The Watch - ‘The Great’ Is Very Good. Plus Kristen Bell on ‘Central Park,’ ‘Veronica Mars,’ and ‘Frozen.’

Episode Date: May 22, 2020

Some musings on getting older (3:44) and then ‘The Great,’ a show you may have skipped over because it looks just fine, but is worth your time (16:07). Plus, Kristen Bell joins the show to talk about her new show ‘Central Park,’ as well as her iconic roles in ‘Veronica Mars’ and ‘Frozen’ (32:44). Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald Guest: Kristen Bell Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello and welcome to the Ringer Podcast Network. This week, the Ringer is launching a new podcast feed called BoomBust. It's a new hub for narrative podcasts documenting the rise and fall of companies, celebrities, and trends. Season one, hosted by our own Alyssa Boresnack, takes you through this spectacular journey of HQ trivia, the once $100 million industry-altering company turned disaster. Alyssa interviewed dozens of former employees, investors, journalists, and fans bringing you the behind-the-scenes story of how HQ crumbled from within. Subscribe to Boom-Bust HQ trivia and check out the first two episodes out now on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. I need sports to have to clear the room. Stand up and walk now. Hello and welcome to The Watch. My name is Chris Ryan. I am an editor at The Ringer.com and joining me on the other.

the other line, he'd like a bear. It's Andy Greenwald! Do you want to explain that to people? Of course. Well, there was a time, I think, in culture, where it was okay to make like these sort of obtuse references, and it would just be like you do the work, you know? You find me somewhere down the rabbit hole where I am,

but that's a reference to the new Hulu show, The Great, which we were talking about a little bit today. Andy, we were also joined by an all-time watch guest, I think for both of us. The star of 2004 Spartan. 2013's Frozen and 2019's Frozen too. With probably a bunch of stuff in between. Kristen Bell is on the watch.

We talked about Frozen a lot. Andy and Kristen Bell talked a lot about Frozen. I talked to her about Veronica Mars. Okay, but let's set this up more charitably. So she and her people reached out and they were like, Kristen wants to come on the watch to talk about her new Apple TV plus Max show. Show.

Central Park. Yes. Which is very adorable. And it's a animated show co-created by her frozen co-conspirator Josh Gad, along with Lauren Bouchard, who does Bob's Burgers. Great cast. Big concepts. A lot of fun.

Full disclosure. Catherine Hahn, Leslie Odom Jr., like the whole gang's there. DeVeed Diggs. Stanley Tucci, Internet's favorite, Stanley Tucci. But to be very clear here, I was not granted access

to these screeners. And so what we have is a little bit of a seesaw of an interview. Now, I was thrilled to be a part of it. I was thrilled to be in the room where it happens, shouts to Leslie Odom Jr.

While you guys talked about Central Park, and then, yada, yada, Veronica Mara's good place. And then, then the snows came. Winter is coming, motherfuckers. Winter came, and I finally got to talk about the dominant cultural force in my life from the last few years, which is the Disney Frozen franchise.

And that was pretty cool. And it was very interesting, too, because, you know, I know that many people who are not members of the Daddington or Mamington Hive might think that this is in some way like a performed fandom because of just like Stockholm syndrome. Because I can assure them it's not. I truly think that these movies are pretty brilliant. and the writing and story construction in particular, a lot of the credit for that goes to Jennifer Lee. And so to hear Kristen talk about how much work Jennifer Lee and Chris Buck and other people on the creative team

of those movies puts into it was really fascinating and also, dare I say, it gratifying. We did spoil them a little bit for you, for you, Chris. I know you haven't quite... The frozen movies? You haven't seen the films yet. So do you feel like less likely to do it now? Did you see that the famous pop star

seea. Is it Sia or Saya? Sia. Did you see that she adopted two teenage boys, like older teenage boys? She adopted large adult sons, I believe. I'm going to adopt some large adult

sons who have already aged out of Frozen so that we, my family unit, we can just look back and like, we're kind of past that. What are you going to go dirt biking and paintball on the weekends? What are you looking for doing? What makes you think that I would adopt kids

just to make it into eastbound and down. I think you're adopting the children from Teledega Nights. I feel like that's what you're pitching me here. And frankly, I could see it. Yeah, man. I was like, because I'm watching Outer Banks and there's like a DCS foster care plot line in that. Outer Banks, by the way,

highly recommend for anybody who wants some Escapist TV. Maybe we could talk about that at some point. Sure. It's basically Goonies meets the OC. Okay. Ever been to the Outer Banks? Of what? North Carolina.

Of your own despair? I don't know what are you talking about. I've done a lot of traveling in my mind recently. Did I mention I cracked page 500 on The Magic Mountain? I have actually when I was a kid, but I don't... I remember thinking it was very beautiful, but I don't have any other relevant memory. First place I ever came across the phenomenon known as the brew through. You drive-through beer fridge, like where you go and you just sail to Case Miller and they're like, here you go.

and it's in your car. It's kind of weird, but it's very convenient. Outer Banks, yada, yada, let me get back to where I was. That has a foster care subplot. And then with the Cia News, I was like, man,

it's all coming together for me. To adopt a 20-year-old who's already dependent. What do you think he's going to think of you, though? And you're like, hey, first of all, are you ever going to use this child, man, man-child's name?

Or are you just going to, like, sign the adoption papers and turn and be like, get in the car, buddy. Like, is he just going to be buddy from jump? What do you mean? Like, am I going to, am I going to, like, rename him at 20? No, I just mean, like, what is your level of intimacy going to be? And I mean this completely in a straightforward way, like, in terms of parenting. Like, what do you think you will excel at with a 20-year-old that you would falter at with a...

Oh, I thought he and I could, like, write our character's backstories, kind of like a little, like, acting theater, like workshop kind of thing, where it's like, what kind of relationship did we have? And, you know, was it kind of like more like, you know, like I was emotionally vacant, but then I became, I mean, emerged later in life and really taught you some lessons. Or was I, like, really like, field of dreams, like, always there for you kind of thing? It seems like you just want to play a roleplaying game.

Like, it seems like you want to, like, get Final Fantasy 7 remake. Well, it seems like you have to watch a lot of Frozen. I want to skip that part. But it's good. This is the whole full circle. Can I ask you another question before we go to talk about? I was looking forward to talking to you today. Good.

You want to him do something else? No, I want you to just dial it up. I want to ask, I'm going to put you on the spot here. And I know, but I feel like this is our brand now in general. So people are ready to roll with it.

