sylar Blog and Journals

October 19, 2007- This coming Monday, Kristen Bell makes her eagerly awaited debut on Heroes and this week IGN participated in a conference call with Bell and Heroes creator/executive producer Tim Kring to discuss Bell joining the show.

Bell explained that before becoming a cast member of Heroes "I was a huge fan of the show. I watched it from its premiere episode. And I joked with the writers that Heroes was the water cooler conversation for Veronica Mars on set. And they had said that in many individual writer circles, Veronica Mars was the water cooler conversation at Heroes." As for how she came to join the show, Bell explained "I certainly put feelers out there during Comic-Con and let them know what a fan I was of the show, I think with the secret hopes that one day I could be a part of it. And then it was the ultimate flattery when they came forward and said 'We might have something for you to do.'"

Kring noted that Bell's character Elle was not created specifically for Bell, explaining "The character was created before we cast Kristen. And we had been talking about the character for a while and thinking about the character for a while. But when you do cast an actor, especially one that you're familiar with their work and has as much personality as Kristen has, you try to tailor the character a little closer to who the actor is. So it's hard to know when one starts to influence the other. But certainly the character was created and conceived long before we cast Kristen."

Asked if she was nervous joining Heroes, Bell replied "There was anxiety and nerves certainly, but nothing about it has been hard. They are some of the nicest people I've ever worked with. And having had social relationships with a few of them, I've sort of heard through the grapevine what a great job it was, not just an excellent show, but actually really fun to be a part of and an ensemble that really supports each other. And I think that to find that many good people in one setting is really hard to find. But clearly that speaks to what comes down through the grapevine, starting with Tim. And every time you join a different job or a different show it kind of feels like you're changing schools like when you're in high school. It's that kind of anxiety, like 'Is everyone going to like me? Is this going to be fun? Am I going to do well?' And the warmth that I was greeted with, it felt like I was starting a school that all my friends already went to." Kring added that because Bell had previous friendships with so many of the Heroes cast members and even some of the writing staff "She was sort of already kind of a part of the family by the time we cast her."

Bell gave a hint to her character when she said that playing Elle has "been so much fun. I have been crossing my fingers in hopes that I'd get a job soon where I could play someone who was is, as Tim likes to call it, a little off or perhaps didn't have the brightest and shiniest of intentions. And I think the depth at which they've written Elle, this character, she's so conflicted and sort of comes across as such as vixen, that it's so much fun to play with." Bell was wary of saying too much, but with Kring's permission, Bell also revealed that Elle has "a lot of information about Peter's past." Kring also said of the character that "She is looking for Peter Petrelli. And I think one can assume that she finds him."

"I can't reveal her secret powers. You'll have to watch next Monday. But it's a very cool power," said Bell, adding that Elle "has ties to HRG and to Claire. And there's going to be a very interesting dynamic I think, between her and Claire as far as what is and what is not. And I think there's going to be a deeper relationship there than people are expecting. They're going to see maybe some parallels. But she also has ties to a little bit to Suresh. And she's a little messed up in the head which makes her really manipulative and always out to get what she wants. She doesn't have many boundaries which I think is the really interesting part of playing this character on this particular show because the whole first season has been about these fairly good-natured people trying to embrace these confusing abilities and being very conflicted as to how they should be using them. And Elle is not that way at all. She very much enjoys her power and enjoys the emotional power it gives her over other people."

Kring also revealed "We are tying this character to this company that we have talked about for the last year on the show that Claire's father was involved with. And so one of the ideas was that this character is actually raised within the company. And it's in some ways a cautionary tale of what would happen to any of our characters had they lived with their powers their whole life the way Elle had."

Keeping secrets is a big deal for the Heroes writers, and that extends to the actors, who are rarely told what is to come for their characters. Bell remarked how she was "a little lucky that when I was picked for the character Tim let a few cats out of the bag which is exciting and certainly something that I would never repeat." However, Bell said that on the set "maybe I just had a big old smile on my face or maybe you could just sense it, but I had a substantial amount of information and all the other cast members were trying to pick it out of me. But I think I did a pretty good job of just smiling through it and knowing that I was lucky enough to have been told a little bit where my character was going or at least know her first arc." In the long term, when it comes to not knowing what's to come, Bell said "You just have to trust your creator and your writers and your director that if you weren't giving enough or if they needed to allude to something they would tell you. It's just got to be all about trust."

