Sunday Sitdown with Willie Geist - Kristen Bell

Episode Date: November 24, 2019

Kristen Bell returns to the big screen this weekend as the voice of Anna in “Frozen 2,” the highly-anticipated sequel to the original “Frozen” movie which became a billion-dollar sensation six years ago. In this week’s “Sunday Sitdown,” Willie Geist gets together with Bell to talk about reprising that role, the final season of her hit show “The Good Place” and her marriage to fellow actor Dax Shepard. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey guys, Willie Geist here with another episode of the Sunday Sitdown podcast. My thanks, as always, for clicking and listening along. We've got another great thing for this week. Kristen Bell is my guest. She is the star, among many other things, of Frozen 2, the animated behemoth that made more than a billion dollars in its first run about six years ago. Back with the sequel in Frozen 2 now. The producer of this fine podcast, Maggie Law is with me, as always. Hey, Maggie?

Also, the producer of the Kristen Bell interview. Joelle Garjula, who's doing a little like shoulder shake. He's excited to be here. I believe this is the Sunday Sitdown debut from Joel. Thank you for having me. And you took your introduction better than any guests we've had with the shoulder shake. She's also wearing a fur coat. I knew you were going to say something about this jacket.

Joelle always brings it. Always brings it. I'm going to put my glasses on for this. Joelle, let's talk about Kristen Bell. Let's. She's one of those people when her name was floated out. Like, can we get her on Sunday? We were all like, we have to.

It was a collective, yes. There's just so much there. Not only her work, Frozen 2, The Good Place, Veronica Marr, she's the voice of gossip girl, bad moms. I mean, forgetting Sarah Marshall, like there's a long list of stuff. But also beyond that, there's just something about her that's so appealing. I think because she's real. Yeah. Right?

And you don't always get that in Hollywood. True. And there is an authentic realness to her that, man, she did not shy away from things during this interview. No. And I'd like that. You know, sometimes you could tell people are thinking while they're answering things. And she gave it to you. Yes.

There was no, Maggie, there was no, like, spin. There was no. She's like, whatever you want to ask me, she's like, I'm very open. Just give it to you straight. About my marriage, I'll tell you the story about the night we met. I think that's kind of what she's, like, been known for right now. It's just being open about her marriage or anxiety, like her children and everything like that.

And then you're right. That's real. And it's like, why people love her so much. I have to say, everybody wait until the end. She drops a bomb. at the end. Do you remember, Willis? Yes, I do. Yes, I do. But you have to wait until the end. You do have to wait and see. Oh, it's so good. It's so good. We did this interview in the famed tavern on the green. Yep. Right on the west side of Central Park. We almost got lucky because it was kind of rainy, maybe going to snow. We thought we were going to have a frozen winterland. Yep. No, instead, a instead, a little sleet.

Yeah, no, instead, we brought in a giant snow machine. You can't see it. There's just snow. all around us for the full frozen. In fact, no, there wasn't. But she is, you guys were both obsessed, Maggie, with her look. Oh, yes. I have to confess, I've, she looked the same to me as always, which is good. I just didn't see anything. No, she really, like, brought it for her New York press tour.

Oh, yeah. Like, she was in amazing clothes. She got a sleek bob. Like, she was on fire. The bob was everything. Yeah. For others watching, listening right now, the bob is a haircut. Yes, yes, yes.

Short haircut. Yeah. See, we know that. Yes. But maybe some of your. There are very sharp. Don't know that. I just was staring at her.

Yeah. It was just, she just looked amazing. Yeah. She's got, she also has this show on Disney Plus called Encore. Yep. Yeah. Which is really cool.

The idea of like reuniting old high school productions from like 50 years or 30 years ago, getting them back together and having to put the show on again. And she's executive producing that too. Yeah. Yeah. This is like a major passion project of hers now. She just has that one of those kinetic minds where it's like, She's talking a lot because she's thinking a lot. She's got a lot going on.

She has another idea for each wants to do this and that. And talked about that balance of putting her life out there, but also protecting her kids at the same time and not talking about them or showing pictures of them. She's just fun to talk with. Can I make a prediction? Yeah. I think she will eventually go into the whole talk show arena. Oh, yeah. You know, following Kelly Clarks and maybe her and Dax.

Sure. That feels like an actual progression for her. Yes. I'd watch that. And Dax has one of the most popular. podcast, by the way. Yes. Of all of them.

Of all of them. Armchair expert. So without further ado, now on the Sunday Sit Down podcast, the great Kristen Bell. Kristen, thanks for doing this. Thanks for having me. A little cocoa on a cold day in New York City. Why not? Why not?

Let's do it. Let's do it. Okay, so Frozen 2, congratulations. Thank you. No pressure whatsoever. The first was the biggest animated movie in the history of time. Was it? Something like that.

Made $1.3 billion, I think, around. the world. Yeah. So how are you feeling going into this next chapter of the story? You know, I'm almost too much like my character because I actually don't feel any pressure because I'm just a firm believer that if you if you bake a cake on Monday and you use the same ingredients on Tuesday, chances are it's going to taste great, you know? And I couldn't think of a more qualified group to handle this story than the people who did it the first time around. They're incredibly diligent about how they tell the story, and this is definitely, we took so long to do the second one because they didn't just want it to be like episode

two. Right. Insert random storyline here. They really thought about what the next pivotal moment in these characters' lives would be and what would tell the audience, you know, a story and also have some lessons and some metaphors, and I'm really, really proud of it. But I never felt pressure at all. It's exciting, though, right?

