In her latest movie, Big Miracle, Kristen Bell helps save the whales. And in her current TV show, House of Lies, the actress swims with sharks. Meanwhile, there is a video going around the Internet of her freaking out over a sloth. What’s the deal with Bell and animals? Vulture phoned the actress to get her insight into mammals, including her thoughts on codpieces and toe fetishes.

So that video going around of you freaking out over a sloth …
Dax [Shepard, her boyfriend] brought a sloth to me for a few hours as a birthday present. I’ve always loved sloths. It was one of the best days of my life almost to the point where I couldn’t handle it — it was that exciting. I lost my mind.

Are sloths indeed lazy?
It depends on how you look at it. They can’t be lazy, because they’re never not lazy. Their metabolism is so slow. They live in the trees. And they have to shimmy down a tree, which of course takes hours. They poop, like, once a week. And they have to rub their bum on the ground to get their digestive system running.

What’s the most interesting thing you learned about whales making Big Miracle?
[Pause.] What I learned …

For instance, I’ve heard that female whales get around — they aren’t monogamous.
Whales rape. They do. I don’t know if that’s the only way sex happens in their species, but I do know it takes two or three males to corner a female in order to impregnate her, which I personally consider rape [laughs]. You want the species to survive, so there’s cognitive dissonance there.

Your dad was a news director. What did you learn from him in playing a reporter in this movie?
I wish, in retrospect, that I had asked him how this event [based on a real 1988 Alaskan whale rescue] affected him. And I’m embarrassed to say that I didn’t. I grew up going to the station with him and being able to play with the TelePrompTers, knowing the behind the scenes of news directing. And it’s very similar to acting. He had a lot of hesitancy because he knew the rejection that was possible. He had been the one forced to reject people.

In addition to the sloth video, you’re apparently also newsworthy this week for the erroneous headline “Kristen Bell Enjoyed Sucking Toe,” in reference to a House of Lies scene.
I was asked how uncomfortable it was getting my toes sucked. And I said, “It wasn’t as uncomfortable as I anticipated.”

How does one prepare for that type of scene?
Well, obviously a pedi is mandatory. It’s much like any preparation of intimacy on-camera: You have to do everything you can think of. In order to make him comfortable, I brought a bowl and a sponge and a wash cloth and washed everything right in front of him. Because I would be thinking, Is this girl gonna have toe jam? What’s going inside that shoe?

Do people check out your feet now?
I don’t know that people look at my feet. I have seen comments on Twitter or otherwise about my foot or feet in general. I don’t realize it was as much of a fetish. Feet are pretty gnarly. It’s rare that you come across a nice set of toes.

Quentin Tarantino has a well-documented foot fetish. Maybe you can parlay this into a film role.
Does he love feet? He embraces it? Oh my gosh. Wow.

House of Lies also had you dancing in your underwear on-camera. Was that worse?
The only thing more vulnerable than dancing on-camera is dancing in your underwear. Your moves are immortalized. Especially because it was supposed to be erotic. Not my forte. I can do cute till the end of the day, but sexy is a whole different thing to embrace. I’m not Christina Hendricks. And I’m not even dancing to music — they laid that in after. You couldn’t imagine how awkward that was: no music, I’m in my underwear, and there’s 40 stinky crew members in the room. But I kind of just had to go for it.

How much do you know about your character’s background ahead of this show?
I was really only given what I needed for each episode. Jeannie was not a huge role in the pilot. I had been told, “Oh, she’s gonna have this great story line.” Truth be told, that’s what everyone tells you when you start a show. But I like the show. Even if I was just there to support Don Cheadle’s character, I was fine with it. But you do learn a hell of a lot about Jeannie in the upcoming episodes.

The show will continue to tap into her moral ambiguity?
Yes, you learn why she can be so inviting and cutthroat. You learn why she’s kind of obsessed with Marty [Cheadle’s character] but wants his job. She has a past that she’s ashamed of, and she cannot come to terms with things in her life until she works those issues out. And I have sympathy for that.

Looking ahead, will you be visiting your old TV character, the chilly robotic caterer Uda Bengt, in a Party Down film?
I think they’re working on it. I don’t know that I’ll be a part of it because I wasn’t one of the main characters. But I still am very close to all those guys, and I know that they want it to happen.

It’s not a Party without Uda!
That’s what I said!

I noticed that you’re playing Supergirl in an upcoming comedy called Movie 43. As a comics-nerd crush object, is that fulfilling any childhood fantasy for you?
I think my reason for loving superheroes is having Comic-Con fans because Veronica Mars was such a cult hit. It’s exciting to me to have such an original group of people like what you do. There’s nothing mainstream about the Comic-Con fans; they are just more interesting. I like a little bit of weird and a lot of originality and a lot of heart. And that is a definition of a geek.

On a more serious note, you were very active in the last campaign for Barack Obama. Do you have plans to be as involved during this campaign?
I’m a Democrat. I know that. If I’m there, it’s to support the Democratic party. I will be there.

Is that to say you’re currently hoping the president has a second term?
[Giggles.] Over the clown race? Yeah. Yeah. I’m hoping it’s Obama.

Who is the alpha clown in the clown race?
Oh God, you’re gonna get me into so much trouble. Here’s what I do know: I don’t share the same views as a lot of the GOP candidates. I genuinely don’t want to offend anyone. My goal is for more equality for everyone. And I’ll get shit from my publicist if I run my mouth.

