so much so that you can make someone's day, or
that you can send a kid who is in the
hospital a message, and it really you can bring a
(19:31):
smile to someone's face, and that is something I do
not take lightly. I have a lot of respect for
the fact that I have that little superpower now and
I use it as much as I possibly can. You know,
your generation, you're so youthful looking and you're just turned forty,
and I'm want to ask you about that. What's that
been like for you in terms of because you still
look so young, what's changed for you about the business
(19:53):
and what you want now that you've been doing it
for twenty two years. So in the beginning of my
career up until the last I would say five or
six years. I was just hungry and I was willing
to stay on that hamster wheel of I need to
read everything. Who got that? Who should I be meeting?
Is there a new best director that I should be having?
(20:13):
In general, with all the things that you think you
need to do. And I was getting offered a lot
of romantic comedies or things that were I felt like
I had done, and I just desperately wanted like the
new Michelle Williams script, you know what I mean. I
was like, I just want to be like an indie
actor and I want to be like respected. And my
(20:36):
husband would sit in bed and he's like, why don't
you stay in your lane? It's so much funner when
you stay in your lane. You like you can spread
your wings, but don't disregard what you have because some
girl who's an actress right now is like, God, I
just want to be a goofy girl in a rom com.
Somebody is saying that right now, and you have that opportunity.
Don't ship on that. And like also sometimes he's like, Christen,
(20:59):
you're not as good to an actress is Michelle Williams.
So she's gonna get the part, and I'm like, Okay,
your said yeah, but he's not. No, he's right though.
Also he's just like and guess what else, Michelle Williams
can't be as quirky and as funny in a rom
coom as you can, Like everyone has a lane, and
he was he is all about moving into acceptance mode
(21:20):
and you know, expectations are resentments waiting to happen, all
these little a phrases he has that are that are
helpful when applied correctly, and I just felt like, oh, yeah,
it really is just my ego that I want to
be like I don't know if it's acknowledged or be
in every category. And the moment I said, you know what,
I have a thing, right, I have a thing and
it's a quirky, weird, funny, bubbly fun thing that's can
(21:43):
be snarky and I love doing it. I do it
pretty well. Why not lean into it? And that is
when I felt like I started becoming happier when I
stopped trying to be in everyone else's category. But what's
the little piece of you in the corner, Like, forget
about Michelle Williams, what's the thing you so part of
you that would really love to do something that you
just don't think you'll ever get a chance to do
(22:04):
that you really would love to try. Oh, I mean
something dark and serious, obviously, because I am a pretty
classically trained actor, and I would love to do that.
And I did that in the beginning. I mean Deadwood
was a little that heavy drama really interests me. But
I also know that I have a five and a
seven year old. It is a priority to me how
I act when I go home. And it is true
(22:25):
that sometimes you can take a little bit of baggage
home or you'll just be in a sour mood. But
if you're making a comedy with Mike, sure all day,
chances are you're going to come home in a pretty
good mood, you know what I mean. And I've just
kind of prioritized my well being as Kristen, like I
always like to say, I like being an actress, but
I love being Kristen. So I've prioritized that a little
bit more than my like desire to spread my wings
(22:48):
or prove to people that I can be some dramatic actress.
What do you want to do that you haven't done?
Um sing on Broadway? Girl, you can do that no, no, no.
Do you like singing? Can you have like a proper
more musical theater singing voice if you don't put on
an affectation. I just don't have the vocal call. I
don't have the chops and the breath. It's it's like,
you know that music and singing and being able to
(23:10):
imitate people and impersonate people. There's a fine line between
the two. It's an ear. You have an ear, and
I have a good ear and I and I love
music and I listen to people singing and I go,
oh my god. I just to be able to do that,
but I don't have the equipment. But you know what
that it is a muscle. I mean, look, nobody's gonna
wake up one morning and sound like normal Leo butts right.
That doesn't happen to everybody, But I will say it
(23:31):
is a muscle. It is like a bicep. Like when
I'm out of Like when Adina and I get called
for to do some concert, we call each other. We're
like a funk. When's the last time you practice? Because
the reality is you shave notes off your top and
you shave notes off your bottom, just like you do
a bicep like you can. If you pump iron every day,
your muscle gets bigger, your breath control, your ability to
tap into your diaphragm, and your simplified your vocal range.
(23:55):
It goes up with practice, and it is possible. If
you have an ear for tone, it is possible to
expand that muscle. Well, there's times I will say that,
I mean, you know, you relax, you get some sleep,
you're arrested, your voice to your vocal cords fall into
a certain line. There's times that I have, you know,
and I'm not being cute about this, but the's time
(24:17):
that I would sing in the shower and I think,
my God, listen to me, My God, can you believe this?
I'm like, you know, Charles as Nevoir has nothing on me.
And my husband is going through a singing phase and
it nothing is cuter to me. So he's borderline tone deaf,
but he loves to sing. Okay, And here's what happened.
Let me set the scene in my household. My kids
(24:39):
could give a shit about Frozen, truly and completely. They
don't want me to talk about it. They don't want
to know. I minute, because you're supposed to rebel against
your mom thinks she does her uncool. So they're into
a ton of they love boss Baby but like frozen.
They're like it's fine. So I can't even sing to them.
I try to sing them to sleep there like once
in a while they'll let me do it, and I'm like,
I'm you know, obviously that's a burn on me. So
(25:01):
we're doing this new UM cartoon for Stephen Conrad called
Ultra City Smith's and it's a musical. And he asked
Dax and I if we'd be involved because we were
weirdly like just those people who didn't know Stephen Conrad,
but we're like championing the Patriot when it was out,
like nobody's watching this show. It's brilliant UM. So he
contacted us. We were super flattered. He's like, it's a musical. UM.
He hires us. We're playing this married couple. And then
(25:23):
Dax did a recording the other day and he sang
for Stephen Conrad, like just a little bit of He's
sang some Whalen Jennings or something, and Stephen was like
that was great. That was really great, Dax, this is
gonna work out well. Dax came home in the absolute
cutest mood I've ever seen him in. And he has
been asking me to tape him on my telephone singing songs,
(25:44):
and he's been posting things online of him singing songs
he's in Yes on Instagram, Yes, and it's so please
watch it. It's so cute. The whole time he was
driving big Brown home, he was like, he's got his
camera on his little dashboard and he's like, yeah, PLEASESE
really let me go. It's so cute to me. Now,
(26:08):
Veronica Mars is when I first became aware of you,
and that was a big success for you, and then
you did good place, you know, and you also come
from a generation of people which are a lot more
self disclosing about some of the things you've gone through
in your life. And I'm like, you know, a long
time ago, when I was first coming, there were people
who they just stayed behind that wall like you were
(26:28):
never going to find that anything about their private life.