I had an anniversary of my birth this week. Another trip around around the old sun. You don't look at day over. 33. That is not true. I saw myself in direct sunlight recently, but thank you. And what I'll say is I was feeling mostly okay because the system, the OS, has started breaking down yet.

You know what I mean? I'm out there. I'm exercised. And I'm trying to, I'm reading about Lana Del Rey on the internet. Like, I'm just trying to keep it, not 100, but like, like, 85. You know what I mean? Like, I'm just trying to keep. Sammy Hagar style, yeah.

And I can still, basically, I have most of my faculties. But there is one thing that I noticed that has changed as I've reached these last few ages. And I'm curious if you have a similar thing. And for me, it's that I have, you know, a few years ago moved out here to Los Angeles, home to many great things, but also a great burger town. This is like where the burger became very popular, like drive-thrues, et cetera, et cetera. So there are a lot of good burger spots. my children really like frozen but they also really like I know this is pretty out there they like burgers and fries

like that is a popular meal thing it's something that like the dad will do with them take them out whatever real maybe you'll do this with your 20 year old son buddy as I sent him off we're gonna have one burger and then a firm handshake I've done all I can it'll be like you won't have a catch you'll be like not really I have carpal tunnel from blogging all day. So my only point was to say that I noticed recently that if I have a cheeseburger, like nothing crazy, not like some like double thick burger with bacon, just like a cheeseburger from a reputable establishment, I am fucking pancakes for the rest of the day.

Oh yeah. And I think it's the sodium like or just the animal fats and whatever. But this is 40. Yeah. Welcome to the club. You can't do that. But I am a guy like, you know, I used to take care of people's Cheeto problems for a living. You know what I mean?

Like, I could handle high sodium count. Like, I like ramen. I can mess with that stuff. But a cheeseburger. It's not the cheeseburger. I'll tell you exactly what it is. I'll tell you exactly what it is. Because it leaves me feeling like I used to feel after three nights out at high-fi with you and the fellas in the early 2000s.

We were not meant to sit at home and podcast all day, right? back in the day we used to crush those kinds of lunches hunter gatherers oh no but we would like first of all you're talking the very important distinction that you made is the fact that we moved to the west coast so right it used to be that you could go out

and even if you had a big lunch you could walk it off man you could get the you could get the blood pumping in a really good way and here I just feel like especially in these days like your boy has to have a salad or it's it's a rap because if I go like oh, I'll make myself like a turkey sandwich. It's like you won't see me at 3 o'clock, my man,

because I will be snoozing. Yeah, but I... I feel like that's a California thing rather than an East Coast thing. East Coast thing. Also, I used to like drink four cups of coffee and smoke a pack of camel lights a day. So like, I think the engine was burning

a little hotter back then. But I completely agree with you. It's like, the idea of having a cheeseburger for lunch is like, I might as well, like, have an ambient drip pumped into my jugular. There's no coming back from that. But I ran five miles. this morning. I was like, I am going to

like get where I need to be in a sort of like carboprotein blood flow way. And then I will just devour this. And I was like, this is going to be okay for me. And I got to be honest with it. It's not okay. I think you're trading baseball cards. You're like, if I do this, then this should work. But it has to be holistic, man. It has to be like

a full 360. I feel like I'm how, Kai, how much do I sound like Joe Rogan right now? You sound 100% like Joe Rog. This is great. Next thing you know, Chris will be telling you you need to be on an all carnivore diet. Look, there's a lot of research out there. Okay? That's all I'm saying.

But my point is, Andy, is like, I too think that there is a degree to which you're trying to bargain with yourself where you're like, if I run once, I can have a burger. But the burger is always going to take you down. You know, it's the Akula class submarine floating around the North Atlantic, looking to take down your USS Dallas. And it's like you, I don't know why I went into a Red October metaphor there, but that's just the way it is. I don't think it's about you. I think it's about just the way we live in California.

Yeah, but I hear you. I think it's the way we live by being born in 1977 because I don't, you know, no disrespect to the hustle by you or my other colleague, Mr. Rogan. But like, I don't sit around and podcast all day. That's true. Twice a week, I come in, you know, come in hot, chat with you, and then I'm about my day. Yeah. Paper mache. Chasing butterflies, whatever.

Bloods, bloods, right? Just teaching. Do you have anything like that that you can talk about on a family-friendly podcast? What do you mean? Do I have anything? Are there other areas, are there other metaphorical fastballs that have definitely ticked down a couple ticks on the old speed gun? Well, I mean, just any kind of like real physical activity. I admire your ability to run eight miles.

I was always a pretty spry guy. You know what I mean? Like I think anybody who knows me knows I have a lot of like flexi. Like I'm just like a like a jumpy guy. Like I have a lot of like physical energy. And I still do. But now I think I pretty routinely like tear an ACL. Undiagnosed.

I think I shred my knees, my ankle. I burst of her to raise. I don't even know. But it's just not uncommon to just wake up and be like, that feels like it's torn. And I slug it out. You know, you gotta play hurt.

But yeah, just general aches and pains. It's funny you say that. I do think that people, our longtime listeners should know. Actually, our longtime listeners will have assumed this. But like if you go, or if you went to the old ball yard

with young C. Ryan, like between the years of 99 and 2014. Let's say we go to Citizens Bank Park. Before we destroy ourselves with a Tony Luke sandwich, Chris is the guy who will be like,

I'm going to go throw a couple fastballs in the cage. Like I'm going to go, I'm going to go just test out the gun and see if they got it right. Yeah. Like well into your 30s, you were just uncorking them. Yeah. Kid Icarus likes to fly close to the sun, you know? And none of the off-speed stuff either.

No, I don't know how to throw it. It's all, I just gut it. It was Mario and Rivera. I have two pitches. And it gets you through. Well, okay, I feel like I've learned a lot, but I guess by admitting this, I now can't have the special time with my children and we'll have to instead watch more animated Disney movies.

It is, it is really nice. It's of a piece with the text I receive from you, usually at about like $2.50. p.m. where you log on Twitter for the first time today. And you're like, I'm in a sodium psychedelic haze. What happened to Lana Del Rey? Well, no, I was also

just like, if you don't, if you log off for a while, which by the way, please, I beg you, log off for a while. I don't know what happened to her, though. What happened? Why did she? I don't know anything. What I meant was, there are these things that will come across the old transom,

which are, they come freighted with this fascinating mix of what is this? And I don't really have to know, do I? And these are competing impulses, right? Where my desire to understand what people are talking about is it once subsumed and almost carried away by my deep loathing of all of it. Do you think Kai is going to title this podcast, Get a Load of These Fucking Old Guys? I think that that's the file name that's already open. That's right. On the computer.

