Kristen Bell is already a protective mommy. The House of Lies actress is expecting her first child with fiance Dax Shepard, and says she is super-mindful of everything she comes into contact with now that she’s pregnant.

“I have been hyper-aware of everything . . . not only just in food,” Bell, 32, told E! News. “I’m not strict, but I’m just very aware of what I’m putting in my body because it’s affecting someone else. And that’s kind of my responsibility. So, I’m working hard in the department.”

And the mom-to-be, who is the face of Neutrogena Naturals acne line, is even being careful about what beauty products she uses.

“When you’re pregnant your sensitivity to everything goes up,” she explained, “so I’m working really hard at keeping everything I use very natural.”

But other than that, Bell admitted, “I haven’t really done anything yet.”

“I think that because I’m still working on House of Lies, I’m still focusing on work while I’m in the earlier terms of my pregnancy,” she said. “Once I get to the point where I’m going to want to be on the couch all day, I’ll start looking through baby books and picking everything out.”

usmagazine.com

Kristen Bell and director Liz W. Garcia discuss “Lifeguard” at the Sundance Film Festival.

Comedienne Kristen Bell has made a career of filleting men with stiletto-heel one-liners in House of Lies, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, and Party Down, all while doing double duty as America’s sweetheart. This is why her breakout performance—as a journalist caught in an illegal affair with her hunky, 16-year-old neighbor in the indie drama, The Lifeguard—made waves at the Sundance Film Festival. Between screenings, we caught up with Bell to discuss her controversial role and why she gets weepy over sloths.

DETAILS: Congratulations on your movie The Lifeguard getting into Sundance. Is this your first time at the festival?

KRISTEN BELL: Thank you. I’ve had a few films participate, last year Safety not Guaranteed and Reefer Madness a few years back.

DETAILS: Does it differ much from other festivals on the circuit?

KRISTEN BELL: It’s definitely the most well-known, but in some ways that can both benefit and detract from the cache of the festival.

DETAILS: How did your comedic background influence this role?

KRISTEN BELL: The writer/director Liz Garcia has a sharp and disarming wit that’s apparent in her writing. I understood that beneath all the drama she wrote is quite a few layers of comedy, and I think that allowed for a deeper story to be told—one that’s a lot more like life, where tragedy and comedy seem to be one in the same.

DETAILS: I’ve noticed you don’t shy away from darker comedic roles. From Veronica Mars to Sarah Marshall to Party Down to House of Lies, you’ve played many forceful characters who aren’t always immediately likeable. That’s a brave choice when many actresses tend to opt for roles that present their characters in nothing but the best light. How do you jump into a role like that and not worry what people will think?

KRISTEN BELL: I guess I just believe nothing is funny about perfection. It’s always more interesting to me to have a flawed character, and it’s inevitably funnier as well.

DETAILS: The Lifeguard’s director is an industry vet but novice filmmaker. Why did you take on the project?

KRISTEN BELL: The minute Liz and I jumped on the phone to discuss the project we connected. We are very similar women and that comforted me in knowing that this woman, who I felt I understood and understood me, was the captain of the ship.

DETAILS: You were pregnant during filming. Did anyone know?

KRISTEN BELL: Not that I know of, though now people have said they had their suspicions since I was tired all the time. I imagine everyone else just thought I was lazy.

DETAILS: Did being pregnant complicate any Lifeguard sex scenes or nude scenes for you?

KRISTEN BELL: No, it was too early to affect anything.

DETAILS: Congratulations on all the accolades for House of Lies. How do you balance major projects like that with smaller indies like The Lifeguard?

KRISTEN BELL: House of Lies only shoots three months a year. That leaves me the majority of the year to look for other projects that interest me and that’s very lucky. I adore TV but also think there are a ton of great indies out there, and rather than try to balance things I try and fight for the ones I love and hope for the best!

DETAILS: With VOD and indies increasingly being released outside of theaters, do you see new opportunities for A-list actors to take on more esoteric passion projects?