And also there were publicity arms of studios and networks
that worked aggressively to protect the reputations of their stars.
That does not exist anymore, as opposed to Warner Brothers,
where you go down one hallway and there's the movie division,
and you go down another hallway and there's the TV division.
Then you got in another hallway and TMZ is there.
(26:49):
Come on, I know I have such an issue with
that as well. I'm like, how do you run all
of these organizations? Why do you want me to work
for you? And then you're trying to kill me. I
could not agree more. My husband and I just agree
on things in the world. We argue all the time,
but we do not go to bed angry, and we
have a beautiful marriage and we are able to make
it work because we have this mutual respect. We have
(27:10):
a desire for vulnerability. When we first started dating, we
tried to keep it secret because we didn't want to
be hunt. That was when like TMC was starting, you know,
liket and fourteen years ago, and they were starting to
like hunt people really on the street with cameras and
it was scary and it just feels predator and prey um.
But after a while, especially when social media you sort
of started to own it and you were able to
(27:31):
post your own things. We kind of went through this
little metamorphosis. Not with our children because we keep them
very separated and we keep them very private. But I
have a big, big maternal chip on my shoulder, and
I feel like if I'm okay being vulnerable and talking
about my flaws and my marriage, especially if it can
(27:52):
be an example for someone else, so I'm ready to, Like,
I guess I'm willing to take that hit. Like Jax
and I talked about what we fight about public lee,
I talk about my fears and anxiety, about the fact
that I suffer from anxiety and depression. And every time
I'm honest and vulnerable, the reaction that I get not
from like the TMZ crewd but the reaction I get
from just uh engagement with fans or on social media
(28:15):
or whatever is always positive and it keeps me going
and a reminder of like, oh yeah, we're really looking
to connect. And I suppose that I've just put the
connecting with people above any sort of like clandestine existence
that I could give you, because I wouldn't be good
at that anyway. I'm too much of a talker, you
know what I mean. It doesn't bother me so much
(28:37):
to be such an open book. I kind of like it.
But I also think that what is the silver lining
of some kind of social media like Instagram. Well, it's
kept the paparazzi away from my house because I'm posting
all the pictures online myself. Yeah, exactly, I've preempted that.
There's nothing you can get unless my wife is pregnant,
unless you get me, you know, slipping on the ice
and falling on my ass or something, you know, something
that you're after. But hopefully your wife will post that
(28:59):
picture of you calling and they still won't have to
get it. You know, my wife would make a movie
out of that. Believe she loves to let the air
out of me, she always say. But one thing about
this age, of this kind of self disclosure is that
it gives me a chance. I'm going to tell the story.
I want to talk about how I didn't drink and
I didn't take drugs all through high school, very little
minimum because I couldn't afford it. I didn't have any money.
(29:21):
And when I finally had money in my pocket from
working in this business I had. If I had a
hundred bucks in my pocket, I was like, well, let's
go have that drug and alcohol problem we've been putting
off for the last five years. You know. But what
do you say to people in terms of how they
can seek help. Do you actively try to support people
that way and say you've got to go and ask
for help? Oh you mean, like if I'm talking about
like anxiety and depression or or or anything like that,
(29:44):
anything whatever the issue is. Oh yeah, well, I mean, look,
I'm also like having just come out of like early
stage motherhood. I you know, there's so much of I
did not experience it, but I know the world of
like feeling insecure as a new mom, And you're not
doing this right. So I try to be very clear
in that there are many different ways to find a
(30:06):
solution to a problem. Let's just start with the basic math, right,
some people, we know people. We have people in common
that have stopped drugs and alcohol that have not gone
to a a and we we also have people in
common that did need it, like you know, my husband does.
And there are many different ways to find a solution.
So if it's like someone saying I'm depressed or anxious
(30:26):
or I'm having problems in my marriage, if I were
to respond, or if I were to say anything on
the subject, it would be There are a variety of
resources out there for talking about anxiety and depression. One
is um talk to someone close in your family, open
up more, start exercising. Exercising is one of the best
things you can do for your mental health. You can
talk to a psychologist or a psychiatrist, a medication maybe
(30:48):
in your future, it may not be because that's not
the only way. That's how I solve it. I've been
on an antidepressant for years, but that's not for everyone,
and I'm very clear about that. Um And then I'm
also just a big I'm a therapy pusher. I love therapy.
I am. I think it's Yeah, I think it's great.
I mean also, I'm not opposed to any of the
new kinds. I just don't know much about them. But
(31:09):
I know when I know. I have a therapist who
the first time I sat down with him, his name
is Harry. He's an excellent human being. I started talking
and he said, doing his hold on the second, I'm
just gonna tell you, if you want me to take
your hundred dollars percession and listen to you event I
am so here for you. If you'd like a solution,
just let me know. And I was like, uh, who, what?
Who does this man think? He is being so blunt
(31:31):
with me? But I was also very attracted to that
kind of personality, which is obviously why I married my husband.
The blunt cut to the chase talkers because I'm not
that person. I'm a rambler. So when I said that,
I I mean when he said that, I was so intrigued.
I was like, well, wait a minute. Of course I
want a solution. He was like, Okay, well I can
tell you this. You plus this issue equals chaos. Are
(31:52):
you in the rumor? Is this issue in the room?
And I was like, okay, um, I guess this issue
is in the room. This person or thing I was
talking about I am, and it just I like the
idea that are there are solutions out there. I'm a
I'm a fixer, and I get very excited about Okay,
well that's not working. Pivot find a new way to
do it, because there's always a better way to do it.
(32:15):
Kristen Bell last year she launched Happy Dance, a CBD
bath and body product line designed specifically to offer some
self care for other busy moms that She recently published
her first children's book, The World Needs More Purple People,
in hopes of encouraging more conversations in these polarized times
(32:36):
about what we have in common. More on that after
the break. If you like Here's the Thing, don't keep
it to yourself. Tell a friend. You can subscribe to
Here's the Thing on the I Heart radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your podcasts. While you're there, leave
us a review. Thanks for listening. I'm Alec Baldwin and
(33:06):
you're listening to Here's the Thing. Actor Kristen Bell has
been with her husband, actor Dax Shepherd since two thousand seven.