I don't know. I mean, I don't know what's going on with Lana Del Rey. I've never understood what's going on with Lana Del Rey. I've got a lot of fireball takes on the 1975 that I'm just going to yell at a cloud later. Okay. Why don't instead, why don't we pivot to the one place where our perspective somehow still carries a tiny bit of assidulated water and that is a world

in which a prestige television show about Catherine the Great of Russia is hip. Let's talk about the grape because this was a show that for whatever reason and this I think happens to everybody but for me, you know,

sometimes I just am not grabbed by something so I'll see a trailer for a show and I'll just be like, I'm sure that that's pretty good and there's something, I think we've discussed this in different contexts before, but sometimes

good can be the enemy of interest. Like, if you can establish that something seems like, I'm sure it's competent, but you're not drawn to the subject matter or something arresting about the first few minutes or the trailer or the performers or the dialogue or whatever it is, that its competence is almost a barrier to entry. I would say that that might have been the problem for me with the great. I don't know why. It was written by Tony McNamara, who wrote The Favorite.

Although, I will say that we should note that apparently the great script is the one that got him the job writing the rewrite of the favorite. So the Great in some ways precedes the favorite. The Great began as a play in 2008. Okay. And then took a long and winding path to the screen. But yes, it was basically what the tone in that script is what got him the favorite. Yeah.

Which if you didn't know that, you might be forgiven for thinking. Well, you might think you were essentially watching like a Fargo kind of or Friday Night Lights or Forwardings. in a funeral, like an extension of the... Snowpiercer. Yeah, an extension of a movie's cinematic universe kind of thing. And while there are some chronological similarities,

I guess, to the great and the favorite, they're about different characters. Nicholas Holt is in both, and we'll get to him. But I think the biggest thing that it shares is tone and a sensibility. Now, it's notable that the favorite was directed

by Yorgos Lanthamos, which is a great, great filmmaker. who I think we were really hoping to see he was rumored to be making an Oliver North limited series with Colin Farrell for Amazon but I think that was part of the great Amazon is cutting people $10 million checks and then never asking where the show is.

Period, they brought us to old to die young but not a lot else. But Yorgos is not involved in this series and it's not necessarily like an extension of the favorites nor shitty. But I did find myself sometimes missing the Yorgos of it all, but still quite entertaining.

by this show. So I watch two episodes. I don't know how many you got a chance to check out. Yeah, I would say, I hear your point, but I also think that it's worth articulating the differences both between this project and the favorite, but also the difference in general between a successful TV series and a successful film. For sure. So biggest strokes, just to be clear about what's going on here, this is a 10-part season, potential for more seasons to come, about the, I would say the rough education of a French noble woman as she becomes Empress of Russia, Catherine the Great, and played by Elle Fanning,

an actress who, I guess I didn't know had it in her. I can't say I've spent a lot of time on the Fanning train and you know, have enjoyed her work in some things. Like she was pretty good in that Sophia Coppola movie, but I haven't been checking for her enough to realize that she's a pretty strong, charismatic

and funny performer. And in the, you know, the pilot, which is really well made, she travels to Russia for the first time and is both disabused of all of her innocence and abused by her new husband, Emperor Peter, played by... Various members of his court as well. Yeah, played by Nicholas Holt. And the tone, if you've seen the favorite, you will recognize it, is very anachronistic, very arch, very cutting, very savage in its in its humor and its depiction of kind of just a moral, tawdry backstabbing pile of sin, basically, which is the palace. And I would also say that much like Death of Stalin, Armando Ianucci's film from a couple years ago, and even to some extent

Tom Stoppard's adaptation of Vana Kerenina that came out a while back with Kiranaitly as directed by Joe Wright, it brings a certain British sense of irony to a Russian setting. And obviously also everybody is speaking in a British accent. So I guess what I wanted to say, though, in relation to the movie thing is, yes, the pilot in particular directed by Matt Shackman, who's really, really talented, primarily TV director. He's worked on, look him up. He's worked on all your favorite shows. Thrones, yeah, right. Fargo as well. It isn't the favorite. I mean, the favorite is both brilliant and hilarious. It also features three world-class performances. But it also has what a great director brings to something, which is, you know, an incredible point. of view and a very sharp focus. The favorite would not work over 10 hours. It is very, very sharp, very, very cutting. And it feels like whatever glue was used to stitch the scenes together.

I mean, it's razor thin. It just flows and works. And what I actually came to admire about the great as I got a little bit further into it is that somehow it's an even more, at least in the early going, impressive balancing act of tone, because you can't just be cynical and mean-spirited about this if you're going to grow the show and grow the characters. You have to have room to actually, and I know this is the stuff that great artists, possibly great artists like Jorgos don't want to hear, but you got to root for somebody. You know, you've got to have some skin in the game. Otherwise, you're just going to tune out and it's just going to become a snake pit, you know, and I actually think that that was ultimately what kind of kept my ardor.

for Veep in its later seasons a little bit at arm's length. Like, it was brilliant performers doing the highest-level jokes. But it was just essentially, like, doing jello shooters full of venom. Yeah. We've had this conversation

about a couple of different shows, right? We talked about it. I think we talked about this with Sam, about Sam S. Mill, about succession. We talked about this when it comes to Veep, you're right? I think any satire, any really dark-hearted comedy that wants to really, skewer its subject matter runs the risk of also losing that well who am i who am i rooting for

here issue and and even in the favorite like for like what you're saying like you you are sort of initially tied to emma stone because you are arriving on the scene just as she is and the same thing goes for um just it goes for the great like there's a similar entrance for um for katherine i i agree with you it's like in movies especially i think that you can get away with a little bit more than you can in shows. Because in a movie, you can leave people shocked or emotionally impacted by revealing that it was about the creeping power of nihilism or about how none of these people were good. And perhaps maybe no one is good at all.

And it can cause you to question and it can leave you with that feeling. Yes. But 10 hours of a TV show, that's not a lesson that you can learn. You actually have to start one place and end up in another place. And if they plan to make more seasons, you have to be able to keep going. So there's a moment in this show where it kind of imperceptively turns a little bit. And suddenly you are on Catherine's side. I mean, it's obviously you were never on Peter's side because he is a great monster.

