Kristen Bell

Kristen Bell is an American actress whose three-decade career has produced multiple defining American TV and film roles — particularly her 2004–2007 lead role as Veronica Mars on UPN's mystery-drama TV series Veronica Mars, her 2009–2010 lead role as Gossip Girl narrator on The CW's TV series Gossip Girl, her 2013–present voice role as Princess Anna across the Disney Frozen animated franchise, and her 2016–2020 lead role as Eleanor Shellstrop on NBC's afterlife sitcom TV series The Good Place. She was born Kristen Anne Bell on July 18, 1980, in Huntington Woods, Michigan. Her father Tom Bell was a TV news director, and her mother Lorelei Frygier was a registered nurse.

Her education at New York University Tisch School of the Arts (1998–2001; without earning a degree) launched her early-career path. Her 1998 first Broadway production (a touring company production of Tom Sawyer) and her subsequent 2001 first feature-film appearance in David Mamet's Spartan launched her early-2000s American film public profile.

Her September 22, 2004 first-broadcast appearance as Veronica Mars on UPN's Veronica Mars launched her 2000s American TV-mystery-drama public profile. The series ran for 64 episodes across three seasons (2004–2007) and produced her 2014 Kickstarter-crowdfunded feature-film sequel Veronica Mars (the first major Hollywood film ever crowdfunded, with $5.7 million raised across 30 days from 91,585 backers).

Her 2013 voice role as Princess Anna in Chris Buck and Jennifer Lee's animated film Frozen — alongside Idina Menzel, Jonathan Groff, and Josh Gad — produced her 2010s American animated-film public profile. The 2013 first Frozen film grossed $1.28 billion worldwide and won the 2014 Best Animated Feature Academy Award. The 2019 sequel Frozen II grossed $1.45 billion worldwide.

Her parallel 2016–2020 lead role as Eleanor Shellstrop on NBC's The Good Place (the Michael Schur-created afterlife-sitcom alongside Ted Danson) produced her 2010s American TV-comedy public profile. She married American actor Dax Shepard in 2013 and the couple has two daughters.

Her name Kristen is the Scandinavian feminine form of Christian (from the Latin Christianus). Kristen rose sharply in American naming through the 1970s and 1980s.