The Three Questions with Andy Richter - Kristen Bell (Re-Release)

Episode Date: February 14, 2023

(Re-released from February 2022) Kristen Bell joins Andy Richter to talk about being open and honest about her personal life, hustling to achieve her goals, keeping a growth mindset, and more.

Hey everybody, it's Andy Richter and I am the host of The Three Questions. Still am. They're still letting me do it. And I'm very happy to have an old friend. And our histories are inextricably linked. I'm talking to Kristen Bell, who is just one of the brightest, most positive, shiny people I have ever known. And it's disgusting. It's infuriating. Yes, that is the goal.

But quite seriously, you are so like, you have so much, seriously you are so like you have so much and you see or at least you seem to have so much energy and you're always doing something and you're like you know successful actor mother of two and then have all these like kind of you know like you have your own fucking kids line of products and shit like how do you have so much energy to do all this i'm annoying medication what is it funds i mean first of all caffeine yes i'm like incredibly reliant on caffeine look i mean i got i have big dreams and i also have an incredible support system and people that i do not do any of this all by myself. Yeah. I, you know, I mean, I do the acting jobs by myself, whereas like no one is, you know, Cyrano-ing me

and I'm doing that work. But we started Hello Bello, the kids line with a couple of really great people who I just, my goal in life is to hitch my cart to the smartest person in the room and take a ride. Nice. So why'd you marry Dax? Hmm.

Come on. That was. That was a good one. I was waiting right there. You know, I. You don't really have to answer that. I can't. I can't explain it.

I think I think all anyone has to do is lay their eyes on Dax Shepard and they know why you married him. Oh, yeah. You had a primal. Had to put a fucking ring on that piece of beef immediately. And you listen to him on his podcast and then you see how emotional he is and it's like, oh yeah.

Except I do, I really, I think I've listened to it twice and I'm not even, I mean, don't tell anybody this, I'm not even a big podcast consumer. But I've listened to the first episode of his in which he interviewed you. Because, and I honestly, it's like a laboratory for medical or marriage therapy. Like just like, there's just so many ways. And cause I,

and the thing is is like when he talked about it later and said like, he listened back to it and realized, Hey, shut up, let her talk. Why are you differing with everything she said? And I just, and I love that so much about him. And I love that about you guys that you were like willing to kind of put that out there. You gotta like, yeah, we cannot be a part of this whole like, let's all act like we're perfect. And with I mean, I know it's like the most fatigued subject. But, yeah, you can curate who you are now with social media and with editing and all these things.

And and people make mistakes and you want to be like we're monkeys you want to be an example to the other monkeys that like a mistake doesn't mean you have to feel shame the rest of your life like I Dax and I fight all the time big deal nobody's going anywhere but like sometimes we hate each other and we still raise our kids together when I did that first episode he we bickered so much because I was genuinely off-put by the fact that he made me do it because I wanted to go to Michael's. I wanted to go get the garland. It was on sale. He thought that was such a stupid idea that I would need to go to Michael's.

And I'm like, how do you think your house looks so warm and cute around the holidays? Do you think that just happens? Do you think some magical elves come in here? No. I strategically buy beautiful decorations. I make a gorgeous house for us at the holidays. I do it on a budget. And like,

I need to go to Michael's. And then the whole episode became about that. Yeah. He almost didn't release it because he's like, I can't release an episode, the first episode of my podcast where we're just bickering. And I was like, why? Yeah. That was a real conversation we had. Who cares? Like, I'm just not, I don't care as much anymore about like my image or how I'm perceived. I just want to be real and authentic. Yeah. People are going to take it how they take it. Do you worry about sharing too much?

Like, do you worry? Because like I I have to be honest with you, like I'm always just from having done this forever and been sitting next to famous people for a million years. I always makes me nervous when people take their personal life and bring it into the public sphere because it's and I don't have any concrete evidence, but it just scares the shit out of me that like you're going to lose track of what's what you're going to lose what's for you and what's for sale. target on your back for all of these sort of like slimy media enterprises that are magazines and whatever that want to then make you a Barbie doll in their soap opera drama to sell magazines. And then you become like, you know, yeah. But I think that very early on, Dax and I were really, really territorial of our relationship. We didn't want to say a single thing. were really, really territorial of our relationship. We didn't want to say a single thing. And I can't remember if it was a slow roll or something happened where we had a positive impact by saying we had either had a fight or bickered or had a marital problem, or maybe it was that

we went to therapy. We saw the positive impact and there was sort of this weighing of, okay, we could choose to protect ourselves, which is probably a good thing to do. Yeah. Or we could open up, open the kimono, you know, and, and be vulnerable and actually maybe sometimes say too much, but if that has a positive impact on people, and if that's sort of disrupting this idea of perfection, that is, you know, dividing people's personalities and making people have depression and anxiety about who they really are versus our own Instagram. Maybe that's just worth it. And yeah, the decision to we do actually have really clear lines of what's ours and what

we will share because like our kids, we never share. Right. And now you've been like sort of instrumental in that, too. Yeah. Well, when we were babies, they got their picture taken and it was around the same time that people were talking about this issue and jen and hallie had their there was a law that was passed that the paparazzi couldn't come after kids but you had it was a whole big tangled thing and dax and i said this has to be a consumer issue. Consumers don't want to consume something because it's like when, you know, pink slime or whatever.