But, and I do mean great, but in terms of performance. But you're also, you know, aligned with her handmade who prior to the show, you find out she was a noble woman herself. And at the end of it, you're a little bit like, okay. She's going to take over the court. Yeah. And that's what this is going to be. It's not just going to be an exercise in anachronistic sketch comedy. You know, I was really impressed by it, and I was really, I was really entertained, really impressed.

And then by the end, I was really drawn in. I was, I was going to ask you how you felt about the sort of, I would say, obviously, brazen anachronisms of the show in some ways. I mean, there is an incredible attention to period detail in some. some ways. And then the characters themselves are self-aware about the brutality, I think, of the world they inhabit and also expressing moral and ethical viewpoints at certain times that are probably not introduced for at least another. I mean, I know that the Enlightenment is sort of what is being discussed in the show and that bringing those ideas to Russia is

what is being discussed in the show. But there is a zippiness to it that I think is probably more contemporary, right? Well, there is a genre. now of period pieces that are basically all done with a filter of like saucy lolls. And, you know, it's this, obviously. It's Dickinson to some degree. There was a recent, it's not worth saying remake, a new version of Emma, the Jane Austen novel, that Autumn DeWild, the great rock photographer directed that came out earlier in the year. And I wouldn't say that there's anything wrong with the tone.

I do think it's kind of interesting because it seems like there is a, We know this from looking at, unfortunately, in some ways, the internet, that we are collectively undergoing a very intense recalibration of how we consider things. What is, no pun intended, what is great, what is important, what is our history, what is our obligation to that history. And what story should we be prioritizing? Yes, and what can we do with the fact that the people who, many people who made great art were not good people or weren't as enlightened as we like to think we are today? And so one way, of grappling with that seems to be taking on this tone

where you are a little bit judging it and a little bit sinking into it and a little bit unsure about what that means and I think with a writer as skilled as Tony McNamary you get away with it because he appears at least through the early going to have a very, very firm hand on voice and on tone

and also just the dialogue is really, really excellent. The long-term validity of this project of like kind of engaging with the past but you know. You mean the project in terms of the project culturally. Yeah, that's what I was going to say. Because I wonder whether how many times when you walk into to pitch a show now,

if you have an idea for a period piece, how far you can get unless the next thing you say is it's going to be a fresh modern take on this historical period. I wonder whether or not you can get away with being like, I'm going to do period specific dialogue. Everything that happens in the show is going to be true to what was happening back then. And it's going to be a really tough hang for most of the people watching. versus we're going to kind of play around with casting.

We're going to play around with like the sort of accuracy of how people looked and what people talked and what people thought and how people treated each other because I think we're going to be saying something larger than the show itself. Yeah. And I think, and I'm very sympathetic to that because I think that the world of costume dramas that existed from the beginning of filmed movie entertainment until relatively recently was on some level, at least you could say this, the filmmakers could say this to themselves, predicated on the idea of, we're going to show you a world that you otherwise can't see. And we're going to

spend a ton of money on production values and production design and sets and costumes. You know, we are kind of living in a post-seen-it-all universe, right? Where thanks to CGI and everything else, like the images we see on screen rarely take our breath away anymore. Seeing a manor house in an EM Forcer adaptation doesn't necessarily offer the same escapist pleasures that it did to people wandering into a cinema in the 80s or the 90s, frankly. So I think taking different kinds of chances and questioning things and poking at things is worthwhile and really interesting. And you mentioned casting, which I think the show is, it's something the show is doing as well, non-traditional casting of the court, all to the better. Because what is the goal of any project, especially, you know, of a period

historical piece. Is it to teach you the way things were, or is it to say something relevant and interesting using that world as a Scrim or a Trojan horse for what you were interested in exploring and saying? No, I mean, that's what I was really, I was reminded of the Star's adaptation of Howard's End that came out, I think, last year. And how much that obviously was very much a faithful adaptation of Forrester's work, but also fiercely modern in its perspective. just not in its vocabulary, I guess I would say. It was very true to the book. It was very true to the era,

but it also came at it from a, I think maybe a different perspective. So yeah, I think I'm going to continue to watch this show. We'll check in on it a little bit later. I know some people who have crushed it in our Facebook group, people have been seemingly really happy with it. I mean, Nicholas Holt is kind of, kind of has a sneaky high batting average.

I mean, this guy is really, really funny and a very charismatic performer and doing something, different than what he did in the favorite, but clearly very much in his wheelhouse. Yeah, absolutely. I would not have... He's one of those child actors

who obviously was so precocious when he was in about a boy and when he was doing some of his younger roles and he's so good on skins. And it's fantastic. I think it took him a little while to find his footing as an adult actor.

And now he seems to have done it the way that so many people before him have where when you can't quite figure out who you are as a leading man or as a leading woman, you take these, you just work on the best material you possibly can. And by being in Fury Road and being in the favorite and doing roles in maybe smaller roles in really good material, I think he's really found himself like a very, very cool career. It sometimes comes down, it sometimes comes down to a very, what appears to be a very simple decision. And it never, of course, boils down to one decision. But it's like, am I a leading man or am I an

actor. And I think he seems to have made the right choice. I mean, in many of these cases, the industry chooses for you. I'm not sure if that's the case. But he seems to be having a lot of fun. And I think that that's, I support people having fun. I'm going to write, am I a leading man or am I an actor down for my son buddy? Because I think that's a really good wisdom to impart on him when I say son. You're a character actor, Ted. With that, let's leave it there. So the great is very good. We both enjoyed it a lot. And we, we both enjoy TV a lot. I think we'll probably be checking out some homecoming. We'll probably have a couple of other things to talk about next week. We are going to take Monday off.

So that will impact our Top Chef recapping in some capacity. Whether or not we do two shows next week, I'm not sure. But we're going to do a special next Thursday with our buddy Sean Fennacy. It's a home and home where Andy and I will be talking to Sean about the TV offerings from HBO Max. And then we're going to go in the big picture and talk to Sean about the movie offerings of HBO Max. It's going to be exciting. That feels like a trap. It is. Yeah, that's an intervention. But Andy is always, it's so good to talk to you about getting older, eating burgers, and Catherine the Great. So, Kristen Bell interview, we didn't actually, we should just, one last thing about it. We didn't actually talk that much a good place. It felt

like it had just happened. It had been pretty covered. I hope people will forgive us of that because we really wanted to talk about Spark. Yeah, we more talked about, like, she's just somebody so fascinating to me because I was having a hard time thinking of someone who it seems like almost every live action role she takes and even every voice role she takes, that character becomes iconic. Yes. And she is obviously such a vulnerable and interesting and relatable and thoughtful, like public persona, you know, in general. But the roles that she has played like Veronica Mars, Eleanor, Anna nailed it, you know, she routinely just kind of fashions these

these characters who then spin out and have a complete life of their own. And I think that's such a fascinating career. Not many people get more than one of those. Yeah. It's kind of amazing. And she's had three of them now before the age of 40.