So exciting. Because it's been six years-ish since the last one was released. So you have. You've been away for a while. Not really, though, because we've performed together a couple times, Josh, Adina and Jonathan and I. And also, we started working on the second one like a year and a half after the first one came out. These take like three or four years to make. So it doesn't really feel like it ever left. It feels like it left to the world, but to us, we've still been working on it.

It's been with you. Yeah. So where do we find Anna right now without giving too much of the story away? I'll give you everything. You can just spill the whole thing. right now, preemptively? Well, what I will tell you is this. Before the story was written, Chris and Jen, our directors,

they went to see a psychiatrist, a psychologist, about the girls and what their issues would be and how they were different and how they were similar. And then Jen, Lee, our writer, journaled as the characters for months before she ever wrote the script. It's incredible the amount of, like, honorable authenticity to the human experience that goes into this. They're not just telling stories about a cartoon.

The movie opens on Arundel. Everything is seemingly perfect. It opens on this song called Some Things Never Change, which is obviously because everything's about to change. And we're in Arundel for about 10 o'clock minutes before we leave and go on this pretty epic, dangerous adventure. And Anna is very happy in Arundel, so this is out of her comfort zone. And what was fascinating is I really wanted to explore online.

honest co-dependency in this movie. So it's something I suffer from a little bit. And when, you know, you have a character who wears her heart on her sleeve and lives for everyone else and thinks love is her superpower, you know, what does she do when she's down and out? How does she handle herself when she's alone? Yeah. And, I mean, it's interesting you say you wanted this for that character because I think

most people assume about actors or animated film actors, too, that you go in, you read the sheet, here's your part, and you go home for the day, you really, and not just this movie, the previous, had a big voice in shaping who Anna is. Yeah, sometimes that's the case. But when the first script for Frozen was written, it was very different. It was like a loose script. Elsa was the villain, because it's based on this Hans Christian Anderson story, Anna and the Snow Queen.

And, you know, in developing it and in, like, reading all these scenes and working them through with our Disney folks, they realized, wait a minute, Elsa's way more complex. She's scared of her power. that's not villainous. That's something that needs to be explored. And with Anna, on the page, she was very standard, I guess I'd say. And when I read it, I thought, do you have a big enough mouth to go to your writers and directors and say, can I infuse this with something different, something more me?

Because I felt very strongly when I was a little girl that I didn't see myself on the screen. And representation is important for everyone. and I was a kid who was really goofy, really quirky, much weirder than the people I knew, definitely wore my heart on my sleeve and believed love was my superpower. And I wanted to play a princess that didn't have good posture. You know, I wanted to play one that talked too fast and too much, and her mouth came online before her brain caught up. So, like, when I asked if I could infuse that into the character,

and they were immediately like, yes, what else do you have, that would be great. And then I remember the line where we found her, because a lot of, of them were just improvs with Jen and Chris and I was when Hans falls onto Anna in the boat in the first sequence of the first movie, she says, which was an improv I had said in the room, this is awkward. You're not awkward, I'm awkward. You're gorgeous. Wait, what? Because she's just tangled in her words and all of a sudden it was like, oh, that's her. Right. That's exactly who she is. Which is not princessy behavior we would expect traditionally. Yeah. She would have gracefully gone to the boat and said the right thing at the right moment. But there can be all types of

of princesses. Right. You know? Right. And I wanted to represent the goofier ones. Well, you sort of anticipated my question. Did the director and the producers, they right away were into it? There was no like, this is the way it is. No. Very much into it. And in fact, it's been almost shockingly collaborative. But I will say, I find the best projects are. Because when you're really listening to everyone's collective human experience, chances are you're just going to make a better story. Like, on The Good Place, all of Mike Scher's shows its best idea wins. Whether it's from a gaffer or a prop assistant or the headwriter, its best idea wins in the scene.

And I feel like there's so many incarnations of an animated movie because it starts out with a script. Then we voice record that script. Then they pencil, draw it to paper and essentially show it to Disney on like a flipbook, you know. And then we go in and find the pivotal emotional moments and then rewrite those scenes to make them even high. higher. And you do that every three months for almost four years. And then finally towards the end, you figure out where the most heightened moments are, where the character is going through

something transformational, can't talk about it anymore that they have to sing. Even the song placement, it's not random. It's very, very well thought out. You know what else I love, and I've heard you talked about this, is the way that the men and the boys in these films talk, the way they open up. It's my favorite thing about this one. I heard you in other interviews, I think we share a parenting philosophy, which is feel your feelings.

I have a boy, too. That's okay. Say it. What is it? Put it out there. And that was the thing we also didn't see in old sort of princess or prince movies. Sure.

They were always the hero who swept in and took the girl off her feet. Yeah, and I think we've gotten away from that culturally, representing women as damsels in distress. And now we don't do that anymore. But where we've yet to go, which I think Frozen 2 accomplishes really well,

is, you know, we want girls to feel their power. We want guys to feel their feelings. And I know that's a very generic way to separate it because both people should feel both, but the way that Christoph is represented in this movie is incredibly important to me. There are, you know, he sings this song called Lost in the Woods. He's got a ton of big feelings for Anna,

and he doesn't know how to say them. And there's a line in the beginning that says, you feel your feelings and your feelings are real. just hearing that as a little boy, I hope would make a difference to people like, oh yeah, I'm allowed to have big emotions, just like a girl is allowed to. And there's two other lines, one where he rescues Anna in the midst of a battle, and he looks her in the eyes, and he says, I'm here, what do you need? He doesn't say, stand back, I've got this. He says, I'm here. What do you need? And then towards the end, when she apologizes for something, he says, it's okay, my love is not fragile. And I just think what best better representation of a solid, evolved partner could you have? And those sound like subtle things, but they make a huge difference in the way we look at boys and culture. Does that come from the actors? Is that a philosophy of the writers and the producers?

