Bell's no stranger to comedy films, but You Again really challenges her comedy chops, putting her through some crazy physical comedy scenes and requiring her to wear some pretty crazy make-up. Chatting with the press in LA in support of the film's September 24th release, Bell revealed her own memories of high school and going above and beyond the call of duty to look all high school-ish in You Again.
On Her High School Memories:
Kristen Bell: "I had a lot of insecure moments in high school. It wasn’t all just peachy keen, but I don’t necessarily think that I hated high school and wanted to crawl into a hole either. I mean I was someone somewhere between Marni and Joanna because I wasn’t a mean girl. I was way too insecure for that and I was way too paranoid that everybody liked me. In that sense I was a little bit of a pushover, but that was just because I really wanted to be accepted. I think that’s all anybody wants and it manifests in different forms. It manifest as like guys who beat their chests as jocks or people who are to introverted or people like me who are just going around ass-kissing. I mean not in a devious way, but in a way like I just really wanted to make sure that I was not on anyone’s bad side because I was too scared. I was so paranoid that I would not…that my friends wouldn’t like me."
"I went to a very small school where the consequences of bullying were very, very real. You couldn’t just push some nameless face in the hallway because everybody knew each other’s families. So, there was a lot less. There wasn’t the obligatory psychotic jackass that tortured everybody. I was best friends with a girl since fourth grade who was kind of the toughest girl in our high school. So, strategy-wise, in a sense for me that was my best move and I’m still best friends with her to date. I speak to her every couple of days. She was mainly the one that could be bitchy sometimes, but she was never bitchy to me, thankfully. Well, no, she was a couple of times."
Sharing Her Advice for How to Survive Being Picked On in High School:
Kristen Bell: "Do not let who you are in high school determine who you are for the rest of your life." [After determining that was a line from the movie, Bell offered more advice.] "Your dynamic with everyone will change when you graduate high school. High school is a pit of despair. It’s a swirling tornado of insecurities and there’s really nothing good about it. It’s at the time when everybody’s waking up with different opinions every day and you’re on this learning curve of who you are and who you want to be, and you’re comparing yourself to every other male and female around you. There’s no sense to it, and everybody just wants to be loved and nobody feels loved enough in high school. So, everyone out of high school I’d say, 'Let’s just give all our high schoolers a little break and let them know they’re super loved.' If you’re in high school, just know that there’s a big old world out there and you can be anyone you want to be."
On Wearing Glasses and Braces and Having a Bad Complexion in You Again:
Kristen Bell: "I liked it. I actually wanted to push the envelope a lot further and was pulled back a couple of times. I came out of the make-up trailer with like 400 whiteheads on my face and they were like, 'Kristen come on!,' and I was like, 'What? It’s realistic. I had whiteheads in high school. Come on!' And they were like, 'Let’s just go with just regular ole acne. Your standard run of the mill acne.'"
On Having Jamie Lee Curtis Play Her Mom:
Kristen Bell: "Amazing. Part of the reason I wanted to do this script is because it’s so few and far between that you read a really good female-driven comedy, especially one that doesn’t lend itself to being so 'romantic comedy' and you don’t have some brain dead doe-eyed girl staring at her co-worker wishing he would put a ring on her finger and you’re like, 'Okay, I get it - the lovesick puppy dog thing.' It works and they’re great movies, but it’s so few and far between that you get a script that’s different. This movie has so many feisty, sassy women that when I found out that it was going to be Sigourney [Weaver] and Jamie Lee, I didn’t know what to do. I was like off my rocker. I was like, 'I can’t believe it! Do you think they’ll still have me?' That’s what I thought, but they’re very cool."
"I was initially intimidated and then I kind of got nervous and it sent me back to high school, going like, 'Okay, is everybody going to like me? And how can I make everybody like me, and are there going to be too many personalities?' Meaning, 'Is this going to be a sh-t storm?' But then you get to set and then you realize they haven’t been working for decades because they have bad personalities, you know? They’re kind of awesome women and it was just really interesting to work with them as peers. Which they were so lovely to accept Odette [Yustman] and I which really felt amazing, and also just seeing the difference and how everybody works."
And Having Everyone's Favorite Grandmother Betty White as Her Onscreen Grandmother:
Kristen Bell: "The greatest thing about Betty, every journalist says to her in every interview I’ve seen, 'Congratulations on your comeback,' and her response is, 'Sweetie, I never left. You just forgot I was here.' It’s kind of true. I mean, she has been around forever and has such an amazing body of work and is always the funniest person in the room. She’s just diminutive and you may forget she’s there for a second until she zings you with the funniest joke you’ve ever heard and makes you double over. The place that she’s at right now being worshipped by everybody, it was just very exciting to have her and sort of to be on the Betty White team because we love her."
On the Film's Physical Comedy:
Kristen Bell: "The lucky thing for me is I can pretty much let it happen and whether you want it in this scene or not you’re going to get it. I’m pretty…just look at how much I’m fussing right here. I can barely stay on the chair. I’ve got a lot of nervous energy. I trip a lot. I don’t have good equilibrium, and in the places where the physical comedy was necessary it came very naturally and it was fun. I mean, I embrace it. Like I’ve long since abandoned any notions of being as elegant as Sigourney Weaver. I mean, I know my place, okay?"
On Her Long-Term Working Relationship with Director Andy Fickman:
Kristen Bell: "Andy and I met ten years ago doing an off Broadway show called Reefer Madness in New York, and Andy is just an indescribable ball of positive energy. He just goes from job to job spreading so much joy. He never has a bad day and believe me I’ve given him reason to have a bad day. Like days that I’ve shown up crabby and he’s been like, 'K Bell it’s…' As a director, you’re working with so many elements and he always has a smile on his face and I respect him the most for that. He creates a set where everybody is so happy to be there, and comes in and he plays like games with the crew."
"When I first met when we were working in New York…I don’t know, this will probably be made into a bigger deal than it actually is but perhaps part of what made us so close is that we were together on 9/11. We were in tech for a show and like the 20 of us that were doing the show were there and so there were very real fears addressed that day amongst that group of friends. We’re all still very close and we continued to do the show about two months after that and then it closed because not much survived that year in New York. Then Andy over the course of that month was saying, 'I think you need to move to L.A.' and I said, 'You’re drunk.' He was like, 'No, you need to move to L.A. I think there will opportunities for you, trust me.' And I said, 'I don’t know anyone in L.A.' He said, 'I’ll be your family out there along with a couple other people from Reefer Madness.' Kevin Murphy, who just created Hellcats and worked on Desperate Housewives forever, and a lot of people that had been established enough for me to trust. Like, 'Okay they know what L.A. is all about,' and I came out here. I lived at Kevin Murphy’s house for six months. Andy coached me on my first couple of auditions and they were what they said they would be, which was a stable family here. I don’t think I would have moved to L.A., A) had he not convinced me and B) had they not been out here because I was just too nervous. So I have a very crazy like best friendship yet there’s also kind of like a weird older brother thing happening with Andy. It’s just, I think, a relationship that I’ll take to my grave and I love him so much. I do projects with Andy all the time. They’re just not projects that warrant this amount of press tour. I mean we’ve done a couple of plays together that are in black box theaters that seat 17 people and it’s because we like working together."
* * * * *
You Again hits theaters on September 24, 2010.