They were like, oh, meat is pink slime. The meat buying goes down. Like if people see, you know, that when they're in the nail salon and they open up a magazine and they see a beautiful picture of a kid, if they can understand that the only thing that kid felt was the predator and prey instinct because they were being followed by a cameraman and maybe their friend was knocked off the swing set, then maybe they won't want to crack the magazine open. Yeah. Yeah. And in addition, I went around to all of the media conglomerates. I went to Extra and Access and E and People and Us Weekly. And I met with the presidents and the CEOs. And I said, I have a list of people here who are no longer going to do interviews for you unless you agree not to publish their kids

without their consent. And some people consent to their kids being published and that's fine. That's totally up to the individual family, but our kids know why we don't. And I explained it to them like this. I said, I gotta be a good mommy and I gotta keep you safe.

And I don't ever want you in a position where you're at an airport and someone calls your name because they think, hey, Lincoln Shepard. I don't ever want that. So, you know, I guess because we have the territory of home life a little bit with the kids, the rest of it, like as far as the marriage stuff, we're pretty damn honest about needing therapy when we fight, when we don't, things we've been through. And that's all just because I want people to relate to it. I want people to not feel like their problems are different. I have two questions out there. One is, is this based on mistakes that both you guys made in previous relationships? One is, is this based on mistakes that both you guys made in previous relationships?

Or have you always kind of had this policy of sort of, I mean, obviously, we're never in the public eye as much. But just that kind of, you know, not afraid to share with the world, warts and all sort of your relationship. No, I mean, well, maybe. I mean, there's definitely like the shame stigma of vulnerability has really been, it's been, it's taken a lot of, it's changed a lot recently. You know, 10 it should be. And the same thing about anxiety and depression. I mean, it's weird, though, because it's this double standard. Like none of us would ever shame a diabetic for taking. But like, if you have a problem, you want to talk to a therapist, we're going to shame you for that. Like that. So I think I had been maybe more private in previous relationships, but this one was really like a deliberate decision to go like, if we can be an example and share some more vulnerable stuff. And I guess show all the ways we're not perfect, like go against this idea of the celebrities, at least that I grew up with when I was in high school of like, oh, that person doesn't have any problems.

Like Julia Roberts never seemed like she had a problem to me. And that wasn't any of her doing. That was like what the media was doing and stuff in the late 90s. But now I just I like the fact that people are oversharing and being more human. I mean, I told her a pinworm six times, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. But see that you were going for a record. So that's different. That's true. That's true. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, but see, you were going for a record, so that's different. That's true, that's true. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, you know, when you say that about mental health and counseling and stuff, I have encountered that in my, you know, because first of all, A, I tend to have a pretty cynical, jaded view about show business in general and about kind of like, you know, like this, this grandiose notion that showbiz has of itself of being kind of noble and, you know, when it's all for the kids and it's

and like, no, it's all for money and it's all for ego and all that kind of shit. But when I did start to, cause I've been in therapy for 375 years and I've been on medication for 374 years and um I did you know I did like I did a couple podcasts or kind of mental health podcasts and I've talked about it kind of openly just in my own you know social media kind of things and it really made a difference to people like I people like so much anecdotal evidence of people coming up to me and being like choked up and saying you talking about this on a podcast made me feel like I should do something about the misery I've been feeling for years and years and years and get over the fact that my parents are going to be mad at me because I go talk to someone about it yeah and it's and that to me first of all it boggles my mind that at this time, at this,

like, we're not talking 1972, you know, like that people still are fucking weird about going. And you said, you know, like you said, a diabetic, that's the way I always feel. If you got a broken leg, you don't walk around with your bones sticking out of your leg. You go to the hospital, get it fixed. Exactly. Exactly. And, but I think, you know, this is a, there are so many variables with mental health. Like there are ones where you can be on a 50, 150, cause you can harm yourself for others. There are ones you just feel, you know, politely sad each day. There's a very big

scope and it's, it's the lack of education that I think affects people and makes them so terrified to even discuss it. And it's like, look, there are people like I need I need a medication I have since I was 18. And I'm very proud to take it because, you know, I take care of myself. Yeah. I prioritize my mental health and I am able to be a functioning mom and a wife and an actress and all these things. But there's a stigma about, you know, taking a medication, which is why my mom said to me a very long time ago, you would never tell a diabetic just to digest the sugar. You'd give him insulin.

There's still so many weird stigmas. And the more we talk about it, the more we, you know, knock down all of these shame barriers and let people know that, we're all we none of us know what we're doing. Yeah, just here. We have to share Earth. We're trying to make entertainment like we don't know what we're doing. I make mistakes all the time. But if something that I can do, like as Kristen, not as Kristen Bell, but as just a little girl from Michigan, if something I can do as this monkey is do something to make another monkey feel good, then I will do it. Yeah. Even if that means

putting a little bit of a target on my back that like, oh, people can write about me and about whatever. I know. Right. And a target about what? Like, oh, I'm human. Oh, you know, like, you know, like, oh, I'm yeah. I mean, and the second question about that, about you and Dax's openness. Is there a Midwestern-ness to that? Because since you're both Michiganders, I mean, do you think that there's something to that? I think that I do believe this is the Midwestern. this is the Midwestern, there is pride in the struggle. Kind of feeling of like working hard,

getting your hands dirty, going through it. It's important and it's prideful and it's something you wear as like a badge of honor. Like I got my hands dirty. I worked really hard. I don't, you know, I know what it's like to get out there and fix the lawnmower. Like I'm not trying to be too pristine or elite. I think that's definitely part of it, that there's a part in the struggle.