The two are very open about the good, the bad,
and the challenges of a long term relationship. I wanted
to ask Kristen if it helps to have a partner
who was also in the business. Yeah. I mean, you know,
(33:27):
both of us have ego sensitivity issues and it sort
of depends on how often we've worked. If one of
us hasn't worked in six months, one of us can
start to feel low. But again we're both aware of
that because of therapy. I would say for the most part,
I see it as a plus. And perhaps that's because
of who the man Dax is um but I know
(33:47):
that he like we're not. He doesn't get down on
me about hours because he knows. If I say I'm
home at three, the scene could take till ten. It's
nice not to have to deal with confusion if you
have someone who's working a nine to five. Just nice
to be with somebody that gets and it gets it.
And also Dax is a really good director. He has
written and directed a couple of movies. He wrote like
a love letter to me are. His first movie was
(34:08):
this UM independent movie called Hit and Run, and it
was about a guy who was in UH witness protection
program and his girlfriend finds out and they have to
go on this chase away from the bad guys, and
it's like does she want to go? Does she still
trust him? And it literally was a metaphor for our
first year of dating. I didn't know what a drug
addict was or how they operated. I mean I grew
(34:30):
up in a small town in Michigan, just outside of Detroit,
where it was like, well, drugs are bad, bad people
do drugs and that was the end of the conversation.
And I didn't understand anything about addiction. So when he
used to sit at the dinner table again and tell
me like, oh, this one time I I did seventy pills.
I lost three days and I didn't show up for Christmas.
I would be so terrified. And I didn't. I was like,
(34:52):
how can I trust you? And he's like, well, but
that's not me anymore. Anyways. Cut to Harry saying, you
know what, all she needs to hear You're saying how
it was is. All she needs to hear is how
it is now. You need to have that last sentence
on the end of your story. And by the way,
I didn't show it for Christmas. Wow, I'm so glad
I don't do that anymore. Then she won't freak out.
But the point is I was really I had a
lot of trust issues with him our first year, and
(35:15):
so he wrote this story about this girl who doesn't
who finds something out about her partner and doesn't think
she can trust him. And the point is he's a
very good director. I trust his creativity implicitly, so I
can have him read things. He coaches me on auditions,
and that's a very safe space for me to be
in because he can give me some really hard direction
(35:35):
or just saying you're doing too much or you're you're
trying too hard, and I know he wants what's best
for me, so I'm able to get really difficult direction
and do a better job in my career because of him. Now,
one last question, tell us about the world needs more
purple people with Benjamin hartrist And I'm not a writer.
(35:55):
I am an orator at best, and barely that. But
I did write a children's book this year with one
of my best friends, ben Heart. Um. It came from
our personal experience of seeing our kids together and seeing
it just a very polarizing political culture seep into our
kids daily lives of our kids were seeing in us
and them and even at our dinner table, we were
(36:17):
getting heated when we were talking about things. This is
you know, over the last five years, four years, and
we wanted to create some language, uh and in a
children's book to help. And so, I mean, it's not
crazy far off to understand that red plus blue equals purple.
But it's just we didn't want our kids looking around
and seeing enemies. We wanted them to see constructive conversations
(36:38):
even within disagreements. We wanted a social identity that positions
them towards their fellow humans. And so we tried to
come up with five great pillars that no one could
argue with on any side, and being purple means asking
really great questions, laughing a lot, using your voice, being
a hard worker, but also being totally and uniquely you
and attentive to your own experiences. So we really just
(37:01):
we didn't want any of this corrosive political divide to
seep into our kids. We want it. It's it's it's
not about anything other than looking towards your fellow human beings,
listening to their experiences and telling them yours. And we
like to say, the only way to be purple is
to just be you, because you're the only you we've got.
And it's not you know, it's not a secret that
(37:22):
we wrote it for kids, because if we wrote it
for adults, the kids wouldn't read it. But if we
wrote it for kids, the adults would have to read
it to them. So it's just a polite reminder that
there's not en us in them. And we can still disagree,
and we can still use our voice, but we got
to live together, and it's okay if you disagree with people,
and it's okay if someone has a different experience, and
(37:44):
you should want to hear as many stories as possible.
But we wanted our kids to have a social identity
that positions them towards their fellow human beings are good,
I think so. I can tell yeah, it's one of
the things I'm most confident in. Actor Kristen Bell. She's
been working on a new movie with Vince Vaughan called
(38:05):
Queen Pins During Quarantine. It's about a pair of housewives
who run a multimillion dollar coupon scam. I'm Alec Baldwin.
Here's the Thing. Is brought to you by I Heart Radio.
We're produced by Kathleen Russo and Carrie Donohue. Our editor
is Zach mcneie and our engineer is Frank Imperial. Our
theme song is by Miles Davis.
This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the
Thing from My Heart Radio. My guest today is Kristen Bell,
a true force of nature. Kristen is a classically trained
actor who landed a role on Broadway and a revival
of the Crucible with Liam Neeson and Laura Lenny before
she even graduated college on a whim. She and a
(00:25):
friend moved to l A soon after, and she's been
starring in TV and movies ever since. From her breakout
role as the teenage private detective Veronica Mars, to Princess
Anna in the Frozen movies to the more recent Eleanor
Shellstrap on NBC's The Good Place, Kristen has made her
name by being plucky, relatable, and when the role calls
(00:47):
for it, very funny. I caught up with Kristen Bell
in Los Angeles, where she lives with her husband, the
actor and podcaster Dax Shepherd, and their two young daughters. Currently,
I'm in a motor home parked on our front lawn
at all times because I'm married to hill Billy. Actually
we just got it a couple of days ago over
(01:10):
um over quarantine. His main objective was to buy a
motor home because we do go camping and go to
this glamous sand dunes a couple of times a year,
so we we rent motor homes. But we found a
good deal and when in Texas he went down to
get it, he drove it back and it is now.
I'm not gonna I'm not joking with you right now.
Look at where it's sitting. So this is the motor home,
(01:31):
right and that's my house. That's my house, So that's
my front window. Were to the definition of hillbilly is
you have a house, you're both working, you're both doing well.
You buy a house worth millions of dollars in l A.
And your husband was like, I want to have a
motor home on the front law and baby, Um, I'm lucky.
This man has all his teeth. Honestly, I'm lucky he
has all his teeth. That's the truth. But I will
(01:54):
give him credit. She's gorgeous. Her name is big Brown.
She's absolutely ship brown color. And it's sitting right outside
my front window. And I don't hate it. I love it.