It's pretty impressive. Roy Scheider had like two. So she beat him. Congratulations. That's who she was gunning for. That's who was on her mood board. On the big piece of paper where she wrote,

am I a star or am I a character actor? She just taped a picture of Roy Scheider and all that jazz. It was like, you motherfucker, I'm coming. Showtime. Okay, let's get into our interview with Kristen Bell. It was a delightful one.

She was fantastic. Thanks to her for joining the watch. We'll talk to you guys next week. Thank you so much for joining the watch. Kristen Bell, obviously, it's one of our faves. Good place, Veronica Mars. I was just talking with my wife the other day about one of our favorite movies from the last few years or a while ago now, but the lifeguard, which I loved. Oh, wow.

Yeah. And it's such an honor to have you on the pod. Andy and I are huge fans of your work. Thank you very much. I'm happy to be here. And Kristen, we hope that you were briefed ahead of time that this conversation is primarily going to be about the 2004 film Spartan,

which is actually a big film for my friendship with Chris. It's not a joke. We were weirdly big fans of this movie. And when Veronica Marsh started, I think, the same year, I think Chris and I said, wait, she was in Spartan. We seriously did. You guys have got your finger on the Kristen Bell falls.

I did know this is going to be all about Spartan because not many films choose to do a sort of press tour, you know, 17 or so years after they come out. But some of the films do, and this is one of those films, Spartan is one of those films. David Mamet has never worked in a, you know, a traditional way. No, he's always been against the grain. And you know what? Here's an easy visual way you can tell that it was the same year is that in the movie

Spartan, you know, I played the daughter of the president who was kidnapped and she was taken overseas and sort of torture. and they cut her hair all off. And David said, I really want to cut your hair. And I was like, oh, okay, great. I'm an actor. I'll do anything with the role. And then we cut like a sort of jagged bob.

And I was like, I can deal with this. And David said, no, that looks way too good. And let me tell you something, it did not look like that. So the hairstylist really, really made it mangy like a child who's taken scissors to their hair. and the recovery from the role, the like really traumatic role, was a lot quicker than the recovery from that haircut. Oh my God.

That haircut bled into Veronica Mars. So if you watch the pilot of Veronica Mars, you might be like, huh, that was an experimental look. There's like flak, there's like whiskeys everywhere. It's not very even, and that was David's fault. I don't think it's so great. The shadow of that movie, it's even longer than we could have dreamed. I'm so happy.

I also can't get David Mamet's hair salon out of my head as like, why hasn't he written a play set in a hair salon yet? I mean, he could do anything. I have no doubt he'd find the intense undercurrent of malicious drama happening in a hair salon. You want to cut to here? I want to cut to there. You want to cut to here? I mean, we could get really Meisner with it.

Oh, my God. Yeah. Cut to here. Cut to here. I think that wraps it up. I'm done. That's all my questions. We could get Mantania in there.

we could get, you know, like Rebecca Pigeon could definitely be like circling the salon somewhere. May see everybody. We got to get all the goodies. Yeah. We're still working. We just read that big profile. That is true. That is true. Kristen, I wanted to ask you a little bit about Central Park, which is going to be on Apple TV and it's really delightful. I know that it was to some extent a product of your, you know, your friendship with a couple of the people working on it. What was it with the drew you to the project? Because I, you know that obviously there's, you kind of have to shift. gears when you're doing voice work versus when you're doing live action stuff. What was it about

Central Park that attracted you? Well, first of all, I love voice work more than anything because you, and I say this joke a lot, but you can go in your pajamas. But also there's this added challenge, which I really enjoy because I have been a person who my whole life hears things musically. Somebody comes into the kitchen and says, good morning. Like, that's all the sudden a tune in my head and being able to only use your voice as your instrument and make people feel things just by the sound of it has always been fun for me. But what drew me to the project was, I'm going to say nothing, because there was no project. Josh called me, Josh Gad, who created it with Lauren Bichard, who run Bob's Burgers and just is one of the greatest guys in animation.

they called me probably six or eight months before anything was ever done. And Josh was like, do you want to do a cartoon with me? I was like, sure. And he was like, okay. And I said, okay, bye. And then that was it. And one of the things I love so much about Josh, I mean, obviously I've worked with him for 10 years on Frozen.

He's a wonderful light bulb of a person. So I want to work alongside him. I also trust him creatively a lot, that he will choose the funniest stuff, that he's got everyone's best interests in mind. He's an easy person to work with. And he kind of did what my dream is, which is he just called all of the people that he either loves and admires

or are his friends and said, should we do a TV show together? And that's the idea behind Central Park. So he called me, David Diggs, Leslie Odom Jr., Stanley Tucci, Catherine Hahn, Titus Burgess. And he was, he just said, do you guys want to figure out a cartoon we could do together?

And then after everybody had said, yes, they said, okay, what could this be about? The greatest shows are about family, even if it's in an office place. That's the family, right? It's about the family dynamic. So it turned out to be this family who was living in Central Park because the dad is sort of the runs the park. And the nemesis is a woman named Betsy who is played by the brilliant Stanley Tucci, who's trying to basically build a shop. shopping mall in the middle of the park.

And it's just about this family, and I get to play this wonderful girl named Molly, who is a teenager, but not in the cliche form. She, like, has a lot of social anxiety, but she has all these worlds going on in her head, and she draws comic books. And so often the cartoon will switch from real life to her comic book version,

and it's just really beautiful. I'm so glad that it turned into this, the story that it did, because halfway through the origin tale, it does sound like Josh was just trying to get tickets to Hamilton. But once he did, he then continued to do the work, which I really admire. Would you describe yourself as like a Central Park head? Like, are you pretty into the park?

Yeah, like the real park? Yeah, the real park. Is that a thing, Chris? Well, because like when I lived in New York, I would go to the Central Park infrequently, I would say. And it would always be like, did you guys know about this park? Like in the middle of the city? is amazing. And then I would go back to Brooklyn and I wouldn't go back uptown for like four years. But it is like an absolutely magical place to be.