I think that everyone on the creative team, including the actors, have pretty much the same mindset, which is how can we make great entertainment and help evolve everybody? How can we make people feel safer and happy? and healthier while telling them a great story. And Jen Lee, who's our writer, is the one who chooses the words. And I think she does it so brilliantly because she's able to take a gigantic philosophy and put it into like five little words. And you've got a female director.

What does that mean to you as an actor? It's pretty cool. We actually have co-directors, Chris Buck and Jen Lee. And Jen Lee came in to write the project. and it's Jen now runs the studio. So she's got a huge job now. She literally runs all of Disney. Chris Buck is an incredibly experienced director in animation.

And they both, with their big jobs, they still, every time we come into record, they take their shoes off, they sit in that booth with us. They run the lines. They talk us through it. It's just, it's really a partnership. They make it feel like a partnership. Why do you think? Have you had time to sort of process now over the six years since the first one came out?

Have you had time to think about why it struck such a chord? Because it wasn't just a great successful movie that made a bunch of money. It was something else that rang with so many kids around the world. Well, part of it, I think, is that part of it no one will ever know, because you can make a ton of great content in TV or film, and it's just like not the right temperature on earth to receive it, you know? and then no one sees it, and it's a great piece of art that's just sort of overlooked. I think this one hit because of a couple things.

I think that we don't necessarily give kids, in my opinion, enough credit for their ability to digest complex people, complex storylines, complexity in general, and suffering. I don't think, we think we want everything to be happy for them because they're extensions of us, and, like, it's painful when my daughter's. daughters are upset. It's painful, like physically in my bones, but I have to remind myself, don't fix this for her. Just bear witness. Just be next to her. And I think that seeing a character like Elsa, who is so shy and vulnerable and also so incredibly powerful, that sort of like paradox, I think kids really identified with it and adults. I also think another reason is

most movies focus on romantic love. And it's easy and it's fun and I love watching people fall in love. I mean, it makes me feel butterflies. But the first movie focused on self-love and familial love. And those aren't explored as deeply, especially not in kids' movies or in adult movies. So I think you need to have familial love and self-love before you can even enter the realm of romantic love. And I think the fact that we put romantic love on the back burner made it a story about these sisters and their loyalty to each other

despite how different they are and about Elsa's self-love and accepting who she is and her uniqueness, I think that's maybe why people thought it was like a fresh story. We had a couple of the actors from the Broadway, the musical version of Frozen, who said it never gets old when the theater fills up and they just see a bunch of kids as Anna or Elsa or Olaf or Christoph.

Yeah. What is it like for you to see little girls so look up to these characters that you created? It's a phenomenal feeling because I feel like my main goal on this planet is to encourage happiness and reduce suffering. And when I am a part of a project like this that I think is entertaining and also has really, really good lessons in it, when I see kids getting into it, it's just thrilling. It makes me feel bubbly inside. That's also when it hit us, by the way, was the following Halloween. The movie came out and we all talk on a text chain all the time.

And, you know, sometimes we'd go in January, it would be like, wow, this movie's really hanging on, huh? We did good. And then the following Halloween, when everyone was a frozen character and 99.9 of them were Elsa, we were like, whoa, this is crazy. Yeah. And I mean, then it becomes a musical and there are all these other chapters to it. Yeah. How does it change your life? It's an interesting thing because it's not your face out there in this massive,

this massively successful project, but you are so attached to Anna. Yeah. How did it change your life and career? If it did. If it did. I mean, I think it changed me the most internally. It gave me a ton of self-esteem because I played a lot of acting roles, but none of them I've shaped as much as Anna.

None of them were a love letter to my 10-year-old self of like, it is okay to be goofy and talk too much and be really clumsy. It's okay to be the person that trips all the time. It's okay. Just laugh it off. It's okay to be the person that loves everyone they've never met. That's okay. So none of them have been as important kind of to my soul, the projects I've worked on, as this one. So I think it gave me a ton of self-esteem because it felt like I put myself out there and to see little girls love It's just, it makes me feel very loved. You've talked about that 10-year-old Kristen back in the day.

Yeah. What was she like? And was she aware that she was the stumbling, klutzy girl who loved everybody? Or was she just blissfully 10 years old? I think it was mostly blissful until I hit the teenage years. Right. And then I would find myself having a different opinion in a social group where I wouldn't want to get catty or I would be easily be able to see someone else's point of view. And I look at that now

as a gift. Like I'm very empathic and I'm proud of that. And I like the fact that I can take an opposing position and say, okay, well, let's think it through on their side. When I was 10, I think, look, I talk to myself a lot. Like I talk to myself. Yeah, I would make like audio recordings. I would sing on the audio recordings as the Disney princesses, but I would also just talk to myself, do little talk shows, just have conversations. I was a mimic. I mimicked everything. I almost had, and I still have it a little bit, this tick where if I hear, especially something in a different accent, I have to repeat it. My husband always says it's so miserable to watch Game of Thrones next to me because there's so many accents and I'm watching just going,

and he's like, shh. But I, I don't know, my ears want to do it, my mouth does it before I'm even thinking. And I was pretty clumsy, and I was always too small. to play sports to a level that would get on the team. And luckily, I found the theater, which even if you're really small, you can still do theater. Well, it sounds like you channeled all that into the right place, right, by finding acting, by finding theater. And you had people around you who understood that and supported that.