We we come out here and play in it, and
we're gonna plan on camping in it. A ton and
I'm not I'm not mad at it. How's the quarantine
going for you with your family? Shockingly okay? I mean,
(02:15):
you know, mainly because of our privilege. We don't live
in a one room apartment. We like have a backyard,
we can go outside and and uh, my my kids
can you know, run around the house again, because we've
got a house with a couple of bedrooms. So I'm
incredibly grateful for that. My my husband and I started
out quarantine like in the midst of a big fight,
(02:37):
like you know those sort of not fight but yes fight,
those like every three years, that sort of marriage house
cleaning that has to happen, where like the resentments have
been built and it's coming to a head and you're
both going to go back to the therapist. And we
were like right there, and then the doors closed on
the whole world and we were like, oh shit, Yeah,
you're hiking through a cave and the walls collapsed and
(02:58):
you're stuck inside the cave together. Yeah. It was intense
to say the least, but it did force us to
talk vulnerably in order to get over some of the
resentments in the sort of housekeeping that needed to happen.
About how we were not meeting each other's love languages, etcetera, etcetera,
and we did it pretty well. How does he not
(03:19):
meet your love language? Well? Or I don't meet his,
that's the question. So everybody has different ways that they
feel that they are loved. Right, for me, it's pre production.
If if I come home from work and you have
ordered me food, there's a burrito in the fridge. For me,
I'm like, damn, this guy loves me. He was thinking
she might be home from work and she might want
(03:41):
a burrito like he thought about me. For him, it's
meeting him at the door. He could give a ship
what's in the fridge. He doesn't care if I've ordered
him dinner. So if I'm sitting up in my bedroom
where I'm playing with the girls, or I'm on my
computer or watching TV and I don't sort of like
meet him with a hug, He's like, I could care
less what's in the fridge. I want to see you.
I want His is very much physical affection, as in
(04:03):
like eye contact, hand on the shoulder when we're on
the couch. He wants to be snuggling. Yes, I love you,
and which we do all the time. But you know,
after thirteen years, it does become a sort of passing phrase,
which we try not to make it. Whereas I'm less
um physical, I don't need anyone to jump up, I
want I'm like, everybody stay stated, I'm fine. I'm the mom,
and I'm you know, doing my own thing, and I
(04:24):
want to take care of everybody else. But it was
just stuff like that, and I would be like, but
I ordered you dinner. He's like, but I don't care
about dinner. I want you to get up off the
couch and give me a hug. And so it's those
little things love language wise, where we have to remember
that the other person needs something that we don't need.
So we have to think in the other person's love
language in order to properly show what we feel. One
(04:48):
time I was at a party and Seinfeld is at
another table. They cut up the couples so that Jessica
was at my table and I'm sitting there with Jessica
Seinfeld and we're talking, and I said to her, you
realize that if you look him in the eye every day,
and look him in the antica and really let it count,
let it breathe, and say, Jerry, I love you more
(05:09):
than anything in the world. He will do whatever you
ask him to do for the rest of your life.
And she started to cry. She had like tears from look,
I'm from that school, like I want you to still
be my girlfriend. I want the romance I want we have.
My wife and I are locked in a big house
with five kids. So as I tell people, it's like
the little rascals meets the shining every day here at
(05:29):
my house. But I said to my wife, you know,
if you just said that to me, took two seconds
to tell me that every day I could go on
that that's the oxygen that I need, you know. Yeah,
And it's it's really healthy to be able to communicate
that to your partner and not to make any no,
you know, no one can be generalized or I don't
want to make this broad and sweeping. But I've known
a lot of a group of men like that where
(05:51):
it actually is quite simple. It's just presence. It's being
uh present with them and communicative in the simplest way
of just a reminder that the foundation exists and that
you are still attracted to and love them. Whereas my
love language is like let's go I'm a human doing
and not a human being. I'm working on that in therapy,
becoming less of a human doing. Why now, what do
(06:13):
you think? What are the pitfalls of the one versus
the other? Why? Well, a human being exists more a
human doing, has a huge to do list and is
accomplishes a ton. But then maybe on your deathbed you're like,
did I even experience any of it? Because I've got
my fingers in a lot of different pots and I'm going, going, going,
all the time. And that's why I like, I think
of someone, order them dinner, scratch it off my list.
That proves I love them. That doesn't work for everyone.
(06:36):
That doesn't work for everyone, Alec, I'm learning for you.
Was show business in the blood in the family? Was
your show business people in your family? No? Well, my
father is a news director still is UM. So he
was the only person that was ever I mean, he
was on the radio for a while. He's got a
voice like yours is just smooth and wonderful. And I
(06:56):
was the only one that ever um showed any signs
of wanting to perform. And it wasn't really even wanting
an audience so much as I sang a lot when
I was little. I have a very musical brain and
a very I'm very auditorially sensitive, like I can't really
have a conversation when music is on. I feel almost
(07:16):
like I'm hearing voices inside my head because such a
big portion of my brain focuses on the music, which
is annoying and also great. But so I sang a
lot when I was little, and then my mom got
me into voice lessons and I studied like Operetta's for
a year or two, and then in my ninth grade year,
my teacher gave me after school homework of Green Finch
(07:39):
and linnet Bird from Sweeney Todd. And I had never
sang in English before, I was only singing in Italian,
and I was like, oh my god, what is this.
I can understand this character's perspective. So then I became
obsessed with musical theater. But again, no one else did it.
And my father was the only one that was hesitant,
not in a way that would ever hold me back,
but just like he hires and fires the journalists at
(07:59):
his station, and so he'll watch a new news reporter
and be like, I can't hire her, I can't hire him.
And he was scared of the rejection, but other than
that hesitation, everyone was like, sure, we don't know what
you're doing, but good luck. And they were pretty supportive.
But no one else was in performance of any kind.
(08:21):
Actor Kristen Bell, that early introduction to Sondheim took her
from the suburbs of Detroit to New York City. Another
actress with a flair for comedy, as Ellie Kemper, We
talked about her getting cast as the unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt.
They basically said, we're developing a new show. We don't
know what it is, but good do you have met you?
(08:43):
We met in May and then I met them again
in July and they pitched the actual idea to me.
I thought they were joking because the premise of the
show I know, and I was like, they were pranking me.
You can hear the rest of my conversation with Ellie
Kemper a Here's the thing dot org. After the break,
we talked about what advice Kristen offers to aspiring actors today.
(09:14):
I'm Alec Baldwin and this is here is the thing
we're talking today with Kristin Bell. She discovered her love
for acting in middle school. I started doing a lot
of like local theater in Detroit, and then it was
less of a like putting a stake in the ground
saying this is what I'm gonna do. And what happened
(09:35):
was I was sixteen and went into Mr Franklin's office
in my high school when he's like the guy who
helps you pick colleges in the high school, and he
was like, well, you want to pick you know, college,
that a career, that's something you love, So what do
you love? And I was like, well, I love doing
musical theater. He goes, well, you can study theater and
I was like, great, so much thanks by Like I
never it was, it just occurred to me. It never
(09:56):
occurred to me to change what I loved. And I
was like, well, I guess just keep doing what I'm doing.
