From TV star to movie star and back again, Kristen Bell is keeping busy. After breaking out as the beloved TV heroine Veronica Mars, Bell has tackled film roles like “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” and “When In Rome” while continuing to dabble on the small screen now and again. In the past, most actors shifted from TV to features and never looked back, but the landscape is changing and Bell is happy to take advantage. Her new Showtime series opposite Don Cheadle, “House Of Lies,” debuted earlier this month to very positive reviews and her latest film role, as reporter Jill Gerard in Ken Kwapis’ political comedy, “Big Miracle,” is hitting theaters this Friday. She also just finished up Dax Shepherd’s second directorial effort “Outrun,” which she describes as “in the vein of the Burt Reynolds movies of the ‘70s” and plays Supergirl opposite Justin Long’s Robin in one of the comedy shorts from the upcoming “Movie 43.”

Bell was on hand in Santa Monica, California this month to speak with The Playlist about her role in “Big Miracle” and everything else she has on the horizon, including the possibility of a “Veronica Mars” feature.

Stepping into the shoes of a reporter
In “Big Miracle, Bell plays Jill Jerard, a reporter on the rise who views the story of three grey whales trapped in an ice patch in the Arctic Circle as a possible chance to fast track her career. “Miracle” is based on true events, but Bell’s character is an amalgam of the countless press that descended upon Barrow, Alaska in 1988 to cover the international story.

The daughter of a TV news director, Bell has been around press most of her life. She’s also had plenty of press encounters in recent years she could draw from. “I’ve had enough encounters with reporters who I either did or did not want to converse with,” Bell tells us. “I feel like I had a good enough idea of how they are to act when they want to get the story. Sometimes it’s manipulative, sometimes it’s completely genuine. I kind of had Jill ride that line. I wanted her to have a fierce dedication to her work. It wasn’t that she was meant as the villain, it was just that the whales weren’t on her priority list. Getting a news anchor job and getting noticed at work was her one and only priority.”

Director Ken Kwapis also prepped the actress for the part by showing her footage from the actual coverage. “Ken was an unbelievable database. He would send us news clips of journalists reporting on the whales. There were also some circulated videos on the internet, like when Dan Rather got a hold of it and it caught fire,” Bell said.

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[003] Life & Style
[003] Lucky November 2010
[001] US Weekly

Drew Barrymore, John Krasinski, Dermot Mulroney, Kristen Bell, and Ted Danson dish on their whale rescue adventure flick.

On the new Showtime comedy series House of Lies, actress Kristen Bell plays Jeannie Van Der Hooven, a talented and highly ambitious member of Marty Kaan’s (Don Cheadle) team of management consultants. Crafty, flirtatious and a bit mysterious, Jeannie does everything she can to keep her personal life personal, but she’s not above getting down and dirty with a different guy in every city she visits.

While at the TCA Winter Press Tour, Collider got the opportunity to sit down with Kristen Bell for this exclusive interview to talk about how the head of the network approached her directly about doing the role, the appeal of doing more provocative storylines, how much fun she’s having working with the extremely talented Don Cheadle (who is also an executive producer on the series), how she never would have imagined that she would have her toes sucked on TV, and that she craves diversity in her acting roles, but is also spontaneous when it comes to choosing projects.

Collider: How did this come about for you? Were you approached with the role?
Kristen Bell: I was approached by David Nevins. He just called me up and said, “Would you be interested in this?” I already felt a spark of excitement, after being directly approached by the head of the network. Also, knowing that Don Cheadle was attached, it would have had to have been horrendous for me to not have said yes. Luckily, when I read it, it was brilliant and it was a very easy decision.

How much did they initially tell you about Jeannie Van Der Hooven, and how much have you been able to contribute to her?
Bell: They did not tell me a lot, at all. She wasn’t the main focus of the pilot, and they were trying to make me happy or satisfied by saying, “She’s going to unfold. It’s going to be a big character.” But, in all honesty, I didn’t really care. I liked the people I was working with. I liked the material. I was excited to work with Don Cheadle. Even if I was only in one scene an episode, it didn’t really bother me. I don’t crave being the main character. So, for the pilot, I wasn’t given a lot of info. But then, as we started to shoot the season, you see Jeannie’s hometown and her parents and where she came from, and you understand her more. So, I was given all those details by (show creator) Matt Carnahan, once the season started.

When you do something like this and it’s developed over the course of the season, what sort of backstory did you do for the character?
Bell: Well, I didn’t know a ton about her backstory for the pilot, so any questions I had, or to figure out how she would react to certain situations, I just asked stand-alone questions and asked Matt Carnahan if this is what he pictured, as well as our director, Stephen Hopkins. They kept me on track. But then, as we started the series, we all sat down and talked about our characters. I think it was of paramount importance that we knew who they were prior to meeting them because it’s very difficult to play a believable slick rick type person without knowing what the building blocks are, or how they got there, to be such a shark.