I think there's also just kind of a, I mean, and I say this to someone who's struggled with mental health issues. There is something instilled on you that kind of like you are who you are. instilled on you that kind of like you are who you are and and and in some ways that can be in like a small town sense that can be like a sentence on you but it also is something where you are who you are and you're not going to apologize about it and you go out in the world and you know you know yeah you know and and there's no reason to sort of play games or cover up i mean just you know to make yourself feel better or to make of play games or cover up. I mean, just, you know, to make yourself feel better or to make yourself look better or look worse. It's just, you know. And I think it's also like you're, you know, maybe this is the Midwest in me, but like hard work is really important. And

like, if I want to have a life that has a lot of smiles in it, then I got to figure out how to learn about my brain, figure out what to put in my body, what to put in my body and in my life and in my brain to have a good life. Like I'm, you know, reading this book right now called The Happiness Hypothesis. And it's talking about like all of these tiny little brain tests that were done on people where you were given, you know, seven words and you were asked to put them in an order. And the words were like, used, bother, see. And if you're had the word bother or annoyed in it, you would walk out of the classroom and then they sort of like check in with you for the next couple hours. You had those emotions later. And if you had good words,

you had a happier day. And like, I'm explaining it poorly, but the point is framing and what you expose yourself to is incredibly important. So it's, it does go back to the whole, you know, you're exposing yourself to all these people's perfection. You might feel worse because you're comparing yourself, but if you're exposing yourself to like positivity and people who are saying, I'm just, I am just like you and I made a mistake. Me too. There it's just helpful. Yeah. Is, um, you're, you, uh, your folks divorced when you were pretty young. And, uh, do you think that that was, do you think that that was a good, well, I mean, obviously it's not a good situation, but do you think it was better than most? Or do you think that it was, it set you on a way of like feeling, you know, because my folks weren't close to each other.

So I didn't see my dad very much. And so I think that set up issues, you know, like, you know. I don't know that I've ever seen my parents in the same room. Wow. Because they were divorced when I was really young. My mom sent me their wedding photograph the other day, like in the mail, a big one. And it was circular, like when they used to do circular. Yeah. Yeah. And I stared at it for so long because I just, I'd never, I I'm not familiar with that image, but what I will

say is this, you choose what you carry. And like in, and maybe it's just because I'm reading this book right now, but it's like, if you have a little girl whose dad leaves, she has all this pain about it. Well, the only thing that factually happened is that the dad left the house. The girl's amount of pain throughout the last 20 years is because she had a certain reaction to that. There is a way through cognitive behavioral therapy or talking to a therapist or working it out that you can choose to relinquish some of the struggles. I'm not saying all of them because again, we said there's already, there's so many variables in mental health. Some of them you can't drop. Some of them are addictions. Some of them are actually, you know, portions of your brain that, that, that can't function well enough. But I, I never viewed it as something that I was missing.

I never viewed it as something that I was missing. I got, my dad remarried and I got two stepsisters when I was like two. So I've always known them as my sisters. I never say the word step. They're just my sisters. And my, even though my parents were split up, I will say like, I'm grateful. And I had a good experience

because my dad never like left. He never skedaddled. He always actually was renting a house within a mile of my mom so that I could genuinely go back and forth. And when my mom got remarried or like when my dad brought my stepmom in, I really did just feel like I had more adults that loved me. Oh, wow. That's great. And that was to say that I didn't fight with every single one of them. And then I didn't

loathe my sisters when they would, you know, make me sit in a laundry basket and push me down the stairs or play Bloody Mary in the bathroom and tell me I dropped the baby and I was going to die in my sleep. Like I had all that. Yeah. But I was able to recognize that the adults were sticking around. Like even when my mom had gotten divorced and I had a stepdad that left, he still kind of called. So I guess I was lucky to be exposed to some pretty committed adults. That's great. Even physically. And I just, I'm not going to choose to look back at that as I didn't have. Yeah. You know, I'm like, I can do a reframing

that that was simply the childhood that was for me. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, like you said, you do have the benefit of adults that cared about you and adults that were there. Big time. Yeah. And so that does, it makes it easier for you to choose, you know. What I carry. Absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely.

Yeah. Yeah. Because it's, I mean, you know, and it's always, I, it's always such a strange thing when I talk about like, you know, my dad not being around and that being sort of developmentally hurtful or, or detrimental or whatever, because, you know, there's plenty of healthy people that grow up, you know, with one parent or with, you know, one parent and then another parent. It's just there's all different ways to do it.

But it does seem optimal to have everybody there. Yeah. You know, it could have been that there are even tiny specific moments that you're not even remembering that affected you profoundly that had to do with the absence of that a father figure. And it's like, you don't, again, like, that's why we go to therapy. Cause we don't know how, we don't know why the brain works like it works. We don't know why the hippocampus takes in things or the amygdala is like a super highway for fear and rage. Like, we don't know all of these things yet. We don't know why we can't

constantly be in the frontal lobe. And it's like, you know, we're just, we're, we're, we're riders on an elephant and the elephant is our brain and the riders of the frontal lobe, but we're small and we can't always control the elephant. Yeah. But when you go to therapy, your rider gets a little bigger. Yeah. Do you think that that support structure helped you to be, cause you were, you know you were uh a theatrical kid young like you you really had a I assume a drive to to be on stage and to do this stuff and do you think that that having that support structure and having all those adults around was part of that or do you

think it's just coincidental um I think it was actually detrimental because none of the adults in my life wanted me to do it. My mom did not understand any of it, but I also, I have been a very good debater and arguer from a very young age. So I did this for her. I wanted to do this. And you wore her down. I did. Yeah, yeah. I was the same kid. My mom has told me she stopped arguing with me when I was about 11 years old because she couldn't win. Yeah, because she was too fatigued. Yes. But my mom was supportive.

She was never driving me to do it, but she was incredibly supportive of the things I wanted to do. And my father is a news director. So it is his job to do the hiring and the firing of on camera talent, right? Yeah, controls everything that the station airs. And so he did not want his daughter exposed to well, you're gonna not gonna get this job because your face isn't right. Yeah, No, like he didn't. That's brutal. It sure is. And he didn't necessarily want it, but he never impeded it. He never got in the way. But no one in my family understood it.