Yeah. And the theater loves weirdos. They love them. It's like, be whoever you are. I just loved. I was like, oh, that's the feeling I've been waiting for, where it's just like, yeah, you're you, I'm me, we're all different, that's cool, let's put on a show. Like, I just, it's, um, it's an electric, uh, community. So at what point then, Kristen, did you say,

I'm pretty serious about this. I'm good at it. I'm going to go to New York and go to college, because this is what I want to do. I want to do drama. When did you decide that? Like, this is going to be my thing. Never. It was never, literally never. I've stumbled into everything. The reality is, I was just a hammy kid because, What I felt really early on was that my goofiness, which was often just authentically tripping, made people laugh. And then I'd trip and I'd go, ooh, they laughed and I really liked that feeling. I felt like I was contributing something and it made me feel good. So then I started to be even goofier and try to make people laugh and play around with comedy.

And then when, you know, when you're 16 years old and you go into your high school counselor's office and they say, you need to pick a career. It's very serious. You need to pick a career. And you should pick something they love to do because you should be passionate about your 9 to 5. And I was like, great. What are my options? He's like, well, Mr. Frank, I remember.

He's like, Mr. Frank, what do you love to do? And I was like, I like, I like doing theater. He goes, theater is an optional major in college. And I was like, great, thank you so much. I'll see you later. And I just got up and left because it felt like a natural progression. My parents weren't thrilled when I left the beginning of my third year because I booked my first Broadway show.

Right. And I had a conversation with them that they didn't love, but I was like, listen, I'm not training to be a doctor. I don't have to have a license to do this. I actually have a job. I'm going to leave school. And they were like, just maybe you should. And they gave me some grief, but then they ultimately supported me, and that's why I'm here.

So you're talking about Tom Sawyer. Yeah. What was it like to walk out on a Broadway stage for? for the first time. It's someone who's probably had dreamed about it for a long time, back when you're making your tapes talking to yourself. Yeah. What was it like to stand on that stage? It was thrilling. And you know what, I'm a pretty anxious person, but what got me over all that anxiety genuinely was the community. I was lucky to be in, John Dossett played my father, who's a, here he's a huge Broadway actor. And he was so kind and so genuine. And every,

Everyone in the theater, no matter what their age, they were goofballs like me. And they loved being there. And I remember even on the days that I was really nervous, John would mess with me. He would, you know, there's a moment where Becky Thatcher, who I played, has to give Tom a doorknob. It's like a sign of her love. He'd hide it. He'd hide it. In like all the picnic blankets.

And during that number, I'd have to run around and try to find it. There's just a liveliness to theater people that I enjoy so much. Like, do you know how many times I'm here on Earth? One time. I get one trip. And I would like it to be as lively and as happy as possible. I'd say you're succeeding at that so far, at least from the outside. It looks like you are.

I mean, I don't think I have a bad score. You're trending well in the right direction. So was there along the way there, was there ever a chance you were going to be? going to be anything other than an actor? Like, was there, okay, maybe this isn't it. I'm going to go do X. There was one moment when I, the summer break between my freshman and sophomore year, I went on a philanthropic trip to Brazil, and I lived in Brazil for three months, and I worked part of the time in a boys home, like a boys orphanage for kids on the street, and then part of the time in a hospital that was incredibly underfunded,

and no one literally was there. It was just an empty building. And I worked with some of the doctors that came over from the U.S. I delivered two children while I was there. You did not? I did. I caught them.

In college? Like just a summer in college. They were like, put your gloves on. And then they were like, just kidding, we don't have gloves at this hospital, genuinely. They disposed of their sharps. It was incredibly underfunded. They disposed of their sharps in a soda container.

Come on. Yeah, no anesthesia for anybody. Oh, my gosh. And so that, I like having a sense of purpose. I liked how much the kids thought I was a kid and gravitated towards me. So I, like, oh, I've no, I mean, I'm not qualified to do any of this, but I essentially was the triage nurse. It was assisting on surgeries there. And the kids who would come in, because the line for medical treatment was around the block, the whole month and a half we were there.

And I would sit with the kids and take their blood pressure and their temperature. and talk in very broken Portuguese about how you shouldn't wash your hands in the toilet because a toilet is different than a sink and just things that aren't necessarily taught to kids that live in the favelas that don't have that kind of a structure or support system. And I called my mom, I remember,

and I was like, I think I'm supposed to be here. I think it was filling my heart so much to be helping. And it's also Brazil, it's beautiful, it's lovely, and the Portuguese is such, beautiful language, and I loved everything about it. And I almost stayed. And my mom said, if you have success in the career you're trying for, you might be able to help more than if you stay there.

Wow. And that's probably the best piece of advice I ever got. That's incredible. Foresight. You're just learning to be an actor and just keep going. Someday you'll be in a position to help. Which I was hoping for, obviously. But at the time, I was like, how does an actor help?

And then I was like, oh, okay, because if I become an actor who's drastically overpaid, like we all are, maybe I can do some good things with that money. And she was right. It's turned out to be that way, right? And that's a cool position to be in. Yeah. Where you have the resource to help. Hey, guys, thanks for listening to the Sunday Sit Down podcast.

Stick around to hear more from Kristen Bell after the break. Welcome back to the Sunday Sit Down podcast. Now more of my conversation with Kristen Bell. So I think people in your crew would point to her breakthrough or she made it. Veronica Mars or Sarah Marshall. Sure, yeah. One in television, one in film. Did it feel that way to you?