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Kristen Bell is scheduled to be making the talk show rounds this week and next! Make sure you check your local TV listings for exact air times in your are.

Tuesday, January 31st: THE ELLEN DEGENERES SHOW, syndicated
Thursday, February 2nd: CHELSEA LATELY, E!
Monday, February 6th: CONAN, TBS

Fans of the new hit SHOWTIME comedy series HOUSE OF LIES can now enjoy a behind the scenes look at what goes on at the Galweather & Stearn offices when the hot, young team of consultants is away from their clients. The team typically spends four days a week on the road, working hard and playing even harder. But, on Fridays, the real fun begins… This is the story of what happens on the fifth day. The “Fridays at Galweather” webisodes were written by Emmy® Award-winning series star Ben Schwartz and series co-producer Wes Nickerson, and directed by Emmy Award-winning series star Glynn Turman (“The Wire”).

The HOUSE OF LIES webisodes focus on Clyde (Schwartz) and Doug’s (Josh Lawson) frat boy antics during their “work day” at the Galweather & Stearn offices. Clyde and Doug take on “strategic” issues that include sexual harassment, hazing a new applicant, how to hire cost-effective adult entertainment and what to do when trapped in an elevator. The webisodes will also feature a guest appearance by series star Kristen Bell.

For an inside look at “Fridays at Galweather,” go to http://galweatherstearn.com/people-values

The videos are also available on SHOWTIME ON DEMAND.

She curses, she gets lap dances, she makes raunchy sex jokes. For Kristen Bell’s latest role on Showtime’s House of Lies, it’s safe to say her squeaky clean Veronica Mars persona has officially left the building.

“Being in a strip club in the middle of the afternoon with the lights on was a little unnerving. There’s a scene where I have to dance sexily around in my underwear that made me very nervous,” Bell tells TVGuide.com. The part “scared me a little bit.”

In the half-hour comedy, which follows a team of management consultants and stars Don Cheadle, Bell plays whip-smart, cutthroat “schmooze operator” Jeannie Van Der Hooven. House of Lies marks Bell’s first series regular TV project since she played a teen sleuth in cult favorite Veronica Mars, which was axed in 2007. On the big screen, she’s co-starred in films Forgetting Sarah Marshall and Burlesque and still voices the title character of Gossip Girl. “I was excited that Jeannie was very, very different and much more provocative [than Veronica Mars],” Bell says. “It’s important to show that it is a shark tank and it is sink-or-swim and Jeannie would not be able to work there if she didn’t play like a boy and get as dirty as they did.”

Producers liked her for the role at least partly because Jeannie was such a departure. “To see her open up is pretty amazing,” creator and executive producer Matthew Carnahan says.

Bell was first approached about House of Lies after she and fiancé Dax Shepard pitched another project to Showtime President David Nevins. Instead, Nevins called her the next day to gauge her interest in the pilot for a slick, racy comedy starring Cheadle. “Before he finished the ‘le’ in Cheadle, I said yes,” she recalls. “I just flew by the seat of my pants.”

Working with Cheadle, who both stars in and executive-produces the comedy, Bell wouldn’t get top billing — but she says that was part of the appeal. She remembers all too well the pressure and long hours that went with carrying Veronica Mars. “What they initially said was, ‘You’re a small role in the pilot, but don’t worry we’re going to develop your character. It’s going to be great,’ which I can tell is the pitch that everyone gets when you have under 20 lines in a pilot. They always promise you the world. Sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesn’t,” she says.”Even if they were yanking my chain about developing the character, I said to myself, ‘Its fine. If I have to support Don Cheadle in a series, there are worse jobs you can have.’”

It came as a pleasant surprise when the producers delivered. “I’ve never had a promise carried through like this,” she says. “I love my part.”

Bell has already bonded with the cast, too — a perk that the movie star says will keep her coming back to TV. “The four of us met and immediately fell in love. A four-way love square hasn’t even been done on Jersey Shore,” she says of her castmates, which also include Ben Schwartz (Parks and Recreation) and Josh Lawson (Romantically Challenged). “I’m a creature of habit. I’m a lot like a dog. I like being fed at the same time. I like seeing the same people every day. On TV, it really becomes like a big family. Those relationships, I think on a human level, fuel what you’re able to do as an actor.”

And yes, she’s totally down to get back into Veronica Mars’ shoes should a big-screen continuation go into production. “I’m so thankful for the impact that Veronica Mars has had on my life. It makes me excited that it affected people to the degree that it did. It makes me excited that fans still want a movie because I still want a movie,” she says. “That wasn’t an easy show to shoot or to publicize. I’m proud of it, and I think nothing compares to something you work on that you’re genuinely proud of.”

House of Lies airs Sundays at 10/9c on Showtime.

TVGuide.com

Kristen Bell is featured on the cover and inside the February 2012 issue of “Self” magazine!