Not a single person was ever in show business. So I, yeah, I just convinced the adults around me and I had a drive to do it. And when I was going to move to New York where I first met you, Andy, I told my parents I was going to apply to New York university and Northwestern and I applied early admission to NYU and I never sent in my Northwestern application. I thank God that I didn't have to fess up to that. I got into NYU early admission and my mom was nice enough to like try and figure out how to fly me there for an audition. And I felt so at home in New York City when I first got there. I couldn't believe that I had stayed in Michigan even until I moved to New York when I was 17. That's what I was going to say. Yeah, you're a freshman in college, early admission. That's 17. I loved it.

And then I figured out how to get an agent. And look, it's not any easier for anybody. There's no real connections that you can have. You've got to submit your headshot. You've got to audition. And then I auditioned for a little movie called Pootie Tang. Yeah. And I met my very for a little movie called Pootie Tang. Yeah. And I met my very best friend in the whole wide world.

I was going to say Wanda Sykes. Yeah, that's right. Your screen debut was playing my daughter in Pootie Tang. And I saw something, it's in the movie, isn't it? There was something about it being cut out. It is cut out, but it's in the credits. Oh, OK. It's over the credits. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because it's well, it's a weird scene in which I'm a record executive, a cartoonish record executive with a cigar. And I think you were wearing a Catholic schoolgirl uniform. No, I was because everything was that cliche. Yeah. You know what it ended up being?

I believe it was a redundant scene. Like, Pootie was, the points had already been made in the movie that Pootie had control over ladies. Right. That's kind of what our scene was exhibiting. Because remember, I was giving him sass. And then he sort of made eye contact. And I went all, like, blurry eyed. Right, right.

Couldn't control myself. You became so turned on that you were you know cowed exactly exactly but that point had already been made in the movie but they did put it over the credits and that was my first my first job and that's when you knew uh pootie tang is just the first step on the way. Do you remember the full title of Poodie Tang? No, I do not. I do. What was it? Poodie Tang in Sign Your Pity on the Runnykind. I have not seen it in a million years. You know where I still have the bath towel that I was given? Really?

Yeah, it says, yes, the other day I was folding laundry, and I held up the towel, and I was like, oh, my God, I still have this bath sheet. It says Pootie Tang at the bottom in purple. That's amazing. That's amazing. It's almost as fun of a title as the woman in the house across the street from the girl in the window. That's, you know, it's good you think you bring that up because I knew I was going to slaughter that title. I was like, I should have that written down in front of me.

But I saw the first three episodes of it and it's so fucking funny. We'll get to the end and plug that too. But I mean, but it's just like, and I don't even watch kind of, you know, Hallmark Lifetime movies, but like I get, I've only seen like little bits of them, but I get everything. And what I love about it, too, is how subtle it is. Like how so like I think like a person just a few years older than me could watch that and not understand that it was any way a spoof. A hundred percent. And that's why it makes me laugh even more. Yeah, yeah.

The goal was to be so subtle that it was almost not noticeable. And yet the jokes, like in pre-production, the jokes were so big. I mean, we were just making sure that the world was as stupid as possible because these cliches, this formula that is the psychological thriller, there's so much to poke fun at. And we lovingly attempted to poke fun at it. Yet, if you really like these movies, you could watch it and think it's just a great murder mystery. Absolutely. thriller there's so much to poke fun at and we lovingly attempted to poke fun at it yet if you really like these movies you could watch it and think it's just a great murder mystery absolutely yeah yeah and like one of my favorite things about it is that your character is bereaved uh you know like she has a dead child and a husband that's gone and she's can't get out of a slump and she's drinking like

i remember there was one scene what was like you you go back and it's just kind of been like it hasn't been that long in one evening and it's like wait a minute she polished off two bottles of wine in that time like this person is has a really serious drinking problem And she and her house are immaculate. That's another immaculate. And she dresses like she has a billion dollars. She's always soft white cashmere. Yes. In all of these movies, in the undoing and all of these, you know, new thrillers, where do they get their money? Why are they in Louis Vuitton and Gucci? That's another one of the jokes. And the red flags all around her house that like when you see the wine, the corks that are in the bowl. There's 400 corks in there.

And it's just like that's a red flag. And the department filled each of the bottles with this hibiscus tea up to perfect surface tension line to the glass. So every time I poured, I didn't really have to look. I just knew it was going to be completely surface tension because I measured it. And then I had to... Yeah, yeah. Yeah. ...the top.

And she's an artist and she just wonders if she'll ever give the world her beautiful paintings, again, her talent. And then they show her paintings and they're so average there's flowers oh my god she paints flowers do you ever have a plan b as you're, as you're doing, as you're starting this out? And, and I also, I want to go back to when you get to New York city and feeling so ready for it, do you just think you were a city person? And did you, had you feel, did you feel like you were kind of bursting at the seams of your Michigan life? Did you feel like you were kind of bursting at the seams of your Michigan life?

Yes. And sort of had enough? Because, I mean, I relate to that. In high school, I was miserable, and I realized, oh, it's because I need to go somewhere else. I need to be somewhere bigger. I mean, my framework as a human being, the lenses that I look through aren't necessarily that I would ever be really miserable. I mean, when my anxiety and depression hits, sure, I'll use the word miserable. But in Michigan, I just felt like I wasn't able to, I don't know, stretch my wings or something or like I wasn't seeing as much culture as I wanted to see. I wanted weirder. That's a perfect way to say it.