Are those fair assessments of your career? Yeah, it's hard from this seat to say what the breakthrough was because I was like, I was on Broadway. It wasn't that. Right, right. You know, but like you just realize it's really all about the audience's perspective. So I'll take that. And yeah, I think I didn't, I fell into Veronica.

Mars and realized that I could tell a sassy joke when I didn't, I had no idea that I could. And then Sarah Marshall, I remember, the audition for that movie was like on a Saturday morning at 10 a.m. And Veronica Mars shot incredibly long hours. I mean, we were there 15, 16 hours a day for three years. So, and it was in San Diego. And I was getting off work at like three in the morning. And I had gotten this audition. And I was like, I'm going to drive back to L.A. on no sleep and do this audition, but it was for Judd Apatow. Just do it. And I couldn't, I was delirious. And the audition tape is out there somewhere. And I don't, I don't know what I did, but I was delirious and then somehow booked it. Do you have any recollection of how that went? No. Were you just totally sleepless?

I was very sleepless. I remember there was some improv game given to Jason and I about riding a horse. Like they were, like, we did the scene and then they were like, how can you improv? And I'm like, Not at all. What do you? And they said, okay, well, we're going to play a game. You really want to go horseback riding, and he doesn't go. And I was like, and I don't honestly know what I did. It's out there.

You can find it. I was going to say, write that down. We're going to go find that tape. We will find that tape. Believe you me. Not long after that, you meet your future husband, Dax, right, at a dinner. Do you remember initial impressions of Dax? You do?

Mm-hmm. So the producer of forgetting Sarah Marshall, Shauna Robertson, who's Judd Apatow's previous producing partner, had a birthday dinner, like 10 people, maybe less, at a sushi restaurant. And I had just gotten out of a long-term relationship, like two months prior. And in retrospect, I realized he had just gotten out of a long relationship. We were sitting at a table.

The only thing I remember is that he talked so much. I was like, this guy can talk. And then I didn't know who he was. I'm like, maybe is that one of the guys from Jackass or something? And he remembers, as he tells the story, too, he remembers, you were telling a really intense story about a deal you had gotten at Target. Wow. And I was like, that sounds like it's on brand.

And then we left. There were no sparks whatsoever. None. None. And then two weeks later, we both met at a hockey game. We are both from Detroit and Red Wings fans. And we saw each other at the hockey game, started to flirt, left. And then a day after that, I get a text that says,

Hi, my name is Dax. I violated your privacy and got your number from Shauna. How do you feel about that? And I was like, excuse me? You sound stimulating. That could have gone either way for him. For sure, but he's bold. No, he knows what he's doing.

He's so bold. And that was my kind of person. I was like, okay, starting it off with a really good show. that makes me feel like butterflies. Plus Red Wings fan. It's like starting to come together here. Come on. And I fell in love with him way before he fell in love with me.

Really? Yeah. Really? Yes. We had dated for like two months. And at that point in my life, I was ready to have something long term. And you've got to sort of know that, you know, because you can be knee deep in another relationship and still feel like,

I don't know if I want this long term. Relationships are really weird. And I remember thinking like, wow, I'd love to sit on a porch and listen to this guy, Yap, when I made E. This is, he's so fun. And he was not in the same position because he had, again, gotten out of a relationship and he wasn't sure he was ready. And he broke up with me. Oh. He broke my heart.

And then four days later, he texted me again. I made a huge mistake. And I was like, did you, question mark? And then I just let him simmered for a while. My therapist told me to do that. No, he was like, don't punish him, but let him earn you back because you threw out an immense amount of trust. And it would be nice for, but, you know, in retrospect, I will say this, knowing him, he was incredibly, it's a vulnerable thing to say, to say, I'm not ready. And what he was doing was protecting me because he was still, like, having dates with other people.

Because early on, you don't really make any rules until you say, let's be, you know, monogamous or whatever the words they use, official, steady. Yes. Does it say steady? No. And he wasn't, so he was like sensing that I was ready to be one-on-one, and he felt like I didn't deserve to have someone who wasn't ready for that. And that's genuine. I can say that genuinely now. I still think it's the stupidest decision he's ever made, but I'm. I got through it.

I'm glad it worked out. We wouldn't have the two of you. So you, as any classic romantic would, you proposed to him on Twitter. I did, yeah. You guys waited until gay marriage was legal to get married. And then you went down to the courthouse for like $140 or something like that. Hell yeah. That's including the set list that he played on the way to the court card house.

It's including the iTunes bill. That's a nice wedding bill right there, $140. We're both so cheap. Look, growing up in Detroit, you've got to make ends meet. Yes. You can ask any of these people standing behind the camera. Yes, I'm incredibly frugal. I just think about it, like what's worth it, what's not. It's not that I won't spend money. Like we, you know, we go road tripping a lot or we'll go when the grandparents come and town, stay at a nice hotel that has a nice pool. It's not like I won't drop some money, but I'm also like, what's worth it?

Yeah. And to me, the way they live in Europe, like quality of life is way more worth anything else. It's been meaningful things, not just things, right? And then there's a great story. I hope you don't mind sharing it about the wedding day, which is that you got married, but then you had to go to work. You'd go to work from there, right? Yeah.

So, yeah, maybe the most awkward day that I, certainly the most awkward day I've ever experienced. So we both had a Tuesday morning off. We were like, let's do it. Like, DOMA was crushed. Let's do it. We can finally do it because we didn't want to have any sort of a marriage. it didn't feel right to celebrate it. I mean, half of our friends are gay.