KRISTEN BELL: With newer ways to raise money and also new ways to release a project I think it emboldens many more actors and writers to take a chance on producing their own ideas. Things like Kickstarter, web series, and Netflix releases all make it possible for new, fresh ideas to hit the mainstream.

DETAILS: You and your husband Dax Shepard looked great at the Golden Globes. I’m curious—do you dress him for these events? As a celebrity couple, is it like prom? Do you guys coordinate?

KRISTEN BELL: No way! He has a mind of his own, and that goes for his fashion as well. He likes what he likes and I always think he looks adorable, so I don’t interfere!

DETAILS: You took Dax to Roscoe’s Chicken and Waffle for his birthday. His choice or yours?

KRISTEN BELL: His! But don’t get me wrong—a pregnant woman will never turn down waffles for dinner.

DETAILS: You are famously attached to your sloth. Do you actually have a sloth?

KRISTEN BELL: Ha, no. I think many people jumped to the conclusion that Dax actually purchased a sloth for me, but I in no way support the exotic-animal trade. I have always wanted to meet one, and the sloth I was introduced to was a rescue sloth who lives at an animal sanctuary and is trained to work in movies. Her name is Melon and she lives a very happy, very slow, comfy life.

details.com

Audiences going into Kristen Bell’s new Sundance movie, The Lifeguard, written and directed by TV writer Liz W. Garcia with Bell’s old pal Martin Starr playing her closeted best friend from high school, probably expect a comedy, or even better, a Party Down reunion. Better to temper those expectations now. The movie is actually the sobering tale of a New York newspaper reporter, Leigh, who is about to turn 30, moves back home with her parents in Connecticut, reclaims her high-school job as the lifeguard of a pool in a condo complex, and starts up an affair with a 16-year-old (hot) misfit who’s living there (Little Jason, played by David Lambert). Much of this is to the horror of her other best friend, played by Mamie Gummer, who’s now an assistant principal at Little Jason’s school. Basically, it’s the anti-Girls. Jada Yuan spoke to a pregnant and showing Bell, 32, about getting older, going back home, and her plans for celebrating the next Hunger Games movie.

[Editor's Note: Everyone keeps coming up and saying, “Have a good birth!”]

When are you due?
End of spring, so I’ve got a bit. But I certainly hope I have a good birth.

I just came from seeing The Lifeguard, and I think I’m like a lot of people who see your name and Martin Starr’s name and think it’s going to be a comedy.
For sure. I’m sure.

How do you succeed against that expectation?
Well, first of all, I feel lucky. I had wanted to participate in a project that wasn’t a comedy for a while now. I love doing comedy, but I kind of wanted something where I didn’t smile through the whole movie, and this really, really fit the bill.

How would you describe Leigh at the beginning? She’s a New York newspaper reporter who’s writing stories no one reads and is sleeping with her boss, who gets engaged shortly after making out with her.
Stuck. Feeling the pressure that the world puts on you to define where your adolescence ends and your adulthood begins, yet being completely unsatisfied with where her adulthood is beginning. I think that’s something that a lot of people can relate to, since all the lines are blurred about when you can actually grow up, because 30 is really the new 20. And I think that she has this sense of very revisionist history, that there’s this time in her life where everything was perfect.

What happens for you when you go back home?
I don’t go back home very often. I usually convince my family and friends to come out and visit California, just based on looking at the weather channel. “Where are we going to spend this time together? Let’s be honest. Michigan or California? Come on. Get real, guys.”

What was your experience of turning 30?
I loved turning 30. Granted, I had a very childish birthday party, so I don’t know if I’ve just been very accepting of the balance between childhood and adulthood. But for my 30th birthday, I themed it like the Hunger Games.

I read about this.
It was a costume party, and it was really exceptional. It was better than whatever you read. I was head to toe in a spandex suit. I carried a bow and arrow. I was thrilled. And my friends are very into dress-up parties, so they came all out, so I didn’t feel like an idiot. They were, like, head-to-toe dressed as tracker jackers and there were, like, five Effies there and four Katnisses. It was just stupid and fun.

