Kristen Bell is very busy.
Not only is she preparing to star in a workshop of a new stage musical, “Three Months Later,” in Los Angeles, but she’s also getting ready to shoot Season 3 of her hit Netflix rom-com series, “Nobody Wants This.”
In between those projects, she’ll squeeze in her third time hosting the Actor Awards on March 1.
“I’m in like full throttle bad boss mode,” Bell says. “Well, not a bad boss. More like a worker bee.”
Are you getting used to calling them the Actor Awards and not the SAG Awards?
I’m starting to. It’s a little bit easier because the statue has always been called The Actor so it’s not as if the name came out of nowhere. I think it had been on the burner for a while, and with the broad reach of the show, obviously, not just domestically, but globally, it makes it easier for folks to understand what the show is about, that it is truly honoring actors voted on by actors. It’s closest thing to your high school yearbook that you’re ever going to get. It also embraces a modern identity for the show.
Do you remember the first time you said, “I’m an actor”?
It would have been once I started doing press because I don’t think before I started doing press, I ever would say to anyone casually, I’m an actor.
Did you say it for your first credited role in 2001’s “Pootie Tang”? Were you an actor then?
I sure was.
And what a cast – Chris Rock, Jennifer Coolidge and Wanda Sykes.
That was a fun one. I played Andy Richter’s daughter. It was one scene and it was cut, but they kept it in the credits, and I was still really proud. Even then, I was enamored by comedians. I love comedy. I think smiling is very important. I think to have the sole objective to make people smile is like kind of a cool ethos. So to be with that cast for one scene, felt very exciting
Did they tell you beforehand that you didn’t make the final cut?
They did. It was very respectful. Then I sat through the whole movie and when the credits rolled, my name was still there. I was really happy.
But look where you are now. Look how far you’ve come.
Look how far you’ve come! Hey, look how far we’ve come!
You just gave me your schedule and it sounds exhausting.
It is, but it only lasts for certain weeks of the year. There’s like six weeks of the year when I’m in high octane mode. But I will say I’m only in high octane mode because I really do turn off my phone at five o’clock.
You do?
Yeah, that’s a non-negotiable for me. So I rush, rush, rush during the day to try to get all these things done because when my kids get home and we’re all off work and the family is together, my phone goes into another room and we make dinner and watch a movie. Tonight, we’re watching “Castaway.” I work really hard so that I can play really hard.
How many jokes are written for you for the Actor Awards?
A billion. Usually we start with concepts. Like, are we going to talk about the name change? My vote was, yeah, A, because it is the only year you can do it because this is the year of the name change and, B, I think there’s a lot of comedy to mine within that. What’s pitched more before jokes are concepts, is this funny to goof on? There are anchor shows that we all know like “Severance” and “The White Lotus.” There were some hard hitters that we’ve seen for the first time. Then there’s a ping pong movie so we got ping pong in the mix now that we can goof on and we all kind of just sit and think about what would be the most entertaining and goofiest things to say about those subjects.
When do you decide whether you’re going to sing or not?
I’d always like to sing, but I can’t have it just be a concert. They didn’t buy tickets for the Kristen Bell concert, right? They bought tickets to the Actor Awards. I mean, I don’t even think anybody paid for their tickets, but they’re coming to see this special experience that’s got 30 years of legacy. I can’t just do whatever I want. It’s not the mirror in my bedroom where I can just perform. But if we can find a topic and concept and funny enough version of that that involves singing, I’m here for it.
The 32nd Annual Actor Awards presented by SAG-AFTRA (the Screen Actors Guild — American Federation of Radio and Television Artists) will stream live on Sunday, March 1, on Netflix at 5 p.m. PT / 8 p.m. ET.
This Q&A was edited for length and clarity.
English (US) ·