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It’s a tale as old as time…
Like many actresses before her, Kristen Bell was among the many aspiring artists who got critiqued based off of her appearance.
The Frozen star recently took a walk down memory lane and shared some of her most treasured experiences behind some of her iconic roles, including Veronica Mars, Gossip Girl, Forgetting Sarah Marshall and many others.
However, things were a little rough at the start of her acting career.
Speaking to Vanity Fair, Bell also opened up about those early auditioning days and how most of her “feedback” was centered around her looks rather than her talent.
“I remember early on, getting feedback, that I wasn’t enough in either category,” she recalled to the publication during a sit-down interview for its YouTube channel.
“I would get feedback from an audition: ‘Well, you’re not pretty enough to play the pretty girl, but you’re not quirky enough or weird enough to play the weird girl,'” she explained of people’s critiques.
Naturally, the 39-year-old star was confused by these comments.
“I was like, ‘Okay, does that just mean I can’t be an actor? What does that mean,'” she recalled thinking. “That’s what I was getting feedback on, on every audition.”
As the Gossip Girl alum pointed out, times have changed. And luckily, the Hollywood industry has become part of that progress.
“I think as I’ve grown older, those boxes have changed… and [have] almost gone away,” Bell said. “It’s this huge gray area now of all these beautiful stories you can tell… that have dimensional people that don’t have to be one thing.”
As she put it, this new way of the business allows for more people to be seen on-screen.
It’s not the ’80s where you have to have the popular girl and then the nerd who gets the guy. It’s not that anymore and I’m really grateful for that,” she expressed. “It opens up a lot of opportunities for everyone to play and pretend, which is the most fun part.”
Bell’s acting career journey hasn’t been all bad, though.
To hear more about Kristen’s favorite roles and how some of her characters have mimicked her real life, watch the video above!