And where'd you go? N y U. I applied early
admission to n y U, and I told my parents
I sent in my Northwestern application that I didn't because
I wanted I put all my focus on early admission
in n y U. Thankfully I got in. Then I
moved to New York and I was in the Tish
(10:17):
School of the Arts for two and a half years
and then I left my middle of my third year
because I booked Tom Sawyer and then The Crucible with
Liam Neeson and Laura Lenny, and then Reefer Madness, and
then a couple of shows in New York, and then
moved to d C to do the Kennedy Center uh
Sondheim Rep. And then I moved to l A on
(10:37):
a whim. So it was all theater. You didn't finish you, No,
I did not. I do not have a degree in
anything I went there. I went to gw in Washington
for a pre law program, but finished in theater at
n y U. I left there in nineteen eighty but
went back in to graduate fourteen years later. Did you
have to take a class because so much of their
grades around attendance. They wig ave to all my acting
(11:01):
classes from my practical experience acting the last fourteen years.
And I had to write a paper. And I wrote
a sixty five page paper on the applicability of method
acting to the career of someone who was still active
in film and theater. And there was only one person
who met the criterion. I interviewed Pacino for nine hours
at his house up in West just Oh. I wonder
(11:21):
for you, I mean, you're obviously from a very different
generation than I am, and you're much younger than I am.
What's your advice to young actors, because I sometimes struggle
with that whether they should study acting in college. It's expensive,
Like I'll say to them if I had it to
do over again, get a degree in a subject where
you can just read a lot of great books, philosophy, literature, history,
(11:41):
because this is the great time for you to read,
because as I've gotten older, the thing I missed most
is time to read. And then I'll say to them,
you go take acting classes somewhere. How do you feel
about that? I think that's actually now, in my infinite wisdom,
after turning forty, I think that that's probably the right
thing to say a because previously my only critique of
(12:02):
n y U was that I didn't feel that they
gave um enough practical actors experience, Like we once in
a while had like a casting director come in, but
it was really like there was this you were so
built up because you were studying all these fancy plays
and performing them, but you didn't realize how small your
(12:24):
world was. And I remember sneaking out of classes to
go audition because I had gotten an agent right when
I moved to New York. And I also it was
in my favor that I looked a lot younger than
I was, So when I was eighteen, I was still
playing thirteen and I remember sneaking out and once I
(12:44):
was caught and they were like, you shouldn't be auditioning,
And I'm like, well, what the hell are you training
me for? Like if I'm not supposed to be auditioning,
because the nerves you feel when you audition can be
debilitating for the vast majority of us, Like even I
mean I still have them sometimes, but definitely had them
early on. And every actor I know that's working was like,
oh yeah, I used to get super nervous, so nervous
(13:06):
that I, you know, choke all my words, or that
I would burp, or that I would have the shakes
or whatever. I think you need to learn how to
handle that as much as you need to learn how
to study these classic plays. I think that's an incredib
like just getting ahold of your being is incredibly important.
And I didn't. I don't feel like there was enough
stress put on that about how do you manage your
(13:26):
cortisol levels when you really really want something, so I
think getting into scary situations. I was in this beautiful,
little like um bubble of studying Alexander technique. And when
I explained that to my husband and he was like, well,
what is that, I'm like, what's sort of like body
work and you're, you know, you're in like loose clothes
(13:46):
and you're touching each other. And he's like, you did
this in fucking college. And so now he always jokes,
he's like, let's just throw some sweatpants on, let's work
it out Alexander style. But I think that's very safe,
and I don't think acting safe or should be safe.
The first job I had, I got a job on
a soap opera in New York, and I thought to myself,
(14:07):
this is I mean, privately, I'm sitting there on the
set and I say the same thing every day I
commit here. I'm like, oh, Greta, I love you. Oh God, Greta,
if you only knew how much I love you, Greta,
please understand. And I'd be on the subway trying to
memorize my lines. It was all such a pain in
the acid, and then it hit me, this is hard
to do well. The udahg and respect for acting things
(14:27):
like the first thing you gotta get to is that
it's not easy even if you have a shitty part.
I tell people, just be One of the best things
in the movie, even if you you were walking and
go dinner, is serve and learning where you fit into
because I also find there's so much bringing people up
in a lot of like acting classes that I took of,
like well where are you coming from? Where are you
coming from? And to be honest, the thing that I've
(14:48):
learned mainly in film and television is when I read
a script, now I'm not looking at it from my
point of view, I'm looking at it from the director's
point of view because I'm going and and here's the
other thing is sometimes it doesn't give a hoot if
I feel it, it matters if the audience feels it.
So like I could say I want to do a
hundred more till I feel it, and I hope that
someone in the crew would go, no, no thanks. We
(15:11):
need to go home to our families because we are
also human beings employed in the same industry that you are.
It doesn't matter. You have to you have to trust
in the director that they're getting what they need to get.
But you really have to be thinking about is the
audience feeling this and whether you need to just trust
the director, you need to watch the take, whatever it is.
But it's about how you fit into a bigger story.
(15:31):
And I don't necessarily know that that was ever taught
to me until I started getting really good direction and saying, well,
I feel like my character would do this, and then like,
you know, I don't know someone like I was on
Deadwood in the in the very beginning of my career,
and David Milt would be like, well, I don't, but
but this is what I need to have happen. Oh
my god, the best has like eight rescue dogs following
(15:53):
him around on the set. I don't know how I
got this job un Dead when I only did a
couple episodes, but it was a very cool role. It
was like a young girl who came into town with
her brother and she starts working at the horehouse and
then she tries to like take everyone for a ride,
and she sleeps with Kim's character and she stabs powers
booth and it was and then I get beaten and
shot in the center of town, right, so I only
(16:14):
read the sweet scenes, and then when I got the role,
I read the sort of other side of her where
she goes crazy. And I said to him like, I
don't know if I can do this, and he goes, no,
I know you can. And then I went home and
I felt so insecure. I'm like, does he think I'm evil?
Because these scenes are really evil. So I had a
great time working with him, but I also found that
he was one of the kindest people I've ever worked with.
(16:38):
Every Friday on Deadwood, that was a difficult show to shoot.
It was in Santa Clarita. There were a ton of horses,
which means their ship smell everywhere. There was at the
atmosphere that they pump in, which means everyone's breathing in dust.