And I'm like, isn't it kind of rude to be like, come to my wedding? It just didn't feel right for us. But you can't have a wedding. Welcome. I was like, that just doesn't, it feels yucky. So we had a Tuesday morning off. We'd go to the courthouse. I remember his best friend delivered a cake to our house that day that said the world's worst wedding.

And the person that I called was my best friend, Amy. And she met us at the courthouse. We signed the papers. It was really fun. And then I had to go to work that afternoon, and Amy's husband, Ryan, was guest starring on House of Lies, playing my boyfriend.

And that afternoon, we had a sex scene. So I went from Amy signing my marriage license papers and then texting her later being like, I'm having fake sex with your husband right now. She's like, congrats on getting married. Love you, babe. It was just so bizarre. And it's the one where you're in, like, nude clothing.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. So your wedding night was spent with another man, effectively. Correct, correct, yeah. A man who is my brother, basically, who used to be my roommate. The whole thing is very, it's like a tangled spider web. It feels perfect for you guys, though. I don't know what I mean by that if it just feels right.

It does, doesn't it? Yeah. Yeah. So how have you guys, because I think you've perfected this better than celebrity couples I can think of, you've perfected sort of giving enough of yourselves to satisfy the public appetite, but also keeping your kids and your family private and tight. Yeah. Is there some strategy to that?

How do you pull that off? A little bit. You let people in, but only to a point. Well, it's a similar parallel when you grow up and finally feel confidence, right? You're not as territorial. You can be fully yourself when you're with people and give to them, but when you go home, you don't feel less. You don't feel people have taken things from you.

That's where, like, I think, true self-esteem, how it shows itself. We, in the beginning of our relationship, we were very territorial. But that was, like, at the height of when, you know, people print scandalous stories about you that, like, make no sense. And we were just like, why would we even want that? It feels gross. But then we started to realize that because we were both so goofy, people looked to us maybe to set an example. And maybe that was in our heads, but my husband also has a degree in anthropology, which, believe me, you'll know if you listen to his podcast. He says it like every five minutes.

And I do. And specifically primatology. And the idea that we are monkeys and we watch each other, for examples, right? People set the tone. And you usually watch your alphas. And sometimes you watch celebrities in their conduct. And we wanted to, we didn't want people to think that this idea of like relationships goals was easy. So we started talking about mistakes we've made and problems we've had and how we go to therapy and when we fight and how often we fight, which is a lot.

And we just started feeling better about ourselves. Like, people don't really care to hear about your successes, but they really want to hear about your failures. Because we're all just looking to each other, right? Earth is a cranky place to live. And we just want to feel connected with someone else. And, like, we can relate to them. So talking about our marriage publicly and the things we fight about, and the good and bad times, has filled us up

with a huge sense of self-esteem. Now, with the kids, it's a little bit different because we thought long and hard when we had kids about how we would handle it. The reality that you see from my seat is that when children are on the playground or outside their school and photographers are following them, the only feelings being exchanged are predator and prey.

I don't think any child deserves that. I don't think my child deserves that less because I'm a celebrity. I just don't. You have to sign a piece of paper if your children get their picture taken in school. Why am I any different? It's not a celebrity issue. It's a parenting issue.

And I want rights to my children. I also don't know if they're going to be super shy. Maybe they won't want their picture everywhere. It's also security. I don't want anyone coming up to my children and saying their name and introducing themselves at an airport. I would scare the daylights out of them. So we just decided that we would lovingly represent ourselves as a family. We talk about them.

We show the back of their head sometimes, but that we would keep their privacy and their anonymity because they own that. I don't own that. I think that's admiral. And for what it's worth, I have the exact same policy. You've never seen my kids' faces on Instagram

for all those reasons you said. And I think, you know, we were talking about Dax's podcast. Part of what you guys do is sort of like pull it open and you don't just get this sort of shimmery red carpet. Celebrity couple view. You get that.

But also it's like, They have some struggles. Wounds and scars and struggles. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, it's not as easy as it looks in the cover of us weekly. Just like everybody, right?

Isn't that what you want to see, though? And I'm not talking about like salacious stuff, like hearing stupid rumors, but what you want to see is like, when did you have a hard time? Yes. Because this is the power of story, right? Frozen is a story, and it helped a lot of people.

I'm really proud of that film, not because of its box office numbers, but because we on our Frozen team have heard people tell us they were ready to commit suicide and they saw that movie and realized their own power and didn't do it. And like that is not something I take lightly. Like numerous people. Like there's something to be said for showing your mistakes and showing how you get through things. And we are a story. My husband and I were a story separately, but somehow we're like greater than the sum of our parts. And we're a story together. And we want to be a story that's honest and true. And, hopefully that sets a good example, and I don't just mean like everything's happy all the time, but sets a good example saying sometimes things are really, really hard. And you've got to pound the pavement and keep evolving because I prefer happiness over suffering. Well, to that point, you've been, and I really commend you for this, the last few years you've been really open about

anxiety and depression and things you struggle with that so many people, so many people in this world suffer with. And I think they think there's some shame in. it or it's... Everybody thinks there's some shame in it. But like if they see Kristen Bell who projects even sitting right here, she's happy, she's smart, she's bubbly. Bubbles, glitter.

No, it's not always that way. And even if I was feeling that this morning, I would probably try to manufacture some bubbles and glitter for you because it's easier to watch than me just being like, but that's not to say I don't feel it. And me talking about that actually came from, I hate to give him credit for everything.