You didn’t have a moment of being like, I am so old!
I didn’t have a breakdown. Now I sort of feel it. I feel it more now because I said out loud the other day, “Oh, I’m going to be someone’s mom,” and I almost had a panic attack.

You are a huge animal lover, right?
For sure.

Was it your choice that the sloth video go online?
That’s a very funny story, actually. The sloth video happened a year prior to when the world thinks it happened. When you do a press tour, much like we’re doing now, like, I’m promoting The Lifeguard currently, and this week I’ll go back and do Ellen and Chelsea to promote House of Lies; that’s your job as an actor. And it’s also your job not to be a snoozefest when you go on those shows, so have a funny, cute story about work, or a story about what’s been happening lately. And I had been at the tail end of the House of Lies press tour and the Big Miracle press tour, and I had no more stories. I had nothing else to say about my life that had been the least bit interesting. And it was Dax who said, “Oh, you’re going on Ellen? That’s a really female audience. Why don’t you show that sloth video that’s so funny?” We had already showed all of our friends and laughed about it, how stupid it was. And I said, “That’s a good idea.” So it was solely out of needing content that I pulled it from the archives of our DVDs of our home movies. And I thought I’d tell this funny story of how he brought a sloth to the house, and I had no idea that it would be as watched as it was.

Why do you think Leigh ends up in an affair with a 16-year-old?
I think because she finds another human being that is feeling as vacant as she is, and they satisfy something in each other far beyond the sexual chemistry. Little J has no one in his life who’s taken an interest enough to give him any advice. He has no estrogen energy at all, and Leigh feels dumb and ugly and stunted, and he makes her feel the opposite of all those things.

How was it working with Martin Starr again?
I mean, glorious. [Starr is doing a TV interview nearby] I mean, look at him holding that Yahoo mike looking like our new cult leader. What is that beard?! It’s like a seven-inch beard! Um, Martin is one of my favorite people, always has been. And then luckily Mamie fit in seamlessly, because neither of us knew Mamie, but we both fell in love with Mamie on the spot. So the three of us gallivanted around Pittsburgh, much like our three best friends did in the movie.

Smoking-in-the-parking-lot kind of gallivanting?
Well, I wasn’t smoking, but maybe there were cigarettes involved at one point off-camera. [Laughs.]

You know, I was at a party with Martin at Sundance last year where someone went up to him and asked him how to get coke.
Because he looks like a drug dealer! He’s so far from that. That’s so funny. He’s so far from anything actually rebellious.

Any updates on a Veronica Mars or Party Down reunion?
Always. In my head, there’s always a chance. I’m always plotting how to get someone to figure it out. I mean …

[Martin Starr calls out to her]: Hey, Kristen, you’re two-foot-seven, right?

Bell [deadpan]: Two-seven. Yeah. [Laughs, loses train of thought. At the end of our interview, she goes up to Starr and says, “Man, I should have said, ‘No, two-foot-five or two-foot-six.’ That would have been funnier.”]

Um, uh, we … I think it will take time, but I still believe that both will happen. I really do.

Where will Veronica be now?
Oh, God, I’m sure she’ll work at the FBI or something. Or we’ll start where she’s just working retail and she does not … she’s well known as the best spy in the world, but she does not want to do it anymore. It’s too dramatic. She’s lost too much. There’s too much at stake. But the president needs her. Something really dramatic. The president needs her. The U.N. needs her. Everything counts on her. I’m shooting for the stars.

Are you going to celebrate the next Hunger Games movie in a similar fashion to your birthday party?
We’ll probably do another costume party of some sort. But we went all out. When we did it before, we got a bouncy house and put a sign that said “the Capital” on the front lawn … we put some thought into it. This one, we might go with a smorgasbord. Just go with a ton of food. I don’t know. I haven’t thought about it. It’s just an excuse to throw a party, which I’ll take any time.

