"Melting Our Hearts"

Kristen Bell made her breakthrough with her role in the science fiction TV series Veronica Mars. She has since garnered roles on TV series like Gossip Girl and House of Lies, as well as in films like Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Couples Retreat and When In Rome.

Now the 33 year-old’s latest role is as Anna in the Disney’s newest CGI animated film Frozen. Based on The Little Mermaid author Hans Christian Anderson’s fable The Snow Queen.

In the film, Anna must find her sister Elsa, a queen with wintry powers who goes into self-exile after turning the entire kingdom into a winter wonderland. But Bell says she and the actress who plays Elsa, Idina Manzel, became so close during the making of the film that they became like sisters.

“She is,” Kristen says, “She was so intimidating to me to begin with simply because I didn’t know her personally and her skill set is so alien to any other skill set. I mean, she is one of the best singers on the planet, in my opinion. I can hold a tune, don’t get me wrong,” she continues, “And I studied music and I’m very proud of my capabilities. But she has something that…there’s a ferocity…it’s just next level. There are a couple of singers on the planet who kind of have the ability, and that you can’t practice. Like, I can practice and I can emphasize my range a few notes on the bottom, a few notes on the top.”

“Her belting comes from her guts, her heaven,” she continues, “So I was really intimidated when I first met her, especially because she plays stronger, tougher characters. But she’s so warm in real life that it was just a treat because I was really nervous around her to begin with. And she was able to comfort me really quickly. And we would rehearse at her house like by her piano, which of course, I was like exploding. I’m

"Melting Our Hearts"

like, what am I doing here? And after I’d sing my verse she’d go, ‘You sounded really good.’ And I’d be like, looking for someone, ‘Did anybody see what she said to me?’ It’s really cool to be able to sing with her.”

Kristen was asked if she had siblings of her own, understood the rivalry inherent in that, and what it was like growing up with that.

“It was all phases for the three of us,” she says, “Sometimes we got along splendidly, and other times we fought like crazy. I was the baby so I looked up to everything that they did, when they taught me how to peg leg my jeans in the ’80s. We were at odds sometimes and they were lovely sometimes. And one year I had been really lazy about my Halloween costume, which I rarely ever am, and at the last minute decided I wanted to be Madonna, and they surprised me with making me a pair of, like, tattered jeans and sewing bows and all this crazy Madonna stuff all over it. And again, when my sisters were nice to me, it was some of the best moments of my childhood. And then they did other things where, like, they would put me in a laundry basket and push me down the stairs, you know? Or we would play Bloody Mary in the bathroom and they would, like, they’d hand you an, uh, uh, imaginary baby and I would grab it and they’d gasp, ‘You dropped it!’ And I’d go, ‘No, no, I didn’t! I didn’t! I have the baby!’ And they’d go “Oh my gosh, you dropped it!” And I’m like, “No, no!” And they would go, “You know what? If you don’t run up and down the stairs sixty times in sixty seconds you’re going to die in your sleep.’”

“I mean, they were horrible,” Bell adds, “They ping-ponged in

"Melting Our Hearts"

between being angels and devils. But I think the greatest thing about growing up with siblings is that you actually have someone to go through it with, to feel like you’re not alone, because growing up is the pits. I mean, you forget as an adult. And I so often play young characters that I have to get into that mindset. And man, it sucks, you guys. Your body hurts. Your hormones are wonky. No one understands you. Your parents are embarrassing idiots. And you just, you cannot catch a break! And then pimples come and you’re like, ‘Oh my God! What is this life?’ But if you have siblings you kind of have people um, you know, in the same lifeboat as you. It’s really special, I think.”

Being released in a more modern era where women have been more accepted as equals, Frozen has been praised for being a Disney princess story that lives more up to the modern female paradigm. Bell was asked if it was that aspect of the story that made her willing to do the film.

“That was not the Anna I read, at all,” she replies, “My whole goal obviously was I’ve always wanted to be a Disney princess because I’m an American girl and that’s what you’re supposed to want. But I never saw a Disney heroine or an animated heroine that was like me, that was awkward and spoke too fast and spoke before she thought and tripped and said a lot of dumb stuff, and was vivacious and eternally optimistic and adventurous, and I never saw all of those qualities. I saw vague interpretations of them, but I knew that I always wanted to be that type of character, if I ever was allowed to. And I met Chris Buck and the ironies when we first sat down, he said, “I’m working on a, um, just a very, a very traditionally Disney

"Melting Our Hearts"

story.” And this, and I have a, a very traditional musical theatre voice. And he said, “I think your voice would fit it, and, um, this would be great.” And I think this story is anything but traditional. I think it, it takes a sharp left turn just like The Little Mermaid did where you don’t just want the prince, you want a whole new world, and you want things more than true love or what the 1950s told you should want. “

“And I think, when I read Anna, she was on an adventure, but she was very different than this,” Kristen adds, “She was not snooty, but she was more of a princess, and I say that as an adjective. I never wanted to play a girl with good posture, like I didn’t want to play that. And so, I just asked Jen and Chris is I could add stuff and I was like, I was like, ‘She should snort right here,’ or, ‘Let me just say, open the microphone up and let me just say a bunch of stuff here. Or I’ll talk to myself,’ because I talked to myself all the time growing up, and I still talk to myself in my car, and they kept it in. And then when she woke up, like, the first time you see Anna as an adult when she woke up it just said she wakes up, yeah. And then, they pressed record and I started doing it and I was, like, coughing and snorting, which is what I do when I wake up. And then, I was like had some of my hair in my mouth, which if you’re a girl you know. Your hair is probably in your mouth and then, when she falls back asleep I always do that because I hit snooze like six times. I’m up two hours before I have to get out of bed,

"Melting Our Hearts"

because I love hitting snooze. And so I wanted her to sit up and fall asleep and then pretend like she wasn’t and all these things they just kept letting me add.”