It really is. And you can't really discover every corner of it no matter how hard you try, which is something we sort of go into in the show. I mean, it's a comedy obviously, but there's so many. There's like, you know, there's a zoo in Central Park. There's lakes in Central Park. Yeah, I went to NYU, New York University. And I did spend a lot of time in Sheaps Meadow, as did all the other college students. students doing a variety of activities. Sure, yeah. Frisbee to low-level job experiments, you know.

More Frisbee afterwards. Yeah, exactly. Frisbee just gets more exciting after that. Right. I wanted to find out, like you mentioned how the voice work is something that you were really drawn to. Is there a similar process? Because obviously, if the Josh thing is more about a collaboration with somebody where it's just like, hey, let's do something together.

But do you have a different, basically, like, meter for how you judge material when you're thinking about it as voice work versus when you're thinking about doing something that's live action? Or are you interrogating it in the same way in terms of story, in terms of character? That's a good question. Wow. I think I do, yeah, have a different way of judging the material because I have one tool. I have one tool and it's my voice.

So it's got to be very clear. I have to be able, basically, with the ingredients they've given me, which are the words, create a really good recipe. And so if I don't feel like the words are there, it's just going to fall flat. Like the tone of someone's voice isn't really what's special to me. It's like how they use it. So, yeah, I do have a sort of stricter way of judging voiceover projects because I only have, you're literally doing it with one tool and one tool alone.

Whereas if you read a script, you could say, oh, well, she says yes, but her eyes say no. I can't do that in a cartoon. There's so much left to the animators. And thankfully, I've worked with really, really good animators. But the other cool thing about Central Park that I didn't even know that I would love so much, or I didn't even know what's happening is Josh made it a musical. and there are different writers writing the musicals writing each song. So, like, I sing a song that's written by Sarah Borellis.

There's a song that's written by Megan Trainor. There's Cindy Lopper wrote some music. Like, there's, it's really, really exceptional music because it's coming from incredible current music writers. It's also interesting because it seems like, at least from the early, glimpses that we've gotten of the show Central Park that it has a sort of serialized story underneath pushing it forward in terms of the threat to the park. I was curious if that's something that appealed to you as well because obviously both the way TV is going in general and also

your work on the good place that we want to talk about, I'm sure, momentarily, that show is nothing if not a relentless boulder rolling down the hill of plot, you know, which is one of the things that made it so exciting. It's one of the ways the TV is generally changed, right? Where a cartoon, The Simpsons can run 30 years because it's just The Simpsons. But it seems like in this case of Central Park, there's both the family element that could go on for a long time, but also some larger plot that's going to take us through at least the first two seasons. Yeah, I think the best shows are built like that. And again, I'm not a show creator. So I can recognize it when it's done and when it's not done, but I don't know that I have the ability to

create something like that, but Josh and Lauren do. So yeah, Central Park does have this. They have the family issues, which you could do literally thousands of episodes. because you have like a young adolescent boy that Titus plays, who's in love with a dog and struggling with that, and is like constantly trying to get closer to this dog, not sexually, but he just really loves this dog. And then you have the older character, Molly, who's a teenager who can't really talk to boys,

but is in love with this boy she calls kite boy, who's played by Eugene Cordero, the unbelievable improv comedian and who is also on The Good Place. But there's all this stuff in the family dynamic, Also their mom, played by Catherine Hahn, is like a journalist, and she really wants to do, like, not puff pieces anymore. So everybody has a desire, like a want, which is what you want to watch. You want to watch your characters try to accomplish something.

But then there's this bigger, broader sort of problem about real estate development that wants to take over the park. And so there's this serialized element, sort of not procedural, but you can go along with the family. But then there's also this overarching doom. that if the rich people gain control, the park is gone and the family wants to fight for the park. So it's like, yeah, you're rooting for two stories.

And again, let me be clear that this is a cartoon and it's fun and it's musical. It's not this complex. But I'm just speaking to the amount of work that goes into creating a show that's really, really fun and watchable. Yeah, I think one of the hallmarks of your work is that the shows, whether they delve into darkness or not are ultimately really, really watchable, really, really fun. I was curious about what it's like to

be associated with a couple of roles, like Eleanor, like Veronica Mars, and like Anna even, where those parts almost like... Chris, it's Anna. It's one of us. I'm sorry. Thank you. I was so embarrassed for a second. I know. Should we just get into this now?

No, you can ask your question. I have so many frozen questions that I am just sitting on. That's why I'm twitching here, just letting Chris do the boilerplate stuff. So please, let's let Chris ask his serious, you know, grown-up question, and then we're going to get into it. My question was more just like, what's it like when some parts that you play almost slip into becoming, like, folk songs where they're so big or so kind of indelible with people that, do you ever feel like you kind of, like, are on the outside looking in of those parts anymore?

Like, for me, it's like, I know people who have grown up with Veronica Mars. And Eleanor was such like a huge part, not only of like television, but like almost every time you would open up social media or Twitter, you would see. an Eleanor, like a meme of something from Good Place for a couple of years there. And Anna, like, obviously that's become a part of so many people's childhoods and parenthoods. Does it ever feel like those parts slip away from you at all? I still feel intensely connected to all of them.

But where I identify with what you're saying is that I don't ever feel ownership over them. I don't ever feel like they're important to me. like they're important to the fans. I don't really ever feel, yeah, any sense of ownership over any of them. I feel like Veronica Mars was a part of me, but I also think that the fans of Veronica Mars feel like she was a part of them.

And I want to be friends with those characters just like everyone else does. I just had the really, really lucky experience and opportunity to play those characters. Does that make any sense? Yeah, totally. Yeah. I mean, I think that each one is probably different.

I was really fascinated. I thought that the last season of Veronica Mars that you guys did was incredible, like just absolutely incredible. And I know that that was, it was so interesting to see, you know, Veronica Mars was something that was sustained for a while by its fandom, but then you guys made these really, really bold creative choices with the most recent season.

And I imagine that there was some tension with that in terms of like, this is something that a lot of people feel almost a collective ownership of, and we're almost like jumping off the cliff with that in a weird way. Yeah, it rocked the boat. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. It rocked the boat.

Just Google it. So, yeah, there was a, you know, I didn't make any of these decisions, but I was privy to all of them. And watching Rob Thomas's brilliant mind work is always interesting and fun. But the show, I think, was appreciated by people because she was the girl you wanted to defend you in high school. She was the girl who said exactly what you think of 20 minutes later to say to the snarky popular girl or the bad guy or whatever. She was fighting for the underdog, but she was still complex and vulnerable.

