Feature: The Good Place for The Wrap Comedy Issue

Kristen & Ted were featured on The Wrap’s digital magazine featuring the biggest comedy contenders for the upcoming TV Awards seasons. Check out the photos and digital scans of the article.

  
 

Heaven or hell? Devil or angel? And does it even matter?

NBC’s delightful comedy series “The Good Place” started out as a vision of paradise, albeit a rather odd and completely secular paradise; it ended its first season with the show-shattering reveal that our human characters had actually been spending their time in a radical new version of hell designed to get them to torture each other rather than leaving that job to the pros.

And in Season 2, the show from “Parks and Recreation” creator Mike Schur kept upending itself in the most delicious of ways.

This is a show that can make hell kind of charming and give a fun, cuddly twist to the afterlife. Kristen Bell somehow makes us root for a woman whose self-obsession knows no bounds but who’s smarter and maybe even nicer than she lets on. Ted Danson was a scene stealer even in the first season as a human-torturing demon who had to hide his true nature from the other characters and from the audience.

(Granted, words like demon may not be appropriate for an altogether nonreligious and bureaucratic afterworld; he’s middle management at best, and not very good at his job of torturing humans.)

On a break early in the filming of Season 3, Bell and Danson discussed the pleasures and challenges of a show that delights in blowing up its own premise over and over. (Warning: spoilers ahead.)

Season 2 must have been a real kick for you, Ted, because you finally got to…
TED DANSON Be who I am. Yeah, it was really fun. And it was easier to find the funny, because funny usually is this kind of triangular thing between you, another character and the audience. But I had no relationship to the audience in Season 1. They never saw me in a private moment, or I would have been twirling my mustache.

Would you have taken the part without the knowledge that eventually you were going to get to show who this guy really is?
DANSON Oh, I would have done it. I signed on before I saw a script. I knew that Kristen was likely going to do it. I then listened to Mike Schur empty his mind for an hour and tell me everything he knew about the show and the twist. And I really signed up for Mike Schur.

KRISTEN BELL He can tell a story with detail that is frightening, like a computer. “Here’s what I want to do in Episode 9, and it’s a callback to Episode 6…” And I’m like, “You haven’t even written the pilot, bro! Slow down!”

DANSON Is this the first job you’ve taken when you haven’t read a script?

BELL Yeah. Wow. Yeah. We were sold on the idea, with the twist, and with his commitment to cliff-hangers and pulling the rug out from under people. I just thought, “What a goal. Let him try, I’d love to be a part of it.” [More at source]

07 / 07 / 2018

Feature: Kristen Bell for Shape Magazine November 2017

   

Kristen Bell is a champion multitasker. During this interview, for instance, the actress and mom of two is talking on the phone, eating granola, and driving home after a busy day of filming her NBC comedy, The Good Place. Simultaneously, Kristen is planning out the rest of the day in her head, including a wardrobe fitting, picking up her kids from school, and making dinner, among a thousand other things. She squeezes in exercise the same way: “At work, while I’m running through lines with my fellow actors, I’ll be leaning backward on a chair doing triceps dips,” says Kristen, 37. “At home, when my kids and I are on a walk, and they’re meandering and looking at leaves, I’ll do lunges. I get it in however and whenever I can.” (Here’s how to squeeze in a workout during your lunch break.)

Health is a huge priority for Kristen, who cares deeply about the food she puts in her body and makes being active with her daughters one of her top goals. “To me, being healthy means feeling good about the choices I’m making,” she says. “And most important, it’s about keeping fit mentally and physically. I’m constantly reminding myself that it’s not about my thighs: It’s about my commitment and my happiness level.”

Good thing, then, that Kristen is feeling really happy these days. There’s her thriving career—besides The Good Place, she is starring in the movie A Bad Moms Christmas, in theaters November 3, and reprising her role as the voice of Anna in Frozen 2, which goes into production next year—her #couplegoals marriage to actor Dax Shepard; and her two adorable daughters, Lincoln, 4, and Delta, 2 1/2. She’s also committed to doing good and giving back: Kristen is the cofounder of This Bar Saves Lives, a company that donates a lifesaving nutritional packet to a child in need for every bar sold. (She helped two families get to shelter during Hurricane Irma too.)

Where does she find the hours, let alone the energy, for all that? Well, pasta and pizza definitely help. “Carbs—I love ’em!” she says. But a masterful game plan is also required. Here are Kristen’s secrets for maximizing time—and having a blast along the way. [More at Source]

 

Digital Scans > 2017 > Shape – November
Photo Sessions > 2017 > Set 013
10 / 13 / 2017

Feature: Kristen Bell for Redbook October

    

Its mid-day on a Thursday in sunny Los Angeles, and Kristen Bell is sprawled out on her bed “taking a deep breath,” she says over the phone. For good reason: She’s been in motion for much of the past two months, shuttling between Atlanta — where she’s been filming the sequel to last year’s hit movie Bad Moms—and Los Angeles (the daughters she shares with husband Dax Shepard, Lincoln, 4, and Delta, 2, in tow), where she’s shooting the second season of her smart NBC sitcom The Good Place. “Simultaneously” — which is a word Bell uses often, and for good reason — she’s been doing voiceover work for a bunch of things, but mainly the much anticipated sequel to Frozen, in which she will reprise her role as Princess Anna. She was taping lines for attractions at Disneyland Tokyo this morning before she decided to rush home to lie down. “I was like, ‘I could sit in my car, or I could take the extra 10 minutes to drive home and lie in my bed,'” she explains. “Self-care,” she says, her voice only slightly muffled by pillows. “I really believe in self-care.”

This kind of stream-of-consciousness sharing is one of Kristen’s great charms, and it’s why the actress has carved out a reputation for being as open as a 24-hour diner. “Humans want nothing more than to be accepted, and I’m no different. That doesn’t happen by presenting perfection,” she tells me. “I believe in showing your dirty hands and your bumps and bruises and your faults, because that’s what makes people feel connected — and isn’t that kind of the purpose of, you know, being on Earth?” Here’s more of that kind of wisdom from Bell. [Source]

09 / 30 / 2017

Feature: Kristen Bell for Emmy Magazine

   

Spreading out a blanket under a tree in L.A.’s Griffith Park, Kristen Bell kicks off her shoes, plops down and slathers sunscreen on her two towheaded daughters, Lincoln, three, and Delta, almost two, who play with Legos and a puzzle and occasionally wander off to explore.

“Mommy has to talk for a while, so let me know if you need my attention,” the star of the hit summer send-up Bad Moms explains in a decidedly good-mom sort of way, as her sister-in-law keeps a watchful eye. “I just want to give you the heads-up, okay? I will be talking.” [Source]

09 / 18 / 2016