Kristen Anne Bell born near Detroit, Michigan, on July 18, 1980. Like her former character Veronica Mars, Kristen Bell knows what it's like to come from a broken home: Her parents split when girl was just 2 years old. Her mother started checking out modeling agencies after some people said her daughter would look great in pics. Before her 13th birthday, Kristen Bell had an agent and start to appear in newspaper advertisements for several Detroit retailers, including Kmart. In little time, these snowballed into TV commercials and private acting lessons.

Before she graduated from a Catholic high school near the Motor City, she sang as Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz. After graduation, Kristen Bell headed to the Big Apple to attend the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University. Just three years later, in 2001, she made her Broadway debut as Becky Thatcher in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. In 2002, she appeared on Broadway in The Crucible, opposite Liam Neeson and Laura Linney.

Kristen Bell took her act to Los Angeles and scored a few guest-starring roles, appearing on Everwood, American Dreams and The Shield in 2003. In 2004, she was in the cable film Gracie's Choice, playing a girl forced to help raise her sickly siblings while her mother tries to overcome a drug addiction. That same year, Kristen Bell played the president's kidnapped daughter in director David Mamet's thriller Spartan.