And then when we kick started, all of a sudden it got all this notoriety because it was the little show that could and it was under the radar. But then the industry was like, wait a minute, people put $5 million to make this movie. What project was this? So because of that, Rob was very intentional about the movie because he said, look, the fans funded this movie. We are going to give the fans what they want. They paid for it. This is the fans movie. So what he actually did was he took, he said, what's the scene that everyone wants to see?

What would just make them jump out of their seats? It's Veronica Marr is punching Madison Sinclair, the most popular girl in the high school, the cruelest in the face. And he said, okay, I'll write the movie back. backwards. So he got us to that point and then he wrote whatever needs to happen up to that point. And that was the gift to the fans. When Hulu Greenlit the season four and Veronica was older, Rob felt like he wanted to and needed to create a new perimeter for Veronica to really push the boundaries and push the show, not just because it needed to be reinvigorated. And because if you just did the same thing,

somebody would find a critique with that, but also because television has come so far since then. Yeah, for sure. He wanted to be way more complex about it. He wanted to do, people kill off characters a lot now. Game of Thrones was like, kill your darlings.

Yeah. So he wanted to sort of experiment with that, and he also is allowed to be a writer that spreads his wings. And I don't know that that made all of the hardcore fans the happiest, but I do think it allowed us to accomplish a really creative season of television that we were proud of not resting in our laurels on all the old tropes

that just worked for Veronica Mara's and were sort of lazy about it. He really wanted to try to reinvent it a little bit and give her some older storylines. Yeah. Give her some older problems. And that's a character that always was wise beyond her years anyway. So to actually have her, get to see her aging into that wisdom and then learning new things was really cool. And I also just thought it was a really just awesome detective story. And noir, like Beach Noir is like one of my favorite things to read in anyway.

Thanks. Yeah, it's fun to watch. It was also really fun to shoot. Like there's something really, really special about that project because it keeps coming back and I get asked about it all the time. And I'm always like, look, I'll play it until it's murder she wrote. Everyone in Neptune is dead and then you figure out it's been Veronica who's been killing them I mean I don't care

I just I like the character gave me a fair amount of strength in my own life like I played her in my early 20s and I needed her she was my therapy because I was a struggling codependent and I still am but Veronica's desperation to see the underdog succeed and her

just ability to be blunt and direct with people like it helped me. And then the added bonus of seeing these people I grew up with, you know, Percy, Francis, and Jason and Ryan and Rico, my boys, to be able to work with them when I was 24, and then also when I was 37 and then also when I was, you know, 34, it's just, it's beautiful. Yeah. So now that we've talked about aging gracefully, I want to de-age the conversation. So my older daughter was born in 2013, and that was the same year that Frozen, or as it's known in my house, Frozen One, was released. I have many questions.

I've tried to edit them down to a reasonable amount. The first one was really this. I recently watched the trailer for Frozen One. And because it wasn't on my radar, because I wasn't a parent yet, I didn't remember how the movie was marketed. I just remembered learning about it as this juggernaut that all the kids who were slightly older than my kids. kids knew about, and then I entered and grew to love. The trailer doesn't really market the movie that it is, and the phenomenon that it became, it really is just like, here's a romp, here's an adventure story, trying to, you know, fight this evil queen. It doesn't really foreground the sister

relationship, all the things that I think made the movie special. So what I was wondering is when you came on to the project, which must have been a few years before, you know, the release, obviously, what was it that attracted you and what was the moment when you and your fellow cast members realized that this might be something special? Well, I was the first person cast and I was cast because I was passed over for Tangled.

I had auditioned for Tangled and the casting director after I sang politely took me out of the room was like, I don't think this is going to work out but I really want you to sit down with a director who's doing something in a couple years here. His name is Chris Buck. And Chris Buck had directed Pocahontas,

and he's like an incredibly established animator and a beautiful director. And we sat in the commissary on the Disney lot and he said, you know, I'm doing this Hans Christian Anderson tale called Anna and the Snow Queen, which will happen after Tangled. And I said, oh, tell me about it.

And we talked and we just, I adored him. And over the next couple years, it was sort of developed. And Chris called me was like, hey, I think we're going to try to do this. We're going to have a reading. And then they, initially, it was like, the Snow Queen was evil. I think at one point it was going to be that Midler.

And they were not sisters. And Chris throughout the development was like, I think it needs to be something a little bit different. And we had a different writer at that point. And Adina was cast. And I remember, because this. was so, it was like a highlight of my life and also one of the most embarrassing times because we did a

reading at Disney for everyone, all the executives, and they said, you and Adina need to prepare a song and we were like, cool, give us a song and they were like, nothing's been written. We were like, wait, we're just supposed to just prepare a song and sing it in the boardroom at the table read. What are you talking about? So I'd gone

to Adina's house, we prepared wind beneath my wings because we thought that was appropriate for a sister story. And because Bet Midler had, Adina had taken Betts part. So it was a sign of respect. So we sang it. We got the part.

But again, the script was not the script that came out. Ana's character was, I was just excited to be in a Disney movie. That was it. I had wanted to be in Disney animation since I've been five years old. That was it. My character, though, was kind of annoying, kind of prissy, and just wasn't something I could identify with, but I didn't want to, I didn't feel at the time I had the confidence to sort of say those notes.

And as in the first few months of working on the script and putting down some scenes, because you record a bunch of scenes and then they go back and they sort of semi-animate them, then you record more. And it's this sort of step-by-step process where you're rewinding and coming back to it. I finally got the gumption to say to Chris,

like, I feel like On the needs to be different. I think she's not likable. I don't think, and I also don't think I can infuse her with what I think my special energy is to add to this project. So about a year into working about it, at working on it, Chris Buck and Peter decided to get a different writer. Peter Del Vecchio, who's our producer.

And they said, listen, we're scrapping the script. And I was like, we've been working on this for a year. What are you talking about? They said, we're bringing in this woman named Jen Lee. She's incredible. She helped write Rocket Ralph and we think you'll love her. Jen sat down with all of us to talk about our characters because she's really, really, like, research-oriented.