NYMag.com

Kristen Bell can relate to her character in the new Ken Kwapis film Big Miracle. In this true tale about ‘Operation Breakthrough,’ in which three gray whales were trapped and then freed from the ice in Alaska, Bell plays a young journalist in search of the story that will make her career. Bell, who rose to fame when she starred on the hit TV show “Veronica Mars,” knows competition. Sure, she’s starred in a bunch of movies, and was even able to get on another show with Don Cheadle (“House of Lies”), but she’s aware that there’s always someone out waiting to take her job. We recently spoke to the actress, and she shared all sort of things. Did you know her dad was a newscaster? She told us that’s the reason she speaks in soundbites.

What was it that originally drew you to the script?
Kristen Bell: Initially, the fact that it was about animals. I thought, in simple terms, “Oh, I like animals.” Then upon reading it, the complexity of the story, it seemed almost unbelievable to me. I was like, “Oh really, a hundred and eighty journalists from different countries flew in and two million dollars was spent on this, really, and people got married who met talking about the whales? Give me a break Kwapis.” And he said that the most outrageous portions of the movie are the truth. I just felt like it was as story that needed to be told. The inspiration factor behind it was the most important thing to me. There’s so few times in history when everybody wakes up at the same time or everybody works together. We are so into having enemies as humans. We are so interested in the us and them of it all that it’s phenomenally rare to have everybody check their baggage at the door and work together and it is so powerful, I think.

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In Big Miracle, Kristen Bell plays a young but driven reporter sent to cover a major story unfolding in the Alaskan wilderness. When we recently met with Kristen in LA to talk about the movie, which filmed on location just outside of Anchorage, she told us she was up for the challenges the role presented. Not only did she grow up in Detroit, where the Winters are notoriously harsh, but as an actress, she said she could relate to her character’s ambition as well as her career setbacks. Kristen also talked about what it was like to be caught in an onscreen love triangle between Drew Barrymore and her longtime friend John Krasinski, and a magical moment during the shoot that left her feeling “insignificant.”

House of Lies’ leading lady Kristen Bell stopped at Sundance to tell us about playing a “professional liar” in the new “perverted” dark comedy. Plus, find out which Big Miracle costar she said couldn’t take the Alaskan cold and hear how she stays fit by eating leftover pizza in our fun one-on-one interview at the Bing Bar!

Kristen Bell is known for her bubbly personality, but according to the House of Lies star, it isn’t in her nature to be so positive.

“I love my therapist. When I have an issue that I need to work through, going to therapy gives me a bigger toolbox to do so,” Bell tells the February issue of Self. “Talking with friends helps, too.”

“I can say crazy things to my friends, things I’m embarrassed to admit, like, ‘I feel so ugly or worthless today,’” Bell explains. “They say, ‘What? You’re nuts!’ Having good, real friends builds your self-esteem exponentially.”

Bell believes she’s become a stronger person thanks to her therapist. “If I’m feeling down, I have someone who I trust to help me guide my feelings and help me distinguish the real from the imaginary.”

The Veronica Mars alum admits it took some time for her to lighten up. “I did take myself too seriously in my twenties,” Bell says, “but you have a series of experiences when you grow up and you have mini epiphanies where you realize you’re not the most important person on the planet and life is short. I think that’s really healthy.”

The actress — currently engaged to her When in Rome costar Dax Shepard — says she’s still a work in progress. “I’ve worked really hard to curb my natural impatience by realizing that everyone is doing the best they can.”

“I’m least proud of my ability to be lazy and procrastinate by spending time on my computer or in front of the TV, watching America’s Funniest Home Videos, the greatest show on television,” Bell tells Self. “To anybody who pooh-poohs it, I say, ‘Just give it 30 minutes.’”

Yahoo.com

Kristen Bell has six movies slated for release in 2012, but the 31-year-old actress is still saving for a rainy day.

“I always assume my career’s going to end tomorrow, you know what I mean?” the House of Lies star, who’s been engaged to Dax Shepard since 2009, tells the new issue of Flaunt. “We’re very frugal.”

Bell adds that they’re “hillbillies at heart, and I’m not f-cking ashamed of that.”

Bell — who next appears alongside Drew Barrymore and John Krasinski in Big Miracle — says her life with Shepard, 37, improved once she finally realized it’s OK to make mistakes.

“I think perfection is unrealistic and unattainable, and I felt freed when I let myself be who I am,” Bell tells Flaunt. ” Like, I’m gonna order red velvet pancakes. Life is f-cking short and these are delicious.”

UsMagazine.com

Cover girl Kristen Bell reclaims the small screen this month in Showtime’s new series, House of Lies. Bell stars in the hit comedy as Jeannie Van Der Hooven, the whip-smart management consultant teamed up with the brazen and charming Marty Kaan, played by Don Cheadle. We loved Bell as a teen sleuth on her hit show Veronica Mars (and as the sly narrator on Gossip Girl) so naturally we were thrilled at her return to our DVR queue.

Bell was so fun to have on set–between listening to Glee tracks, the star dished on everything from her long-time vegetarianism to her experimentation with 80′s hairstyles. Check out the behind-the-scenes cover shoot video below, then grab our February issue and see why we fell for Bell.

Kristen Bell loves sloths. You might even say she’s obsessed with them. She told Ellen about what happened when her boyfriend, Dax Shepard, introduced her to one for the first time, and if it’s too hard to believe, she brought the footage to prove it.

Watch the full interview on “Ellen” Tuesday January 31st!