Kristen Bell Is in a ‘Good Place’ in Her Emmy Magazine Cover Story
Kristen Bell’s new show The Good Place, which finds her playing a woman who mistakenly ends up in a heavenly afterlife upon dying instead of in the Bad Place she deserves, will show her character, Eleanor, struggling to learn to be a better person. That’s something Bell has mastered in real life, which a new profile in Emmy magazine reminds us.
The video above takes us behind-the-scenes of her cover shoot and has her discussing what drew her to the NBC comedy, created by Parks and Recreation‘s Mike Schur and co-starring Ted Danson as the divine “architect” who makes the clerical error. While starring in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Bell realized that figuring out how to get the audience to root for her while playing a character who is doing unlikable things was the most stimulating kind of role for her. “And Eleanor fits that bill,” she says. “It’s part of the reason why I wanted to play her. I like that paradox: It’s fun and it’s challenging.” (Other reasons are because of the show’s heart and positive message, and the chance to work with Schur and reteam with Danson, her co-star in 2012’s Big Miracle.)
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Bell’s interview for the cover story itself was conducted on a blanket under a tree in L.A.’s Griffith Park as her daughters, Lincoln, 3, and Delta, almost 2, played nearby. It’s as wonderfully honest as you’d expect from Bell, who, we learn, donates to GoFundMe websites late at night, spends her birthdays moving homeless people into homes, designs T-shirts for the No Kid Hungry organization, and volunteers with foster teens who become moms.
She talks about why she recently decided to share her battles with anxiety and depression publicly, a suggestion made by her husband, Dax Shepard, when the thought of giving another interview about just her career nauseated her: “I felt like I had a particular responsibility — not because I suffered from it, but because I portray a very bubbly, optimistic human being, and it’s not entirely responsible for me not to tell the complete story.” (That’s also why she mentions that she and Shepard, the definition of #relationshipgoals for many people, do have fights and “go to therapy and work our s*** out.”)
On a lighter note, Bell also reveals what happened when Delta visited her on the Good Place set: “She ruins a lot of takes. Ted and I will be doing a scene, and she’ll hear his voice and yell, ‘Papa!’ from behind the camera. Or she’ll get in a fight, thinking someone is taking the last of the dried apples at craft service, and yell, ‘No!’ at some crew member. She’s loud, but everybody is very understanding. The priority is that mom and baby can have a little time together.”
The Good Place premieres with back-to-back episodes Sept. 19 at 10 p.m. on NBC, before moving to its regular time slot, Thursdays at 8:30 p.m., on Sept. 22. Emmy magazine is now on newsstands.
