One of the great things about Heroes is that we’ll never run out of people to talk to. They keep adding new characters, and so much happens that we can always interview the old ones again. Kristen Bell is one of the new ones. She came on with her eletro-Highlander/Emperor power looking for Peter Petrelli, but nothing much happened there. Surely, more is to come.
Crave Online: So, does Elle have a connection to Peter Petrelli? Does she work for the company? Do you know?
Kristen Bell: I have a lot of information about Peter’s past. She has ties to HRG and to Claire. There’s going to be a very interesting dynamic I think, between her and Claire as far as what is and what is not. And I think there’s going to be a deeper relationship there than people are expecting. They’re going to see maybe some parallels. But she also has ties to a little bit to Suresh. She’s a little messed up in the head which makes her really manipulative and always out to get what she wants. She doesn’t have many boundaries which I think is the really interesting part of playing this character on this particular show because the whole first season has been about these fairly good-natured people in trying to embrace these confusing abilities and being very conflicted as to how they should be using them. Elle is not that way at all. She very much enjoys her power and enjoys the emotional power it gives her over other people.
Crave Online: If she’s got all these issues, what will Elle’s strengths be?
Kristen Bell: Oh wow, determination. She’s a very fierce and intense personality. When she wants something, she wants it and she wants it now which I think is good when you’re working with the good guys and is really bad when you’re working with the bad guys. I think that’s what she’ll kind of ping-pong in-between. She has an inability to decipher between right and wrong. That’s what makes her so interesting. She always thinks what she’s doing is right but it’s because she was raised by the company and not by a normal family that you’ll sympathize with her. I certainly hope you’ll sympathize with her in trying to understand how her childhood really messed her up. Then hopefully she can get a little bit of redemption.
Crave Online: Is there a particular upcoming episode that you’re very excited about that we should watch out for good Elle stuff in?
Kristen Bell: Unfortunately it might be a little bit of a tease because I start in Episode five, and then I’m not in six or seven which I guess is sort of part of the mystery and at least that’s what I’m saying. Episodes eight and nine have a lot of Elle. They expose her storyline. A few of the storylines completely revolve around here. So shooting eight and nine was really great for me. I had a lot of stuff in eight and nine. And so I sort of have to hold out myself to be able to see eight and nine and sort of really see how the character reads as far as interacting with all the other storylines.
Crave Online: It sounds like they gave you a lot of information, more than some other actors get. Coming from Veronica Mars, which was another mystery show, do you have a way of approaching these characters where you might not know the ultimate point of the story arc?
Kristen Bell: Yes. Actually that’s one thing that on the first season of Veronica Mars we struggled with a lot, all of the actors. I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s just all about trust. I was, and I am giddy when I say it, a little lucky that when I was picked for the character, Tim let a few cats out of the bag which is exciting and certainly something that I would never repeat. But ultimately I think working on a show that centered around a mystery and that it’s of such vital importance that you have to trust as an actor that as long as you’re asking what details do I need to know, what should I be showing as far as like me being an actor and being able to tell the story adequately and foreshadow and things like that. O ther than that, you just have to trust your creator and your writers and your director that if you weren’t giving enough or if they needed to allude to something they would tell you. It’s just got to be all about trust.