I wanted weirder. Everything felt very the same and boxed in. And it was formulaic. There was a lifestyle that was formulaic. And there were two great schools in Michigan, U of M and Michigan State. And when you asked a kid in high school in Michigan where they were going, you didn't say, where are you going to college? You said, are you going to U of M or are you going to State? Yeah. Because it wasn't an option.

And I would see things on TV like drag queens and I would go, where are they? What those are my people like, where are those people? And so when New York became an option and a grin, like I worked two jobs the whole summer before going to NYU, when I got in, my mom and I sat down and it was going to be very difficult for us to make the payments. And I worked at a coffee shop in Birmingham, Michigan, and I opened at 4.30 in the morning and I worked until 10.30, 10.45. I put out all the pastries and I served everyone their morning coffee.

Then I went home and I went to sleep for two hours. And then I went to the Outback Steakhouse where I was a hostess and I started at four and I worked till eight. And I did that six days a week the entire summer before going to NYU because I wanted it that badly. Yeah. And weird, like, you know, performances in a black box theater with one person, a one-man show, a one-woman show. And just, like, red, sprawled, and gray. And, like, really weird, wonderful theatrical experiences around every corner. And I don't even just mean on the stage.

Like, New York is just full of it. I loved it. I loved how many different people could coexist in the same place and live among their differences. And I think that's what I had been craving. I like differences. I'm stimulated by them. I like to know how people solve problems. I like to try new different styles of food. I like to see how people are wearing their hair. I like, you know, I just like all of the forms of expression that make humanity different. And it's not, one thing I always, that struck me about New York City was that when you go there, and like you said, you are in close proximity to virtually every kind of humanity that you can think of. And so much of coming from a small town, coming from the Midwest, much of coming from a small town, coming from the Midwest, is people being afraid of people that aren't like them. And it's just like, you should just go to New York City and see, you know, just

be there for two weeks and find out that. It's not scary. It's actually really fun to see how humans do different things. Ride the subway and realize you're not going to die. Ride with your accents. Try different foods. Yeah. The Jewish community and how they do it or the drag queens and how they do it and see that like nobody's bad or scary. It's just these are the different ways that you can live as a human being. Yeah, that was always stimulating to me. And I think that's why I desired to get out of Michigan.

I just wanted more. And I was never born with a fear of those differences. Yeah. I wanted to see more of it. I remembered one thing I wanted to ask you, because when you were talking about getting into showbiz as a kid and your father kind of worrying about you being put in front of people who would judge you, which is actually a

conversation that I had with my daughter, who's 16, and she has friends that are actors. And she was for a while was kind of saying that she wanted to do it. And I told her I wouldn't let her. I said, if you want a job, when you turn 16, you can go work at the grocery store, you know, you can do something like that. Because I told her, I said, you can go work at the grocery store. You can do something like that. Because I told her, I said, you're going to be surrounded by adults who will be judging your looks, will be judging your voice, will be judging how you move, will be judging how you act. And they, A, you shouldn't have to put up with that. You shouldn't have people judging your body and your face and your weight and your height. And I said, and also, too, these people act like they're your friends.

And they're not your friends. And I wonder if you, I mean, your dad had that trepidation and you still, you know, went onward and pursued acting. If one of your girls would want to do that, would you, how would you feel about that? Well, my initial reaction was no, but for all of those reasons. And Dax, as enlightened as he is, and as he is, he lives to be devil's advocate. He said, hey, quick question. Do you like your job? And I said, yeah. And he goes, oh, cool. Are you overpaid? And I was like, drastically.

He said, okay. And you wouldn't want that for our daughter? And I went, okay, good point. Like he was basically like, do you feel creatively fulfilled and can you pay all your bills? And are you happy? And I realized, well, yeah, I am a little bit projecting my fears and the experiences I've had on my daughter. What if my daughter's like bulletproof in her self-confidence and it doesn't matter to her and she just wants to be Eve Ensler, you know, like what if that's her? Like, well, I can't stand in the way of that. But at the same time, knowing what I know, I can't be a mother and not use my

wisdom. So like my daughter does do plays and stuff. And when she asks about my career, I'm brutal with her. And I tell her the honest truth. I'm not just like, try your hardest. I'm like, you're going to not get a job because of the way your face is shaped. You're going to not job because of this or that. And also that none of that matters. And you just go, okay, well, that wasn't the job for me. And you move on. That's how I survived it. Because I was for like 10 years in this category of, I would audition for things and say, they would say, well, you're not pretty enough to be the love interest, but you're not quirky enough to be the best friend. So there's just no place for you. And I would, and I, and it was frustrating because I wanted to be an actor and I, and I couldn't because I couldn't get cast.

But I think that. And also because these fuckers have all these pronouncement that they're so sure about. And most of them don't know a shit about anything. Right. But see, it's different now, though, because Andy, you and I are a little bit older. Now people can make their own stuff like you. Yeah, that's true. now people can make their own stuff like you have yeah that's true you know like you um you have all of these people who are doing their own weird style of comedy like tim robinson who's gonna cast tim robinson and then he makes the show i think you should leave and it is the most brilliant

yeah comedic show to ever hit the airwaves and i've seen unbelievable got me through the pandemic but like he's not necessarily castable formula that you and I are talking about. And that's because the formula doesn't exist anymore. So I mean, I hate to say this is my rose colored glasses again, but I'm asking you to put them on. It's like I look

good on me. They do look good. I want to do it. Then they're going to have to come up with some unique content. They're not going to get a free ride of, like, no one made it happen for me. I'm not going to cut any corners for them. But if they want to work hard and make movies on their iPhone and try to become a good storyteller, then I think I would support that. And I would also sit next to them if they felt rejected and didn't get an audition. And I would give them the absolute honest truth, which is like, yeah, it's going to hurt. And if you're going to audition again, it's probably going to hurt again. So you can either