How are you going to top it, though?
I’ll kill someone at the next party. Someone will be made to fight to the death.

Do you have someone in mind?
No, it’s whoever’s on my last nerve that day.

vulture.com

The stars have traveled to the sleepy town of Park City, Utah to once again celebrate movies and piss off the locals at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. We caught up with one of our favorite sexy funnygirls Kristen Bell, who is here with the coming-of-age tale “The Lifeguard.” (Being a Sundance movie, how depressing it is? She’ll tell ya in a sec.)

The film stars Bell as a nearing 30-year-old who returns home to live with her parents and hopes to find herself through late nights out with friends and her high school job as a lifeguard.

Here Bell, who is six-and-a-half months pregnant, talks about how finace Dax Shepard supports her in her time of need and why she wasn’t sweating the wedgies from the lifeguard suit.

What are you craving at the moment?
Hmmm. Nothing, believe it or not.

Is that just today?
No, I haven’t had any cravings at all.

What is Dax doing to support you at this time? For example, some husbands stop drinking throughout the pregnancy.
Dax doesn’t drink so that was just lucky. But he will indulge with me. If I feel like ordering a meal-and-a-half he’ll indulge. He never makes me feel bad. He’ll eat along side me no problem.

How depressing is “The Lifeguard” from a scale of 1 – slit-your-wrists?
Oooh. Um. You’ll get the razor out. I don’t know if you’ll actually slit your wrist but the razor will be out. That’s how depressing it is. There are depressing moments, there are funny moments. But it’s relatable in the sense that we all have to realize when our adolescence ends and our adulthood begins and what does that mean and are we immediately supposed to have it together as adults. So I think it does cause a bit of examination after the movie. So just glance at the razor.

Your character, Leigh, was valedictorian of her high school in the movie, were you voted anything in high school?
I definitely wasn’t voted valedictorian. Mine was like a vanity one, like Best Looking. I wish I had a different one.

What was the most annoying thing about wearing the lifeguard one-piece bathing suit?
Not filling it out. I mean they handed me this “Baywatch” bathing suit and they said, “Do your best to fill this out.” And I was like, “I’ll try.” I mean it was so hot in Pittsburgh so I was the luckiest one on set because I had the least clothes on.

Did you have someone on “wedgie watch” for you?
The wedgie was always happening so no one needed to tell me. I was well aware.

Best Sundance moment?
I liked coming with Dax three years ago with his film “The Freebie” because I wasn’t responsible for doing press or promoting anything so I could just hang back.

If you had your own festival like Robert Redford, what would be the name of the festival and where would it be?
Festival name would be Party Time and honestly it would be as close to my house as possible. In fact, maybe just in my backyard, and it would be a 24-hour fest of non-stop movies showing.

Any heroic moments in the snow?
Well, being married to a gear-head we do a lot of snowmobiling and I have been responsible for digging not only my own but also friend’s snowmobiles out of the snow.

Singlehandedly?
No. But I’m told they couldn’t have done it without me. And I’ve caught three or four feet of air on my snowmobile so I think that’s my heroic moment.

And finally, what is your porn star name? (First pet / Street you grew up on)
Chelsea Huntington, which is a great porn star name. I didn’t know it was so sexy.

nextmovie.com

Writer, director and producer Liz W. Garcia and Kristen Bell on their new drama and working within a tight filming schedule. The film is about a former reporter (Kristen Bell) who quits her job in New York and takes up a position as a lifeguard in her hometown and starts a dangerous relationship with a teenager.

We caught up with a stunning Kristen Bell at the premiere of her new film, ‘The Lifeguard,’ at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival.

Normally known for her comedic work, Kristen discussed her dramatic turn in the film, in which she stars as a New York reporter who returns to childhood home and begins a relationship with a troubled teenager. Kristen talked about how preparing for the role was quite different from much of the film work she had done previously. A soon-to-be mommy, she also touched on her pregnancy and her excitement at becoming a mother!