It's so annoying that he's so right about everything. It really is. You just admitted that on camera, too. I know. I know. But he knows it. He's such a know-it-all, hence armchair expert. I was doing, I was at the tail end of two different press tours.

And on these press tours, you tell stories about the movie you were in, and I was, like, empty on stories. Like, I have nothing to talk about. I was about to do a long-form interview called Sam Jones, who you talked for like an hour. And I said, what am I going to talk on this show? I can't talk about my process. I don't really have a process. And he was like, why don't you talk about it?

about your anxiety and depression. And I had never thought about that before. And I immediately felt incredibly irresponsible. Like, I have been projecting this girl who is happy all the time and is all bubbles and glitter. And that's not who I am 30% of the time. You know, I am someone who takes a medication for her anxiety and depression. I am someone who has to make sure I work out three times a week to get endorphins. I am someone who has to check myself and sometimes if I'm feeling really low, make a checklist of good and bad things in my life to see if it's my mental state or if like we really have a problem. We never really have a problem, by the way. It's always up there. But I felt nervous about doing that interview because I felt the shame. And I even had a

mother who was so incredibly accepting, she said, listen, your grandmother experienced this. I experience this. Should you start to have these feelings? X, Y, and Z, you feel like there's a black cloud over you. You don't feel like you're yourself. You don't want to get out of bed in the morning. You're really anxious and nervous around people. Talk to me.

There are solutions out there. And she always explained it like the anxiety and depression in your brain, it's like a physical thing, right? I don't have enough serotonin. And so she said, if you don't have enough of a certain chemical in your body, would you ever deny a diabetic, would you ever say to a diabetic, don't take that insulin,

just like get through it, just get out of bed, it'll be fine. We would never say that. Somehow it's been categorized as something to feel shame about. So I'm hoping to lift that by talking about it. And also, sometimes people aren't actually anxious and depressed. They just have like really bad stuff happen. in their life. And that's why I want to talk about the times my marriage was hard or the times my kids are really annoying. And, you know, I just wanted to be an open dialogue. Was there any risk to

you? Did you calculate it all? Boy, should I come out and say this because now this will be a part of my story. Did you think about it? I didn't really. I don't care enough what people think of me. I do care a ton because I'm very codependent. But I'm like, I'm like this. I'm like a ping pong. all the time. Like, I care so much about what people think of me, and then I'm like, F, everyone. I feel like, no, my sense of responsibility was greater than whatever could follow me around

or be attached. Well, I also think to have someone of your stature and fame, and like I said, from the outside, perception is you're happy and full of energy in life all the time. I'm caffeinated. Is that what's happening? Right now, yeah. I am chaffinated.

You're juiced up? Uh-huh. I also have to ask you about the good place. Final season, fourth and final season right now. A few episodes left here. What does it feel like to wrap up that show and to do it on a high? You're walking away when it's in a really good place.

It's a crazy feeling. Mike Scher, our creator, is my favorite person on the planet, and also I loathe him for ending the show. But he's incredibly ethical, and he found a worthy ending. And actors didn't want to leave it. The crew didn't want to leave it. NBC was like, no, you can't cancel your show.

That's our job. But the reality is this story was really important to him, and it's important to all of us to talk about human beings trying to share life with each other and be good people. And he felt like there was an honorable, worthy ending, and it would have just stretched the show out too much, and they would have had silly problems, and people would have tapered off.

So it was like ending it on a high note. It's a sad thing, but it's the right thing. It's got to be a crazy thing to walk away from something that's, like, at the top of its game, that just doesn't happen in TV. It must have been hard for him, for Michael. Yeah, although he has a hundred show ideas, so I don't think of it.

I'm just trying to hitch my wagon to his next show. Catch the next one. Right? Mike, what are you doing next? But it was hard for all of us because we're really close. And truly, I mean, Ted Danson is one of my best friends. And it was so fun to come to work with him every day and I'll forever miss it. And also, gossip girls coming back. Yeah.

You're back. Can you believe it? The voice of Gossip Girl. What did you think when you heard that idea? We're going to bring it back and we'd like you to be the voice again. I couldn't believe it initially. And then I was like, of course. It's so much fun to watch.

It's so, I mean, it's so incredibly entertaining. And Josh and Stephanie, the show creators, I love very, very much. And they emailed me a couple months ago saying, like, we can't do it without you. And I was just like, of course. It's also the easiest job for me. I go in my pajamas. I love Vio. I go in my pajamas.

I don't have any of this on. Right. And I'm just in there. That's also the only job I've never been given a note on, which I don't know what that says about me. Because they were like, just make it really sassy and catty. And I was like, okay. Even in the original run? Yeah.

Wow. No notes. Well, I think it says good things, right? Yeah, sure. But I'm saying, the fact that I'm saying, I'm not a mean girl, and then I can play that character. Right. It's like, I don't know. She a hypocrite?

Maybe. Came a little too naturally, maybe. Maybe I'm just getting it all out. Oh. I'm using it. It's therapeutic. I'm using it, yeah. I like it.

I like it. I would love to talk about Disney encore. Okay. So tell me about your plans there. Well, you know, Disney Plus, just. launched and I've been proud of a lot of projects I've been a part of and I don't know that anything matches my level of pride with encore and executive producing it and sort of semi-hosting it. We take former high school musical theater casts and reunite them to put on their

high school musical theater production in six days. Okay, that concept is so good. It's scary, right? Yeah. Well, here's one thing we learned. There's very few things, if any, that unite all of us. But if you say the word high school to anybody, I guarantee you that person feels like they're going to puke. Right? It's like the same, like, ooh, that was rough time for everybody. And

it's shocking to see how many people were in high school musical theater. People you would never ever think of. Like in my school, it was the only time where everybody gathered. It was the one community event. So when we did The Wizard of Oz, all the football players, the whole football team were on their knees as the munchkins.