become bulletproof or you can go get a job somewhere else. Yeah. Do you think, do you think there's any difference between you coming from Michigan and being a kid in show business and them being in LA and being a kid in show business and then being in LA and being a kid in show business? Do you worry at all about that difference? I do because yeah, that's a good point out here. It seems like it's what everybody does. Yeah. And that's so insane because like, sometimes I've, you know, tried to talk to my kids about the numbers, like when they've been like, well, why want you to pick me up from school? And I'll go, yeah, but if I don't go to work today, there are literally a hundred thousand people who would take my spot in an instant. I have to keep my job because I know how lucky I am. And I think

that comes from not just Michigan, but growing up in the theater where you go sit in your moldy dressing room until you're called and you better be on stage for your cue. There's no knock on my trailer situation. Yeah. Yeah. But we're rough on our kids in that way that we let them know how lucky we are. And the fact that we this comes with a ton of pros and some cons when the privacy sets in and we are being followed or people come up to us at dinner. But we are always going to be grateful and lucky because we have a really, really good life. Yeah. What, I mean, you have to have a strong sense of yourself to really, well, to get to where you are and be as healthy as you are. And, and, and do you think that there's one source of that, that you can kind of point to more so than others, or do you think that there's one source of that that you can kind of point to more so than others?

Or do you just think it was something that you were born with, like it's kind of a self-directedness and a self-preservation? Well, I want to say I want to pat myself on the back and say it's the work I've done. You can. Well, yeah, but I know science would tell me otherwise. Like I want to say it's the CBT. I'm really good at CBT. And so if I have a problem, cognitive behavioral therapy, which is a study where you say, okay, I have this feeling. Can anyone make a reasonable argument against this feeling?

And it's a very simple way to adjust your frame of reference, your point of view. your point of view. I want to say that I simply look at the scenario that my life could be, the experience I could have. I could either have a framework that is optimistic and be happy, or I could have a framework that is pessimistic and be bummed all the time. And if I have those two choices, and that's all, then I'm very clearly choosing the optimist's way of being. Now that said, I also know for a fact that if you take identical twins, not fraternal twins, but if you identical twins, there've been numerous studies that separate them. Oddly, when they meet when they're 40, they're dressing the same, they have the same snorty laugh, they have the same point of view. Their nature has a lot to

do with it. So I also will tip my hat to the fact that I think maybe I was just born with an optimist point of view and it's easier for me to come to these conclusions and say, yeah, Kristen, you could cry about this all day. Do you think at the end of the night you're going to be happier if you've cried about it all day? Or do you think you should just get out of bed and move on? You know, and maybe choosing the latter might be a little easier for me than it is for some other people because of the nature I was born with. Right. Well, and you also, I mean, you said you've been, you know, on medication for depression. Oh, yeah. For a long, long time. And I mean, tell me how, like, what got you to that point? And you and when you say you were young?

Yeah, I was probably 19, 18 or 19. And my, you know, my mom, who is also on an antidepressant had a conversation with me. And she said, so there are studies that say this might be hereditary. That's why I'm telling you, but I have a serotonin imbalance. And if you ever start to feel odd, like a dark cloud is around you, like you're very irritable, like you're very sad, like you don't want to get out of bed, all of these, like everything is a bigger problem than it should be. All of these things that are the depressive feelings or the person who has anxiety's feelings. If you feel like that, just know that there's a ton out there for you. You can talk to a therapist. You can talk to me. You can get on a medication. You can try and take more exercise, like get your

endorphins up. There's a support system out there for you. So she let me out of the house with that information. And when I got to college, I did feel not like myself at all. And I mean, it takes so much to go back in my memory and try to say the exact feelings I was having, but I definitely started to work out more to try to get more endorphins. I talked to a therapist. I eventually talked to a psychiatrist who prescribed me an antidepressant. And the minute I got on it, I felt like myself again. Like when I was having these initial feelings of depression and anxiety, I felt like Kristen, me, was in a tiny cage inside my body and the whole world was just happening to me. Like it was just happening and I had no control and everything was sad and dark. And I was scared of that because inside I felt really happy. Like, why can't I come out? Yeah. Why can't I be here? What, what is preventing me? And it was because I had a serotonin imbalance, have a serotonin imbalance, and I needed a reuptake inhibitor. I needed a, I needed an SSRI and the minute I got on it, it was incredibly helpful and I'm not embarrassed or ashamed. And has, has that,

has, have you been able to maintain that same medication or has there been changes or, you know? There've been changes a couple times, um, going or down, depending on God knows what. I mean, look, this is the thing. We talked about the variables of mental states. I don't even want to say illness. Of people's problems, the variables. There are people who might need an antidepressant for three months of their life. And never mind.

There are people who need it for their whole life. There's no formula. You just have to talk to someone who knows much more about it than you do. And there have been two times where I've tried to get off of it because I read studies that serotonin reuptake could become a muscle memory in your brain. and I got off of it the first time for a year under my doctor's supervision. I was like, okay, I'm gonna go off of it. And he was like, great, then let's check in in a month and see how you feel. And I was off of it for a year and I felt totally fine.

And at the end of the year, I started feeling really cloudy and cagey again. And I went back on it. And I was like, oh, okay, great. Well, then maybe I'll need it the rest of my life. And maybe I shouldn't be, again, shaming myself into trying to get off something that I know my body needs. I already have arrangements that I'm going to get it posthumously. They're going to open my casket and give me antidepressants just so I can be happy in the grave.