Bell explained some of her prior relationships with her Heroes castmates, saying "I have known Hayden [Panettiere] since she was eight. We met in New York. We had the same agent. I was substantially older than she was, but I was just starting college and met her. And she came to some plays that I did in New York. She was a lovely little girl. And even then you could tell that there was something so alarmingly special about who she was and what she was going to be able to accomplish as a performer. Even at eight years old you could tell. And I've sort of kept up a relationship with her just socially. Having joined the cast now it's been really nice because I think really good girlfriends are so rare to find in LA. She's a really cool honest girl and we've become closer because of the show. We always used to joke about trying to play sisters or friends in a project. We might not be either of those in this show, but it's still fun to get to work together."

When it came to the reports that Bell chose Heroes over an offer to join Lost, the actress explained " The media might have gotten a little ahead of themselves because I had been spoken to about possibly doing a role on Lost, but I was never actually offered one. That certainly would have been a wonderful opportunity. But I have been such a fan of Heroes from the very beginning that this would have been the dreamiest situation I could have possibly thought up as my next job. So when Tim came forward I sort of pounced on it."

Bell is not joining Heroes as a regular, but I asked her if she would be interested in making a long term commitment to the show or perhaps popping up periodically. "Funny you should ask that," she replied. "I would be up for that. I think that this has been a great relationship so far. And there was no hesitancy as far as becoming a main part of the show. From both ends it was like let's feel each other out and see how you fit into the show and if you're happy. I'll be one of the ones keeping my fingers crossed that I won't get killed!" Bell noted that "Right now I think that I am signed on for 13 [episodes] which is certainly to their discretion as to how it fits into the major plot lines. They could use me or I could just sit on the sidelines. But quite frankly, I hope they use me because I'm really having a good time. And then at the end of the 13 we decided to have a pow-wow and sit down and see if it makes sense for me to continue."

Veronica Mars may have gotten a fraction of the ratings Heroes gets, but it taught Bell about what it's like having an intensely loyal cult fanbase. "The thing about cult shows for me is that I would so much rather be on a show that people are wildly obsessed with and watch because they can't not than on a show that people just turn on because it's on Prime Time television," said the actress. "I think that the whole reason that as a performer and as a creator of a TV show, you want people to invest in your project. You know, you want people to love it, not just like it."

Bell said some of the fans she's run into were "the coolest fans ever", adding "It can get really intense. I'm not going to lie. The one thing that is different about those kind of fans is that because they are so invested, more times than not when they see you, there's much more tears coming and they don't really know what to do with themselves because it's not just like 'oh, that's the person I watch on the television show. It's that person I follow and am deeply invested in'. And there's a lot of shaking and sweating palms and tears. But it's precious, you know. It's precious."

Asked who among the Heroes large cast she hopes to work with the most she replied, "This is for two different reasons -- for on and off camera reasons. Zachary Quinto ("Sylar"), because Zachary Quinto has been a good friend of mine for almost ten years now. I've always wanted to work with him and besides the fact that he's pretty much the coolest thing because he's so unpredictable and so downright evil. And it's almost hard for me to watch because it's the polar opposite of Zach's personality because he's just the kindest, gentlest most giving person. I would love to see him and Elle face off one day. I think that that would be unbelievable."

Remarking on Elle's strengths, Bell said her character has "Determination. She's a very fierce and intense personality. When she wants something, she wants it and she wants it now which I think is good when you're working with the good guys and is really bad when you're working with the bad guys. And I think that's what she'll kind of ping-pong in-between. She has an inability to decipher between right and wrong. That's what makes her so interesting. She always thinks what she's doing is right. But it's because she was raised by the company and not by a normal family that you'll sympathize with her. I certainly hope you'll sympathize with her in trying to understand how her childhood really messed her up. And then hopefully she can get a little bit of redemption."

Bell commented on Elle's darker side, saying "I don't even think evil characters are evil. They always think they're doing something right. And it's to get to that sort of conflicted 'what's the difference between right and wrong?' kind of point which is fun and which is cool to work on as an actor. I hope everybody's going to have fun with it because I love rooting for the underdog but it's also a lot of fun to play someone who's a little crazy."

Bell noted that while her first appearance is in the fifth episode of Season 2, she isn't in episodes 6 or 7. However she revealed "episodes 8 and 9 have a lot of Elle. They kind of expose her storyline. A few of the storylines completely revolve around her. So shooting 8 and 9 was really great for me. I had a lot of stuff in 8 and 9. And so I sort of have to hold out myself to be able to see 8 and 9 and really see how the character reads as far as interacting with all the other storylines."

As the call was winding down, Bell was asked if Elle would be a character fans love or that fans love to hate and she replied "I think she'll go backwards in that area. I think that they will love to hate her initially while they're confused about her intentions. The more you find out about her the more... I don't know because I don't know how it'll read. I hope that the more you find out about her and the deeper you go into her, the more you'll sympathize with her."