All of these things, tight corsets, blah blah blah. Wasn't
physically comfortable long hours. And every Friday at lunchtime, he
would gather everybody into the one of the saloons and
(17:00):
I would watch him give away ten dollars. He'd put
in a fish bowl, all these little tickets and he'd say,
okay for a sevent d prize. Joe Gripp and he'd
say thank you, so much for working here. I love
you guys. Okay for a two hundred dollar prize and
he would just give away a ton of his money
as he has created numerous shows, and you know, what,
(17:22):
can I tell you something? So I said to myself
when I saw him do it, I was like, I'm
gonna do that if I ever make it, I'm gonna
do that that. I'm going to do that one day.
This is going to be my example. And I've done
it on my last couple of shows and it feels
you can't imagine a better feeling. And I expect I
did it for I just finished a movie called Queen
Pins that was an indie that spent all of our
(17:43):
budget on COVID safety, and I mean COVID safety like
you have never seen. Because I was so hesitant to work.
We shot it. We had a huge COVID team. Everyone
got PCRs every day, not just rapids. You had to
have a K of ninety five. They had to bring
an air scrubbers every hour to scrub the entire air
in the room. No more than twelve people. And I
knew it was stressful for people, and I was like,
(18:04):
I'm gonna milch it. I'm gonna milt it. And it
was so wonderful. But here's what I did, because I
also from you know, just reading freakonomics. You just have
to incentivize people. So I said to our COVID consultants,
who were from U C. L A. I was like,
what if we just incentivize them. What if I get
grub hub to give us everybody two fifty dollar gift
certificates so they're encouraged to eat at home, and then
(18:25):
the next week we get the in and out truck,
and then then and then the other week subsequent weeks,
I put five or ten grand in a bucket and
I say, this is the I did not get COVID
this week bucket, And you're only in here if you
didn't get COVID. And we pull a name, and I
gotta say nobody got COVID because everyone wanted to be
in the bucket. Oh well, I'm sure some people were
sitting there going, well, it's the least you can do it.
(18:46):
But five grants into the fish bolshop with all that
frozen money. She got to God, Oh, you'd think right.
I've been doing some animated films. I did the movie
Boss Baby and we're just finishing the sequel now. People
say to me, how do you feel doing that? I'm like,
the is the greatest movie I've ever made. I love
doing those movies because the audience so receptive as kids,
you know, and here you are to have been part
(19:09):
of this, like unbelievably Titanic success. Was that fun for you?
So fun? It's been fantastic, And it's been the biggest
honor to be somehow important to children that you've never met,
so much so that you can make someone's day, or
that you can send a kid who is in the
hospital a message, and it really you can bring a
(19:31):
smile to someone's face, and that is something I do
not take lightly. I have a lot of respect for
the fact that I have that little superpower now and
I use it as much as I possibly can. You know,
your generation, you're so youthful looking and you're just turned forty,
and I'm want to ask you about that. What's that
been like for you in terms of because you still
look so young, what's changed for you about the business
(19:53):
and what you want now that you've been doing it
for twenty two years. So in the beginning of my
career up until the last I would say five or
six years. I was just hungry and I was willing
to stay on that hamster wheel of I need to
read everything. Who got that? Who should I be meeting?
Is there a new best director that I should be having?
(20:13):
In general, with all the things that you think you
need to do. And I was getting offered a lot
of romantic comedies or things that were I felt like
I had done, and I just desperately wanted like the
new Michelle Williams script, you know what I mean. I
was like, I just want to be like an indie
actor and I want to be like respected. And my
(20:36):
husband would sit in bed and he's like, why don't
you stay in your lane? It's so much funner when
you stay in your lane. You like you can spread
your wings, but don't disregard what you have because some
girl who's an actress right now is like, God, I
just want to be a goofy girl in a rom com.
Somebody is saying that right now, and you have that opportunity.
Don't ship on that. And like also sometimes he's like, Christen,
(20:59):
you're not as good to an actress is Michelle Williams.
So she's gonna get the part, and I'm like, Okay,
your said yeah, but he's not. No, he's right though.
Also he's just like and guess what else, Michelle Williams
can't be as quirky and as funny in a rom
coom as you can, Like everyone has a lane, and
he was he is all about moving into acceptance mode
(21:20):
and you know, expectations are resentments waiting to happen, all
these little a phrases he has that are that are
helpful when applied correctly, and I just felt like, oh, yeah,
it really is just my ego that I want to
be like I don't know if it's acknowledged or be
in every category. And the moment I said, you know what,
I have a thing, right, I have a thing and
it's a quirky, weird, funny, bubbly fun thing that's can
(21:43):
be snarky and I love doing it. I do it
pretty well. Why not lean into it? And that is
when I felt like I started becoming happier when I
stopped trying to be in everyone else's category. But what's
the little piece of you in the corner, Like, forget
about Michelle Williams, what's the thing you so part of
you that would really love to do something that you
just don't think you'll ever get a chance to do
(22:04):
that you really would love to try. Oh, I mean
something dark and serious, obviously, because I am a pretty
classically trained actor, and I would love to do that.
And I did that in the beginning. I mean Deadwood
was a little that heavy drama really interests me. But
I also know that I have a five and a
seven year old. It is a priority to me how
I act when I go home. And it is true
(22:25):
that sometimes you can take a little bit of baggage
home or you'll just be in a sour mood. But
if you're making a comedy with Mike, sure all day,
chances are you're going to come home in a pretty
good mood, you know what I mean. And I've just
kind of prioritized my well being as Kristen, like I
always like to say, I like being an actress, but
I love being Kristen. So I've prioritized that a little
bit more than my like desire to spread my wings
(22:48):
or prove to people that I can be some dramatic actress.
What do you want to do that you haven't done?
Um sing on Broadway? Girl, you can do that no, no, no.
Do you like singing? Can you have like a proper
more musical theater singing voice if you don't put on
an affectation. I just don't have the vocal call. I
don't have the chops and the breath. It's it's like,
you know that music and singing and being able to
(23:10):
imitate people and impersonate people. There's a fine line between
the two. It's an ear. You have an ear, and
I have a good ear and I and I love
music and I listen to people singing and I go,
oh my god. I just to be able to do that,
but I don't have the equipment. But you know what
that it is a muscle. I mean, look, nobody's gonna
wake up one morning and sound like normal Leo butts right.
That doesn't happen to everybody, But I will say it
(23:31):
is a muscle. It is like a bicep. Like when
I'm out of Like when Adina and I get called
for to do some concert, we call each other. We're
like a funk. When's the last time you practice? Because
the reality is you shave notes off your top and
you shave notes off your bottom, just like you do
a bicep like you can. If you pump iron every day,
your muscle gets bigger, your breath control, your ability to
tap into your diaphragm, and your simplified your vocal range.