I love that. Because I can't. Yeah, I mean, I've had to change. Yeah, I mean, I've had to change. And I mean, you get, you know, I've been on different medications and side effects develop because of the medicine that's keeping them happy. Like, what a fuck you from the universe, you know? That's terrible. if your libido is low on this or you're having some like on this antidepressant like there is something we can add during the day that's known as an as an anti-anxiety but what it's also known for is combating the lower libido like there's all these different things and like i'm just tired of people acting like that's scary and shouldn't happen and then even bringing in like look i'm

not i don't love the Pfizer of it all. Like there's a whole well there, but the bottom line is I know that I need this medication. I'm happy this medication exists. I want people who have anxiety and depression to either talk to someone or work out more. Maybe they need a medication. I always say maybe because not everybody does. And I don't want to give anyone the impression that I'm like a pill pusher just because I know I need it. And I also very specifically never say what I'm on because I don't ever want anyone to go into their doctor and say, well, I want to be on this one because I heard that works because it works for this actress that I like. Like, it's very specific, you know? Yeah. Do you think at this – I mean because you have so many things going on and you get to – not only do you have like big popular things and big hits of people get to do. And, you know, just the shows that you've done, you know, from going from the good.

Yeah. Veronica Mars and then The Good Place. And then like, like nobody gets to do like, where's your shitty shows? Come on, get on some shitty show. Oh, my God. Go to my IMDb. I guess that's true. Yeah. Yeah.

There's in there. But you know what? Ted Danson and I always used to joke about this. Like, you look for the smartest person in the room and you hitch your wagon to them. That's what you do. You look for the funniest, smartest person and for a while, like, I knew Mike Schur

when I was 20 years old and I will forever be thanking my lucky stars that he called me one day and said, I have this project. I think it might be for you. Like I stumbled into Veronica Mars. That was no decision of mine. People ask me in like fancy journalistic interviews, like, well, how did you make this career? And I'm like, I don't fucking know. Like all of these, like I have goodwill because I do my friends a lot of favors and I like working with people. And then maybe they give me a good recommendation for something else.

But I read a script. If I think it's funny or I think I would watch it, I do it. And to be honest, over the last, like, seven years, eight years since I've had kids, it's all about the day-to-day experience for me. Like, do I think there – I have a very strict no jerks policy. Yep. Life is too short. Do I think I'll have fun? I have no desire to move to a crazy, you know, like to move to Greenland and do some crazy show under the ice. I don't want to do that. That's going to be, I want to be able to be home to tuck my kids in, into bed. So the projects I take now, I say that up front, like, I don't want to work insane hours.

I don't want to overwork the crew. I don't want to be overworked. I want to have fun here. I want everything to be respectful. I want to laugh with you guys and hopefully we'll create something good. And you just kind of pour a lot of goodwill into it because life is too short. So now I only take things that I think I will have a good day-to-day experience on. Do you think, are there shortcomings that you feel like you have that you're working on? Oh, tons. I mean, but I mean, like, because you, you know, I mean, I've been buttering you up, but you do, I mean, you do seem to have an enviable amount of balance in your life between weirdly balance is a four-letter word to me it doesn't exist it doesn't exist I've tried forever and in the beginning of my career

being asked that or beginning of having kids being asked that question I tried to give an answer but that was just my brain trying to stumble into a I don't know be good enough for the interviewer there's no fucking balance. When I'm at work, I want to be with my kids. When I'm with my kids, I want to be at work. I'm no different than anybody else. Like I'm always like, did you see that Seinfeld special from a couple of years ago? Nobody wants to be anywhere. Yeah. That is the most brilliant observation. But what I work on and my main goal is just like where you are, like where you are. And I say it to myself as a mantra all the time. And I have plenty of character defects.

I can get hotheaded. I can have a real lack of patience. There's so, so many. I can be a complete doormat. I can be way too naive and let myself get taken advantage of. And that's not like a, I'm not patting myself on the back, like, oh, I care too much. Like that's a bad character defense. I let people take it. Yeah. And then guess what? The consequences are my fucking fault.

Yeah. My fault. Because I wasn't bold enough to say, I think there's a problem here. I need to tell you how I really feel. Whatever. For me, it's always like you were mean to me and then I have to, you know, and then now it's like, well, you kind of let them be mean to you. Yeah. And you let them be mean to you. Yeah. But I, I mean, I don't know. I'm doing the best I can with what I've got. I'm grateful for having a baseline that's pretty optimistic. But I think my main secret is that I am committed to a growth mindset. I don't ever

want to stop gathering tools or learning. I read so many books on brain development to try to figure out why brains work the way that they work and understand why instincts are what they are and what trauma can do. Like reading like body keeps the score or coddling of the American mind or like any, I like brain science a lot. I like parenting books because I, I want to know how to create a really neutral environment to nurture these two girls that I've been given. And I believe that we were born with like a Barbie size toolbox. And I think your whole life, your objective should be just to gather more tools, figure out how to do conflict resolution, figure out how to deescalate, figure

out what, if you're a person who gets hotheaded like me, sometimes figure out how to observe that feeling one minute before it hits and just say, I need a five minute break. I do that all the time. That's your only goal. You don't have to stop having all your character defects. You just have to get the tools to create a more neutral environment around you. Yeah. Nice.

That's all excellent stuff. I endorse all of that. People, go live Kristen's life. What do you want out of your future? I mean, do you want kind of just a continuation of what you're on or is there something that you're missing? Do you have like a I'm quitting in five years and, you know, moving to a mountaintop or anything like that? No, I don't suffer from wanderlust. I mean, not as much as my husband.

My husband will see like a Folgers commercial in Montana and be like, we have got to look at property in Montana. We've got to move. I do not have that. I am a homebody. I like sitting at home and doing puzzles. I also don't think that far in advance. It's against what I know is a good tool for me.