She wrote something that we weren't prepared for because the depth of it was a very adult story with real complex storylines. It wasn't about defeating a monster. It was about the complexities of feeling like you're too much for this world or, like, one of your special characteristics is not something people like or want,

and they will refuse it and it could hurt them. And so when Jen Lee came on, the whole project changed, and then I don't even remember the question because I've been talking for so long. This is making my day. No, it's basically, you're talking me through all the behind the scene stuff that I wondered about because even up to the point of marketing, it seemed like no one was quite sure what this was because it didn't fit the mold. And the trailer, the first trailer is like, it's a Disney adventure. And then you see the movie and it's much darker and spikier and more emotional. that works right it works it works it works for kids

and all you need is for the kid from a marketing perspective all you need is for a kid to say mom I want to go see that or dad I want to go see that but I think the beauty came in the depth of Jen's writing and then Jen and Chris worked so well together they had them become co-directors

because this story sort of lived in Jen's head but Chris had all the know-how and it just became this really beautiful collaboration between Jen and Chris and basically saying to us, we're going to do something we've never done before. We're not going to have a villain. I mean, you're going to have a villain in Hans, but he's going to be a really small part. This is going to be about real life. And I have such a connection with Jen. There were fair, there were quite a few scenes in the movie where we just improv, where I just said to Jen, like, I think I know what she's supposed to be saying right here.

And Jen would go, okay, go. And then I'd stop and say, how was that? She's go, what if you, And I go, yes, and then just start talking. And that whole, like, the identifiable on a run to me, like when we found her was an improv, which is right when Hans pushes her into the boat. And what is the exact line? She says, you're not awkward. I'm awkward. You're gorgeous.

Wait, what? And I was like, oh, that's it. That's it. And Jen, I remember got really excited. And we were like, yes, that's her. And I don't know any other way to articulate it other than. And that sentence is the character. So let's expand on that.

She talks too fast. She talks too much. Wait, what is something I say a lot? Because I talk too fast and too much. And I just felt like we had found her. And then it became this beautiful journey of everything was making sense because they were following the real complex emotion of it. They weren't trying to make a kid's story with a hero character and a villain character.

And then they fight and the hero wins. That was like thrown out the way. window. Well, I should also say that then it's thanks to you that my younger daughter, who's now three, has been saying, wait, what, since she was one year old? A whole new generation. And thank both of you for indulging this. I just have one quick, but I honestly haven't seen him this happy in nine weeks. Yeah. You want to know a fun fact about Frozen 2? Yeah. Okay. So Frozen 2 took so long because Jen and Chris, again, are their incredible authentic and they it seemed like we were going to make it frozen too because you make another movie

when the first movie is successful that's how the business works but there had never been a Disney sequel there's been Pixar sequels but it was like a big thing for Disney and I they said you know Walt would roll over in his grave because he said no sequels but it's a shareholder company so they decided to make a sequel um but Jen took her sweet sweet time writing it and she didn't want to just make episode two, like, Elsa loses her shoes. What do we do? We found it at the end. She wanted to make it as profound as the first one. And for months, she journaled as the characters. She journaled as Elsa. She journaled as Anna. Chris and Jen went to a therapist and psychologist together and said, here are the character types we have. What's going on? What are the struggles?

what are the next steps in this type of person's life? What does this person struggle with to figure out deeper motivations for Elsa and Anna? And then ultimately they decided that the way to end the movie was for Anna, spoiler alert, Anna to be queen, because she loves her people. Anna to be queen and Elsa to be free. And then they wrote the movie backwards.

That's incredible. That kind of speaks to the question that I didn't even get to ask, which I can just turn into a compliment, which is to say that I think Frozen 2 is brilliant. And I'm so glad to hear what you're saying about it because that's what I see in the movie. I love it because my daughters love it, of course.

But I also love it because I just think it's one of the most impressive feats of story construction that I can remember. It's so thoughtful. It's so respectful of its characters. And so when I see some sort of like half-baked internet criticism being like, there's no villain, I'm like, that's what's genius about it.

that that's actually truer to an emotional journey. Are there people with frozen hot takes out there? Like, there's no villain? Oh, yeah. Let me tell you something about the frozen-splaining dad contingent on Twitter. The fight. As if this movie was not a gift. Look, everybody wants to say something.

Everyone wants to be involved. And some people don't get it. Some people don't get that that's actually the brilliant complexity of the movie is that there is no villain. Or the villain is you. Yeah. I mean, what could be more real life? You're the only one standing in your way. And it goes to some incredibly dark places. I mean, I was joking with Chris before the movie came out when I just saw the, I guess the songs had come out. And the next right thing, lyrics. And I was like, this is metal. This is, I don't know. This movie might be too dark for me, let alone my children. And yet, you know, it is that type of darkness that I think makes the light work. I mean, it's actually quite respectful. of emotions in a way that children of all ages can understand and not run from.

You want to know some secrets about that song? I mean, yeah. How dark are you willing to get, though? I mean, Chris might have to mute himself, but I am already. This is fascinating. So the kernel of the idea of Anna having that developmental song first came in its very early stages from Jen and I sitting down and she was basically like,

what do you think Anna would be dealing with? What do you want Anna to accomplish? What do you want her to deal with? Which is not something a writer normally does with her cast, but this movie, again, is so collaborative. And I said, I really want her to deal with her codependency. We're very similar, Anna and I,

and I wanted her to deal with her codependency. I want her to do something alone. She's never done anything alone. It's always been for Hans or for Olaf or for Elsa or for the people. Like, what is she do when she's alone? What kind of decisions does she make? So we had sort of figured out, okay, then we'll leave her alone at some point. We'll separate them.

Elsa and Anna. Then they were like, well, what kind of, how far do we push it? Anna's trial, basically, her trauma. And then during the first frozen movie, two people on our team, two really, really important people, one whom was our director, Chris Buck. And another who was one of our head animators lost children. and it was genuinely rocking for the whole team because A, people bring their kids to work, so we knew all these kids. And B, there's no stopping the Disney train. So everybody came to work, you know?

Chris had to come. Chris's son, Ryder, was killed the week we started press for season one, for movie one, Frozen One. And it was like sent a ripple effect through everybody. And so I think collectively the decision among Jen and Chris and everyone was, let's write about what you do when you don't know what to do. When there's literally nothing to do, no roadmap. So do the next right thing was the team's take on how our coworkers, got through something unimaginable and soldiered on and still came to work and still live their

lives with what must be an immense amount of pain. And it was sort of a tribute to that. You just do the next right thing. There's no other way to say it. That's incredible. And it speaks to something that people have watched this movie and loved these songs and not known the story. But the emotion in it is extremely powerful.

And so much more than I think people give or maybe even willing to admit from seeing a movie that, you know, it's the big Disney Thanksgiving release, but it's a lot more than that to a lot of people. I really can't thank you enough. Kristen Bell, thank you for being the MVP. You are so welcome. Thank you for having me. Have a good one. You too. And please stay well.

Thank you. Okay. Bye, guys.