(23:55):
It goes up with practice, and it is possible. If
you have an ear for tone, it is possible to
expand that muscle. Well, there's times I will say that,
I mean, you know, you relax, you get some sleep,
you're arrested, your voice to your vocal cords fall into
a certain line. There's times that I have, you know,
and I'm not being cute about this, but the's time
(24:17):
that I would sing in the shower and I think,
my God, listen to me, My God, can you believe this?
I'm like, you know, Charles as Nevoir has nothing on me.
And my husband is going through a singing phase and
it nothing is cuter to me. So he's borderline tone deaf,
but he loves to sing. Okay, And here's what happened.
Let me set the scene in my household. My kids
(24:39):
could give a shit about Frozen, truly and completely. They
don't want me to talk about it. They don't want
to know. I minute, because you're supposed to rebel against
your mom thinks she does her uncool. So they're into
a ton of they love boss Baby but like frozen.
They're like it's fine. So I can't even sing to them.
I try to sing them to sleep there like once
in a while they'll let me do it, and I'm like,
I'm you know, obviously that's a burn on me. So
(25:01):
we're doing this new UM cartoon for Stephen Conrad called
Ultra City Smith's and it's a musical. And he asked
Dax and I if we'd be involved because we were
weirdly like just those people who didn't know Stephen Conrad,
but we're like championing the Patriot when it was out,
like nobody's watching this show. It's brilliant UM. So he
contacted us. We were super flattered. He's like, it's a musical. UM.
He hires us. We're playing this married couple. And then
(25:23):
Dax did a recording the other day and he sang
for Stephen Conrad, like just a little bit of He's
sang some Whalen Jennings or something, and Stephen was like
that was great. That was really great, Dax, this is
gonna work out well. Dax came home in the absolute
cutest mood I've ever seen him in. And he has
been asking me to tape him on my telephone singing songs,
(25:44):
and he's been posting things online of him singing songs
he's in Yes on Instagram, Yes, and it's so please
watch it. It's so cute. The whole time he was
driving big Brown home, he was like, he's got his
camera on his little dashboard and he's like, yeah, PLEASESE
really let me go. It's so cute to me. Now,
(26:08):
Veronica Mars is when I first became aware of you,
and that was a big success for you, and then
you did good place, you know, and you also come
from a generation of people which are a lot more
self disclosing about some of the things you've gone through
in your life. And I'm like, you know, a long
time ago, when I was first coming, there were people
who they just stayed behind that wall like you were
(26:28):
never going to find that anything about their private life.
And also there were publicity arms of studios and networks
that worked aggressively to protect the reputations of their stars.
That does not exist anymore, as opposed to Warner Brothers,
where you go down one hallway and there's the movie division,
and you go down another hallway and there's the TV division.
Then you got in another hallway and TMZ is there.
(26:49):
Come on, I know I have such an issue with
that as well. I'm like, how do you run all
of these organizations? Why do you want me to work
for you? And then you're trying to kill me. I
could not agree more. My husband and I just agree
on things in the world. We argue all the time,
but we do not go to bed angry, and we
have a beautiful marriage and we are able to make
it work because we have this mutual respect. We have
(27:10):
a desire for vulnerability. When we first started dating, we
tried to keep it secret because we didn't want to
be hunt. That was when like TMC was starting, you know,
liket and fourteen years ago, and they were starting to
like hunt people really on the street with cameras and
it was scary and it just feels predator and prey um.
But after a while, especially when social media you sort
of started to own it and you were able to
(27:31):
post your own things. We kind of went through this
little metamorphosis. Not with our children because we keep them
very separated and we keep them very private. But I
have a big, big maternal chip on my shoulder, and
I feel like if I'm okay being vulnerable and talking
about my flaws and my marriage, especially if it can
(27:52):
be an example for someone else, so I'm ready to, Like,
I guess I'm willing to take that hit. Like Jax
and I talked about what we fight about public lee,
I talk about my fears and anxiety, about the fact
that I suffer from anxiety and depression. And every time
I'm honest and vulnerable, the reaction that I get not
from like the TMZ crewd but the reaction I get
from just uh engagement with fans or on social media
(28:15):
or whatever is always positive and it keeps me going
and a reminder of like, oh yeah, we're really looking
to connect. And I suppose that I've just put the
connecting with people above any sort of like clandestine existence
that I could give you, because I wouldn't be good
at that anyway. I'm too much of a talker, you
know what I mean. It doesn't bother me so much
(28:37):
to be such an open book. I kind of like it.
But I also think that what is the silver lining
of some kind of social media like Instagram. Well, it's
kept the paparazzi away from my house because I'm posting
all the pictures online myself. Yeah, exactly, I've preempted that.
There's nothing you can get unless my wife is pregnant,
unless you get me, you know, slipping on the ice
and falling on my ass or something, you know, something
that you're after. But hopefully your wife will post that
(28:59):
picture of you calling and they still won't have to
get it. You know, my wife would make a movie
out of that. Believe she loves to let the air
out of me, she always say. But one thing about
this age, of this kind of self disclosure is that
it gives me a chance. I'm going to tell the story.
I want to talk about how I didn't drink and
I didn't take drugs all through high school, very little
minimum because I couldn't afford it. I didn't have any money.
(29:21):
And when I finally had money in my pocket from
working in this business I had. If I had a
hundred bucks in my pocket, I was like, well, let's
go have that drug and alcohol problem we've been putting
off for the last five years. You know. But what
do you say to people in terms of how they
can seek help. Do you actively try to support people
that way and say you've got to go and ask
for help? Oh you mean, like if I'm talking about
like anxiety and depression or or or anything like that,
(29:44):
anything whatever the issue is. Oh yeah, well, I mean, look,
I'm also like having just come out of like early
stage motherhood. I you know, there's so much of I
did not experience it, but I know the world of
like feeling insecure as a new mom, And you're not
doing this right. So I try to be very clear
in that there are many different ways to find a
(30:06):
solution to a problem. Let's just start with the basic math, right,
some people, we know people. We have people in common
that have stopped drugs and alcohol that have not gone
to a a and we we also have people in
common that did need it, like you know, my husband does.
And there are many different ways to find a solution.
So if it's like someone saying I'm depressed or anxious
(30:26):
or I'm having problems in my marriage, if I were
to respond, or if I were to say anything on
the subject, it would be There are a variety of
resources out there for talking about anxiety and depression. One
is um talk to someone close in your family, open
up more, start exercising. Exercising is one of the best
things you can do for your mental health. You can
talk to a psychologist or a psychiatrist, a medication maybe
(30:48):
in your future, it may not be because that's not
the only way. That's how I solve it. I've been
on an antidepressant for years, but that's not for everyone,
and I'm very clear about that. Um And then I'm
also just a big I'm a therapy pusher. I love therapy.