So five years from now, I have no idea. I have no idea. Today, I'm going to do press for the woman in the house across the street from the girl in the window. I'm going to remind myself how proud I am of the needle that we threaded with this weird comedic tone. The last couple months I've taken off and just been momming my kids and I'm really enjoying it. And I know at some point over the next couple months, I'll hit a point where I'll go, I gotta get away from these kids. I really don't have a committed experience with adults.

And then I'll look for something or I'll read something in the interim. I have no idea. I'm like a big, it's not fate or destiny at all, but just like a what, what the hell is the universe gonna bring to you? And what are you gonna grab? So I have no fucking clue where I'll be in five years. That's very improv. That's very improv. That is living. Yes. And yeah, it is. So, you know,

yeah, no, I, I feel the same way. And especially like my life has had so many changes in the last few years. Uh, you know, like Conan show ending my marriage ending, you know, just like my life has had so many changes in the last few years uh you know like cone and show ending my marriage ending you know just like my kids my son is in college my daughter's you know learning to drive and i'm the same way i don't know a year from now six months from now i don't fucking know you know i mean i don't need to know that's the thing we're monkeys all we need to know is what we're doing right now yeah how to get fed yeah how to take care of our young like we're just used we're used to worrying we're used to worrying you know and we feel like i think well it's you know we're monkeys that can be eaten by tigers so we worry as like you know like a biological imperative um so i think that there's

something natural to being like there is but when you recognize andy that it is a biological imperative that is an installed piece of software in our brain that is actually kind of archaic and it needs to be updated there are no tigers yeah there are no tigers right now right no everybody just needs to fucking cool it we need a software update yeah there are not as many monsters around every corner as we see. And I think that, like, that's my grand theory about why the whole world is always fighting. Because we're not fighting tigers anymore, but we still have these installed primitive instincts from, you know, hundreds of thousands of millions of years ago where we were supposed to be scared for the tiger coming around the corner well they're not there anymore now we can actually use our brains we just need a software update yeah although you could say that the planet the seas boiling is a tiger sure sure sure you're

absolutely right that's one of the main things i feel for kids is just how, I mean, my kids tell me like, well, what do you, you know, if the planet's going to be ruined, why, why should I do my homework? And I don't really have a good answer for them other than to be like, well, I don't, I think it, I think we'll figure it out, you know? And I don't, you know. And really that's, but again, this goes back to the five-year plan. That's all we got to do is figure out today. I know me with environmentalism, I love it. I love that shit, but I also know to talk about environmentalism to people creates a fear-based response of like,

no, I can't do it. I don't know how to do it. I can't be responsible. So you try to just go, how does the human brain work? It works in teeny tiny doses. And you go, okay, well today, maybe all you need to learn is this tip. When I get packages in the mail and they come in any sort of plastic, I use those as my poop scoopers. I go outside and I poop this. I scoop the poop that the dogs.

Oh, the dogs. Okay, good, good, good, good. The dogs. Yeah. If you're worried about paparazzi that you should not be pooping in the yard. But like, that's one way to reduce, reuse, recycle. Like I take plastic from around the house so I don't I don't waste, you know, something that's already going in the garbage. I go outside and I collect the poop in it. And there are teeny tiny differences you can make in your life that will contribute to a greater good. It's like, you know, there's so much in philosophy to talk about, like having done The Good Place, that was one of the deepest wells of constructive conversation with an endless amount of devil's advocates that you could have. And Mike Sir actually just wrote a book about it. It's called How to Be Perfect, The Correct Answer in Every Moral Situation. And it's funny, obviously,

but it goes into everything, Kantian, utilitarian, David Hume, like all of these, Philip Afoot, all of these incredible philosophers about, and what he really boils it down to is it's just, are you trying? Are you trying a little bit? Yeah. You know? Yeah. Do you think, I mean, because the point of this podcast is there's a, what have you learned? Do you think that that probably falls under that?

And you answered the question before I could ask it? Like, what do you think is the main thing you've learned from this journey? Using that awful word that people use too much. It's you got to keep trying. And you have to keep a growth mindset. It's two. And to me, they're sort of one in the same. Because the minute you become stagnant, the minute I become stagnant, I'll be miserable. Yeah.

I'm looking for new information, better ways, and constantly striving every single day. And that takes a certain amount of energy, but it also fills me up a lot. It gives me a lot of endorphins when I figure out a new tip that I can do to, you know, keep the carbon footprint of the household down or get a new tip of de-escalation or conflict resolution to put in my toolbox. Just the only person you need to compare yourself to is who you were yesterday. And all you need to do is be a little bit better tomorrow than you are today. Well, that's a good place to sign off. That was wonderful.

Thank you so much for spending the time with me. I admire you and Dax, you more, just because. But no, I really do admire and always have just how you do it. and always have just how you do it, you know, how you present yourself in show business, how you present yourself as a wife and a mother and just as a human being who's trying to make herself better and make the world better. And it just, it's very admirable and, you know, bless you. Thanks. You're welcome. It's great to see you, Andy. It's great to see you, too. And hopefully we'll see each other around campus soon now that

I don't know if COVID ever ends. Maybe. Yeah. Well, thank you, Kristen. And thank all of you out there for listening. We will be back next week, God willing, I should always say, with more Three Questions.

Thanks. Bye. I've got a big, big love for you. The Three Questions with Andy Richter is a Team Cocoa and Urolf production. It is produced by Lane Gerbig, engineered by Marina Pice, and talent produced by Kalitza Hayek. The associate producer is Jen Samples, supervising producer Aaron Blair, and executive producers Adam Sachs and Jeff Ross at Team Coco, and Colin Anderson and Cody Fisher at Earwolf.

Make sure to rate and review The Three Questions with Andy Richter on Apple Podcasts.