Yeah. And there's this show, it takes people, we have millennials, we have baby boomers. So some of these people haven't seen each other in 45 years. And you're able to reintroduce yourself to someone that you already know, having shed the labels that you got in high school, it's like time travel. There's something incredibly electric about watching these people who have now come into their own make amends, say things they wish they'd said. And we found that casting was a whole lot easier than we thought it was going to be.

We thought, who's going to want to take seven days off work? And for the pilot episode, we got thousands and thousands of submissions. Yeah, and important ones. We're like, we have a cast who did Oklahoma where the man who played the lead was a dancer, did a beautiful performance, and then just before he was 30, was in an accident, became paraplegic. And he wrote in saying, I want more than anything to do this show, and I want to do the dance in my chair.

And you watch people's level of commitment. And it's not just that there's, this is a story about human beings. There's no professional talent required. All these people want to come back because they want to feel the pure feeling of just joy. Because on stage, you feel like someone else, but more like yourself than you've ever felt. And to watch people reunite and have fun together when they knew each other as kids, it's just incredibly heartwarming to watch. And what brings people together more than putting out of it?

a show together. You've got to do this, you've got to do that. And especially the ones that were 40 years ago, can they still sing? Do they still have it all in them? Some of them can sing. Some of them are having trouble. Some of them can fit into their costumes. Some of them are having trouble. I mean, it's funny and it's goofy, and people are talking about real struggles, and they're also communicating. There's something really special about watching two people just strip down all the labels that they gave each other or that they felt were placed upon them and just communicate. And it's like unscripted, but it is so positive. And I watch it with my kids.

We've seen all the cuts with my kids and they love it. It's such a good concept. I'm surprised no one's thought of it already. That's awesome. Stick around to hear more from Kristen Bell on the Sunday Sit Down podcast, including the central role the Jonas Brothers play in her family life. Welcome back to the Sunday Sit Down podcast. Now more of my conversation with Kristen Bellow. There are two things I love to say to my kids.

Number one, I love to say, do you know all your teeth are going to fall out? That's terrifying. I know, but isn't it a funny thing to say? It is. And also, it's true. I'm not even joking. All of your teeth are going to fall out. But when you say it like that, it's horrifying.

I know. That's why it's funny. And then I also tell them, I am so cool. You don't get it. You're having a problem understanding how cool I am. And they don't get it. They don't think I'm cool at all. But the Jonas.

brothers are something they view as cool. They think the Jonas brothers are very, very cool. And my husband always, when he'll like flip a pancake or move the washer to the left or just do anything, he'll always go, man, the Jonas brothers wish they were me. The Jonas brothers wish they were me. And the girls laugh. And the other day my daughter Delta was on the swings. And she jumped off at the height of the swing.

And she landed on the ground. And we went, oh, is she going to cry? And she turns around. and she goes, the Jonas Brothers, wish they were me. And I was like, yes, girl. Are the Jonas Brothers aware that they're at the center of your family life? The center of our family feud? I don't think so.

I mean, they are cool. Obviously, the Jonas Brothers are cool. I love the Jonas Brothers. But I'd say that, like, I'm almost as cool. In my experience, when you have to argue that you're cool, you're probably losing the argument. Do you know what I mean? Touche. Touche.

And then your mom's, Explaining series? Where did that come from? I have a great relationship with Ellen and her whole team, and I love guesting there, guest hosting. I love everything about it. And we had been talking about doing an idea forever and couldn't figure out what it was. And then when I had kids, it just occurred to all of us that this is the show. I was desperate to tell, to talk about parenting from the lens I was seeing it through,

which is like, it's gross and dirty and funny and wonderful. and very sleep deprived. And I just thought there's so many jokes in here. There's so many ways to make this really, really difficult process, this scary process of having a kid seem lighter and goofier. And can't we translate that into a show? And that's how mom's planning was born. It's very funny.

Thanks. And in keeping with what we've been talking about, it's very real. Thank you. You're not trying to sugarcoat the process. No, you can't. You have to tell people that your vagina might break. It might. It's a possibility.

People need to know their rights. Maybe not a right, but you got to know that that room is going to look like a homicide. It's the truth. And all your teeth are going to fall. Oh, my gosh. Sometimes real things are really funny. Yeah, it is. Yeah.

On that note. Thank you. Oh, boy. My big thanks to Kristen Bell for a great conversation. You can catch Frozen 2 in theaters now. Joelle and Maggie, I feel uncomfortable around you right now. Yeah. I respect you as professionals, but I'm not sure what to say after that.

Two C-sections over here, so no worries. No, yeah. I guess I had something. I wasn't ready for that either. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, I don't really quite know what to say. I wasn't expecting to hear that on the Sunday Sit down podcast. So there you go.

That comes to my brow. You're welcome. Oh, man. That last bit notwithstanding, Kristen Bell, is the best. Joelle, thank you, Maggie, thank you as well. And thanks to all of you for tuning in this week. If you want to hear more of the full-length conversations with my guests every week, be sure to click subscribe so you never miss an episode.

And don't forget to tune in to Sunday today every weekend on NBC. I'm Willie Geist. We'll see you right back here next week on the Sunday Sitdown podcast.