Kristen Anne Bell (born July 18, 1980) is an American actress of Polish and Scottish descent.
Bell was born and raised in Huntington Woods, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit. She is the daughter of Tom Bell, a television news director, and Lorelei "Lori" Bell, a registered nurse. Bell is of Polish and Scottish descent. Her parents divorced when she was two years old, and she has two half sisters, Sara and Jody, from her father's second marriage. Bell has a lazy eye which affects her right eye. She inherited it from her mother, who had it corrected as a child. Bell claims that if she does not get enough sleep, it furthers the ailment. She nicknames her right eye "Wonky".
At the age of four, Bell claimed she did not like her first name and opted to change it to "Smurfette" after the character in the The Smurfs; however, her mother convinced Bell to go by her middle name of Anne instead; she used the name Annie until high school. She attended Burton Elementary school in Huntington Woods where she studied singing and tap dancing. Just before her freshman year of high school, Bell's parents decided to pull her from the public school system. She then attended Shrine Catholic High School in nearby Royal Oak, where she took part in the drama and music club. During her time at the school, she won the starring role in the school's 1997 production of The Wizard of Oz as Dorothy Gale and also appeared in productions of Fiddler on the Roof (1995), Lady Be Good (1996), and Li'l Abner (1998). In 1998, the year she graduated, Bell was named the yearbook's "Best Looking Girl" by senior class vote.
When Bell was 17, her best friend Jenny DeRita, whom she met at age 11 during a Detroit community theater production, was killed in an automobile accident. Bell said that it was "both the best and worst thing that has ever happened to me. [...] Once you learn not to take people for granted, you live a lot happier life." Shortly after her high school graduation, Bell moved to New York and attended the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University, majoring in musical theater. In 2001, during her senior year at New York University, Bell left a few credits shy of graduating to take a role in the Broadway musical version of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.
In 1992, Bell went to her first audition and won a dual role as a banana and a tree in a suburban Detroit theater's production of Raggedy Ann and Andy. Her mother had established her with an agent before Bell was 13, which allowed her to appear in newspaper advertisements for several Detroit retailers and television commercials. She also began private acting lessons. In 1998, she appeared with an uncredited role in the locally filmed movie Polish Wedding. In 2004, Bell appeared in the Lifetime television movie Gracie's Choice, which received one of the network's highest ratings. She made her debut in a theatrically released film, with David Mamet's Spartan, as Laura Newton, the kidnapped daughter of a high-ranking U.S. government official, acting alongside Val Kilmer. Bell also guest-starred on the HBO's drama Deadwood in a two-episode story arc. She then won the role of the title character in UPN's drama Veronica Mars, which was launched in the fall of 2004.
In 2005, Bell was named by Jane magazine as "one of the 11 people you'd most like to see naked", appearing in a simulated nude pictorial, and in 2006, Bell was selected "World's Sexiest Vegetarian" on PETA's yearly poll.
At age 11, Bell became a vegetarian. In an interview with PETA, Bell stated, "I have always been an animal lover. I had a hard time disassociating the animals I cuddled with — dogs and cats, for example — from the animals on my plate, and I never really cared for the taste of meat. I always loved my Brussels sprouts!" During her time in Michigan, Bell fostered animals from Michigan Humane Society and she now supports the San Diego-based Helen Woodward Animal Center. Bell often attends fund raisers for the ASPCA and other non-profit organizations dedicated to protecting animals. She owns a Welsh Corgi-Chow Chow mix named Lola, a Welsh Corgi-Chihuahua mix named Shakey, and a black Labrador Retriever named Sadie, who was 11 years old when she was rescued from Hurricane Katrina and adopted by Bell in 2005. She and many of those who worked on Veronica Mars, including friend Ryan Hansen, are involved with the charity organization Invisible Children Inc.. The goal of the organization is to create awareness regarding the plight of Northern Ugandans who are caught in the midst of a civil war between the government and Joseph Kony's Lord's Resistance Army. Bell has shown her support for the Writers Guild of America in the writer's strike, appearing in the picket lines in December 2007 stating, "the writers are just looking for some fairness."
In 2007, Bell ended a five-year relationship with former fiancé Kevin Mann, and is now dating actor Dax Shepard. She told Complex magazine that dating "makes me want to vomit. And not out of grossness — OK, a little bit out of grossness, but just nerves." Bell explains, "I’ve always been a serial monogamist." Bell has also stated that she still has the Catholic school uniform she wore in high school and is planning on wearing it on her wedding night.
Being from Michigan, she is also an avid fan of the Detroit Red Wings hockey team.