I am. I think it's Yeah, I think it's great.
I mean also, I'm not opposed to any of the
new kinds. I just don't know much about them. But
(31:09):
I know when I know. I have a therapist who
the first time I sat down with him, his name
is Harry. He's an excellent human being. I started talking
and he said, doing his hold on the second, I'm
just gonna tell you, if you want me to take
your hundred dollars percession and listen to you event I
am so here for you. If you'd like a solution,
just let me know. And I was like, uh, who, what?
Who does this man think? He is being so blunt
(31:31):
with me? But I was also very attracted to that
kind of personality, which is obviously why I married my husband.
The blunt cut to the chase talkers because I'm not
that person. I'm a rambler. So when I said that,
I I mean when he said that, I was so intrigued.
I was like, well, wait a minute. Of course I
want a solution. He was like, Okay, well I can
tell you this. You plus this issue equals chaos. Are
(31:52):
you in the rumor? Is this issue in the room?
And I was like, okay, um, I guess this issue
is in the room. This person or thing I was
talking about I am, and it just I like the
idea that are there are solutions out there. I'm a
I'm a fixer, and I get very excited about Okay,
well that's not working. Pivot find a new way to
do it, because there's always a better way to do it.
(32:15):
Kristen Bell last year she launched Happy Dance, a CBD
bath and body product line designed specifically to offer some
self care for other busy moms that She recently published
her first children's book, The World Needs More Purple People,
in hopes of encouraging more conversations in these polarized times
(32:36):
about what we have in common. More on that after
the break. If you like Here's the Thing, don't keep
it to yourself. Tell a friend. You can subscribe to
Here's the Thing on the I Heart radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your podcasts. While you're there, leave
us a review. Thanks for listening. I'm Alec Baldwin and
(33:06):
you're listening to Here's the Thing. Actor Kristen Bell has
been with her husband, actor Dax Shepherd since two thousand seven.
The two are very open about the good, the bad,
and the challenges of a long term relationship. I wanted
to ask Kristen if it helps to have a partner
who was also in the business. Yeah. I mean, you know,
(33:27):
both of us have ego sensitivity issues and it sort
of depends on how often we've worked. If one of
us hasn't worked in six months, one of us can
start to feel low. But again we're both aware of
that because of therapy. I would say for the most part,
I see it as a plus. And perhaps that's because
of who the man Dax is um but I know
(33:47):
that he like we're not. He doesn't get down on
me about hours because he knows. If I say I'm
home at three, the scene could take till ten. It's
nice not to have to deal with confusion if you
have someone who's working a nine to five. Just nice
to be with somebody that gets and it gets it.
And also Dax is a really good director. He has
written and directed a couple of movies. He wrote like
a love letter to me are. His first movie was
(34:08):
this UM independent movie called Hit and Run, and it
was about a guy who was in UH witness protection
program and his girlfriend finds out and they have to
go on this chase away from the bad guys, and
it's like does she want to go? Does she still
trust him? And it literally was a metaphor for our
first year of dating. I didn't know what a drug
addict was or how they operated. I mean I grew
(34:30):
up in a small town in Michigan, just outside of Detroit,
where it was like, well, drugs are bad, bad people
do drugs and that was the end of the conversation.
And I didn't understand anything about addiction. So when he
used to sit at the dinner table again and tell
me like, oh, this one time I I did seventy pills.
I lost three days and I didn't show up for Christmas.
I would be so terrified. And I didn't. I was like,
(34:52):
how can I trust you? And he's like, well, but
that's not me anymore. Anyways. Cut to Harry saying, you
know what, all she needs to hear You're saying how
it was is. All she needs to hear is how
it is now. You need to have that last sentence
on the end of your story. And by the way,
I didn't show it for Christmas. Wow, I'm so glad
I don't do that anymore. Then she won't freak out.
But the point is I was really I had a
lot of trust issues with him our first year, and
(35:15):
so he wrote this story about this girl who doesn't
who finds something out about her partner and doesn't think
she can trust him. And the point is he's a
very good director. I trust his creativity implicitly, so I
can have him read things. He coaches me on auditions,
and that's a very safe space for me to be
in because he can give me some really hard direction
(35:35):
or just saying you're doing too much or you're you're
trying too hard, and I know he wants what's best
for me, so I'm able to get really difficult direction
and do a better job in my career because of him. Now,
one last question, tell us about the world needs more
purple people with Benjamin hartrist And I'm not a writer.
(35:55):
I am an orator at best, and barely that. But
I did write a children's book this year with one
of my best friends, ben Heart. Um. It came from
our personal experience of seeing our kids together and seeing
it just a very polarizing political culture seep into our
kids daily lives of our kids were seeing in us
and them and even at our dinner table, we were
(36:17):
getting heated when we were talking about things. This is
you know, over the last five years, four years, and
we wanted to create some language, uh and in a
children's book to help. And so, I mean, it's not
crazy far off to understand that red plus blue equals purple.
But it's just we didn't want our kids looking around
and seeing enemies. We wanted them to see constructive conversations
(36:38):
even within disagreements. We wanted a social identity that positions
them towards their fellow humans. And so we tried to
come up with five great pillars that no one could
argue with on any side, and being purple means asking
really great questions, laughing a lot, using your voice, being
a hard worker, but also being totally and uniquely you
and attentive to your own experiences. So we really just
(37:01):
we didn't want any of this corrosive political divide to
seep into our kids. We want it. It's it's it's
not about anything other than looking towards your fellow human beings,
listening to their experiences and telling them yours. And we
like to say, the only way to be purple is
to just be you, because you're the only you we've got.
And it's not you know, it's not a secret that
(37:22):
we wrote it for kids, because if we wrote it
for adults, the kids wouldn't read it. But if we
wrote it for kids, the adults would have to read
it to them. So it's just a polite reminder that
there's not en us in them. And we can still disagree,
and we can still use our voice, but we got
to live together, and it's okay if you disagree with people,
and it's okay if someone has a different experience, and
(37:44):
you should want to hear as many stories as possible.
But we wanted our kids to have a social identity
that positions them towards their fellow human beings are good,
I think so. I can tell yeah, it's one of
the things I'm most confident in. Actor Kristen Bell. She's
been working on a new movie with Vince Vaughan called
(38:05):
Queen Pins During Quarantine. It's about a pair of housewives
who run a multimillion dollar coupon scam. I'm Alec Baldwin.
Here's the Thing. Is brought to you by I Heart Radio.
We're produced by Kathleen Russo and Carrie Donohue. Our editor
is Zach mcneie and our engineer is Frank Imperial. Our
theme song is by Miles Davis.
Host
Alec Baldwin
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