It was commented to Kristen about how much the animated face of Anna seems to be modeled off of her.

“I’ve only seen it once,” Bell answers, “So maybe I just have to look closely, because my sister-in-law saw it with me a couple of weeks ago and she said the same thing. She’s like, ‘It resembles you,’ and I don’t see it yet, but maybe I have to see it one more time.”

The story of Frozen was set in Norway. Bell was asked if she had ever been to the country and did she get any inspiration from there.

“No, but I would love to,” she says, “I mean, everything I got was the research that their team brought back, which was all these gorgeous fjord pictures and, and of the actual, um, traditional outfits and the traditional ice picks that Kristoff uses all, and the housing.”

“And we would have influence sessions where they would poster board the room with pictures of what the actual was,” Kristen continues, “And then how they wanted to interpret it and how it was going to be color-timed, and so I took it all from that. But I love cold weather. I’m the only living member of California that doesn’t appreciate the weather or sushi. Because I am from Detroit and I really like cold weather, so that appealed to me. But no, I haven’t seen it firsthand.”

Kristen was asked if she herself was a girly girl, considering she’s in a princess story.

“No,” Bell replies, “They don’t really talk about the fact that they’re princesses, not really. I mean I’ve got tennis shoes on under the table because we’re done with pictures. I still had to wear this dress because I didn’t want to look

"Melting Our Hearts"

like a dingbat when I’m presenting these interviews to y’all, but no, not really.”

Of course, this wouldn’t be a Kristen Bell interview without questions regarding a sequel movie in the works to the Veronica Mars TV series, of which the funds were raised completely by fans on Kickstarter.

“I’ve ping-ponged between knowing it was going to happen, because I am eternally optimistic,” Bell says, “Because that’s the only way to live, I mean. But it didn’t seem very realistic for most of the last seven years. [Creator] Rob [Thomas] had this idea about kick starter. I was familiar with kick starter and I think his agent told him to, to fund it that way. But we spent a lot of time going through rewards because we wanted to make sure people wanted to do it. So we said, OK, we’ll sign 6,000 posters, not five hundred. And we’ll, I’ll do a thousand outgoing messages and we’re going, when we actually do those rewards, which of course will be over the next couple of months ’cause we have, like, seven or eight months to deliver, I’ll spend a good three or four weeks doing people’s outgoing voice messages. Which, sure, fine, but that’s the only way to get the movie done. We wanted to really have it be an exchange of love and not just a give us your money, because, I mean, I understand that that’s the backlash people have gotten out of Kickstarter. But at the same time the reality is we didn’t go gun, we didn’t go to anyone’s house and put a gun to their head, like, no one had to give money. I’m allowed to give money to causes I want to and causes, artistic ventures, however you want to say. And we did not want to take advantage of our fans at all. And so what’s, we are desperate to deliver something that they’re satisfied with.

"Melting Our Hearts"

I have confidence in Rob Thomas because I think, besides being one of the best writers out there, um, he’s a real, uh, selfless writer. For instance, Logan was not supposed to be, not intended to be Veronica’s love interest in the slightest. He was supposed to be an antagonist the whole series. But girls started freaking out on message boards about Logan, man, I mean, flipping out. And he was obviously, I have to make them, I have to put them together. This is what the audience wants, and that’s how he writes. He’s a charming, selfless writer. He wrote a movie that the audience would want to see. So I hope that they like it. We have a lot of cool cameos. We have all the whole old gang is back together and it was so much fun because we all have mini-mes now.”

“One actor’s kid is playing with my kid who’s playing with Jason [Dohring]‘s kid who’s playing with Ryan [Hansen]‘s kid,” she continues, “It was so much fun. Um, and I really, really hope people like it because my first and utmost priority is that the fans feel like it was worth it. Um, and we did our damndest when people came to set to make it worth it. And we, I, I had lunch, honestly I probably had lunch with seven hundred people, um, because they were, they bought tickets to set and we wanted to give ‘em a cool experience and it was a lot of work, man, but it was worth it. It was worth it. Our fans are what got us a third season, you know. And I was very pregnant when we did Kickstarter, so about ten percent of my focus was on, like I hope we have Kickstarter money. But, um, but, but Rob was really nervous that we had been listening to the

"Melting Our Hearts"

same twenty superfans under different Twitter handles. And I understood him to a point, but then I realized your job is to ask the questions that your readers want to know. And I haven’t done a single interview in the last seven years where one of your colleagues hasn’t followed it up with, “And will there ever be a Veronica Mars movie?” So deducing that you’re asking what the audience wants to know, I was trying to calm Rob’s fears about, I was like, “No, they’re out there. They’re out there. Trust me.’ And man, were they out there.”

Bell was asked if it would be easy to slip back into the character of Veronica Mars for the new film.

“She reflects the snarky side of my personality for sure,” Kristen feels, “I’m like 50% Anna, 50% Veronica. It really depends on the day and the time of the month. But I was really nervous that I couldn’t get back into her just because nerves exist. There wasn’t any specific reason. I was like, I haven’t done it in this long, but man, Rob Thomas writes dialogue that already exists in my head. I’ve always said that about him. He’s the only writer where I can look at it, read it once, it can be a monologue and I have it. It’s alien. And I was really excited to play her but I was nervous that I wouldn’t have, like, her charm or her snark or whatever, but I don’t know. He said, ‘I did all right, so I’m hoping.’ I hope so. She’s curvy, man. She is a different body shape, because I had a baby nine weeks prior. But hey, listen. You know what? People’s bodies change.”

Kristen was asked if she looks forward to when her daughter can see Frozen.

“Yeah,” Bell replies, “I hope she likes it.”