Kristen Bell Biography

Quick Facts

NAME: Kristen Bell
OCCUPATION: Actress
BIRTH DATE: July 18, 1980 (Age: 32)
EDUCATION: Shrine Catholic High School, New York University
PLACE OF BIRTH: Huntington Woods, Michigan
Full Name: Kristen Anne Bell
AKA: Kristen Bell
ZODIAC SIGN: Cancer

Best Known For

Kristen Bell is an American actress known for her roles on TV's Veronica Mars and in such films as Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Couples Retreat and Get Him to the Greek.

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Kristen Bell

APA Style

Kristen Bell. (2013). The Biography Channel website. Retrieved 07:34, Jun 20, 2013, from http://www.biography.com/people/kristen-bell-21145185.

Harvard Style

Kristen Bell. [Internet]. 2013. The Biography Channel website. Available from: http://www.biography.com/people/kristen-bell-21145185 [Accessed 20 Jun 2013].

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"Kristen Bell." 2013. The Biography Channel website. Jun 20 2013, 07:34 http://www.biography.com/people/kristen-bell-21145185.

MHRA Style

"Kristen Bell," The Biography Channel website, 2013, http://www.biography.com/people/kristen-bell-21145185 [accessed Jun 20, 2013].

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"Kristen Bell," The Biography Channel website, http://www.biography.com/people/kristen-bell-21145185 (accessed Jun 20, 2013).

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Kristen Bell [Internet]. The Biography Channel website; 2013 [cited 2013 Jun 20] Available from: http://www.biography.com/people/kristen-bell-21145185.

Bluebook Style

Kristen Bell, http://www.biography.com/people/kristen-bell-21145185 (last visited Jun 20, 2013).

AMA Style

Kristen Bell. The Biography Channel website. 2013. Available at: http://www.biography.com/people/kristen-bell-21145185. Accessed Jun 20, 2013.

Synopsis

Born in Michigan in 1980, Kristen Bell studied musical theater at New York University and made her Broadway debut while still a student. In 2002, she moved to Los Angeles and began appearing on TV. Film roles soon followed. In 2004, Bell landed her breakout role, the title character on the TV series Veronica Mars. This led to more roles in films, including the hit comedies Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Couples Retreat and Get Him to the Greek.

Early Years

Born on July 19, 1980, in Huntington Woods, Michigan, Kristen Bell was raised in the Detroit suburbs and became interested in acting at an early age. By age 13, Bell had secured an agent and begun acting in commercials, appearing in TV spots for OfficeMax and United Way.

Bell attended Shrine Catholic High School in Royal Oak, Michigan, where she played Dorothy in a production of The Wizard of Oz and appeared in several musicals. After high school, Bell studied musical theater at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts and made her Broadway debut while still a student, in a musical version of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Off-Broadway, she took the lead role of Mary Lane in an adaptation of the legendary 1930s film Reefer Madness called Reefer Madness: The Musical. Her film debut came in 1998 in an uncredited spot in the indie film Polish Wedding, which was filmed in Detroit.

The Move to L.A.

In 2002, Bell's career got a jolt when she was cast in a Broadway production of Arthur Miller's The Crucible, which starred Laura Linney and Liam Neeson. Soon after, she moved to Los Angeles and immediately landed a guest role on the hard-hitting crime show The Shield as the girlfriend of a gang member. With her career starting to really roll, Bell soon appeared on NBC's American Dreams and the WB Network's Everwood and in TV-movies. In 2004, Bell was in David Mamet's Spartan and had a recurring role on HBO's hugely popular drama Deadwood. But for another reason, 2004 would be the year that would change Bell's life: She landed the lead role on the new TV show Veronica Mars, which would run for 64 episodes and draw a rabid cult following.

Over the course of the show's four seasons, Bell was nominated for several awards and took home the Saturn Award for Best Actress on Television in 2006. The success of Veronica Mars led Bell to film parts, and a year into the series she reprised her role in Reefer Madness: The Movie Musical in a Showtime adaptation, following that with roles in small films such as Deepwater (2005), Fifty Pills (2006) and Pulse (2006). (To boot, in 2006 PETA named Bell the World's Sexiest Vegetarian and Maxim added her to a plethora of "sexiest" lists as well.)

Finding Her Stride

While keeping busy with films, Bell managed to find even more television success in 2007 (the year Veronica Mars came to an end) when she took on narration duties on Gossip Girl and joined the hit show Heroes.