Why not kick off a thread which is going to be hopping soon enough. T-minus 16 days and counting to the debut of Kristen Bell. Of which I'm counting the minutes toward (being a VM fan and all).

I was pretty partial to her VM Board Title:

"More Acting Chops Per Pound, Than Any Actor Around."

Because, seriously, the girl can act her butt off. Can't wait to see what she does with Elle. But, then again, this is the Elle thread, not the KB thread.

Is it really two more weeks until she shows up? I know everyone can't show up at the same time, but damn, I'm getting impatient waiting for the new faces to arrive and for a couple old ones to come back as well.

I've been waiting for Elle to show up since the premiere. If I wasn't a Heroes fan before, I would have been now.

I'll be honest and say this: She is the newcomer I'm most excited to see on my screen. Kristen + Powers? Awesome! Although I've been a little worried to see if she'll be Veronica with Powers, but I've got faith in the writers and K-Bell's abilities as an actor to pull it off differently.

I saw some pictures on set that were posted to LJ and I have to say she looked amazing and she didn't remind me of Veronica in any way! Needless to say, the pictures are spoilery since you can see who she's in a scene with in the pictures, etc, but they were fantastic!

I don't think she'll be very Veronica-ish. I mostly try to stay away from spoilers, but I couldn't resist reading some interviews about Elle and KB. It sounds like Elle really isn't anything like Veronica.
I'm excited too.

I'm pretty excited about this too. She is a great actor, and I can't wait to see what the writers give her. I know some people have been critical about her hype since she's been seen around the cast so much, but it's a testament to how well everyone does get along.

I've seen those pictures, as well as those other ones (hahaha, vagueness ftw!) and I honestly think it might have been the first time I've loved a character before his/her airtime. Excitement excitement all abound!

URL? Or is that in the spoiler section?

BTW, thanks to whoever changed the thread title. Wanted to do that, but you can only edit posts, not subject headings.

I'm assuming it's the set of pictures here. I just happened upon them by chance and yes, they do seem really spoilery.

HEE! I meant these ones. GreenPhoenix's link actually has way more images, so it's a lot more spoilery than the link on KB's site, but needless to say, both are spoilery. :)

Kristen Bell - on the set of Heroes (SPOILERS!)

Spoiler warning, too, but lookit! Power exhibition! Lots of awesome exclamation points too. She's so sassy.

She looks freaking hot! (and she's a fashionista!) I'm glad they have a wardrobe person...Hee. (Look Ma, no ruffles!)

I seriously can't wait for Elle to show up, kick ass (and potentially take names later!)

Never undercount the sassy. It's worth 20 points.

So exited there is an Elle thread now. I wanted to start one a long time ago but I wasn't sure if we were allowed to before the character was introduced.

I am worried about the character being too much like Veronica too but I still want her to bring the persnicketyness so I don't even care. I just hope she is deliciously awesome.

Loving the pictures so far.

I think Elle will kick ass and other than the fact that she's kick ass, she probably won't seem like Veronica. She doesn't look like Veronica to me, even though S3 Veronica had long hair.

Not sure if this counts as a spoiler warning, but it does show the episode number, but even static Elle (hahaha static. Lame's my middle name, don't judge) looks ass-kicking.



I think I might love you long time.

I think KB wore that jacket when she went to Declare Yourself with Zach! (I really hope the wardrobe mistress makes her take it out in trade though...'Kristen - I'll take that ruffled mu-mu from you and give you this gorgeous jacket instead, okay?' HEE. I love KB (and Zach!), but sometimes I swear the share the same blind grandma that picked their outfit.

Four words, via Molly at the end of next week's preview: "She is the nightmare."

Dare we hope? Big Bad?

I think Elle is 'middle-management bad', like HRG was previously. Hee.

I'd love for her to be a 'Big Bad' though! And you know, I didn't really like the bangs at first, but I love them now!

Wait, is that love or just good ol' fashioned lust?

Tuesday, per the BuddyTV website, Kristen and Tim Kring will be in a media conference call. Why is this here? Because you can try to pry out of them a little more about Elle.

So let's have TWOP representin', then.

The HumanTazer? A veronica mars shout out, perhaps?

Is it October 22nd, yet?

YesYesNo, I was really really hoping she'd get exactly that power for exactly that reason. And then the show actually went there! Oh, glee.

YesYesNo I didn't even think of that! Now I'm even more excited for her to show up.

Attention HEROES & Fans of Kristen Bell

You can now start the countdown clock. Less than 7 days left. This is SO going to rock. That was the second-best part of this episode, the preview for next week. :)

While Kristen Bell is normally a hundred types of awesome, I am concerned about the bad hair she seemed to have on the preview for next week. It looked... frazzled.

Okay. Maybe with her reported abilities, having fried looking hair is no surprise...

I think it will be fabulous if it was worked into the story that her hair is frizzy all the time because of her powers.

HEE...actually with her abilities, I think I'd be surprised if her hair didn't looked a little 'frazzled' and flyaway so to speak.

Okay, so the thing about Kristen Bell is this: yes, she was utterly amazing and refreshing as Veronica during that first season of VM. However, beyond that she just stopped trying. She didn't put as much of herself into her work because she was just "so exhausted" from doing the first season. She put out something so amazing and she didn't have the goods to back it up when everyone wanted more. Also, as a character Veronica had all these ah-ha! moments of self awareness but she never learned anything from them. I guess you could attribute that to the writing, but I think it also rests in the actor's hands as well.

Not to mention, she left a bad taste in the mouth of almost every Logan/Veronica shipper due to her thoughtless comments on how Veronica deserves someone so much better than Logan, who admittedly was no prince, while over looking the fact that Veronica had a shady moral code and rough corners of her own.

You started to realize that the longer the show was on the air, the more it became the Kristen Bell show and not Veronica Mars. Veronica Mars, the character was being eclipsed and overtaken by Kristen Bell the person and she was starting to take on the actor's beliefs about the character and the show instead of acting out the scripted emotions and words.

I suppose her only saving grace here is that this isn't her show to begin with. She's coming in as part of an ensemble cast that's already been established. So, hopefully recent history will not repeat itself. I guess I'm willing to give her a chance, but the second I spot that old Kristen Bell instead of whatever character she's supposed to be portraying, I will ignore her presence and tune out while she's on screen.

Elle's abilities are still spoilers, so please don't get any more specific without spoiler bars.

PinkieBlondie, I could not disagree more (and I'm a fan of the logan/veronica relationship left with no bad taste in her mouth, who thinks Kristen was great all 3 seasons, with many moments of fabulous), but that's neither here nor there since this is the Elle character thread and I'm more inclined to talk about what may be in store for this character rather than previous works of the actor portraying said character.

For example, I thought the character looked like she was the type of person who could play all sweet and innocent, but would go turn nasty on a dime if provoked. Also, I didn't so much mind her hair, it seems to fit with the more flirty, crazy personality that we've seen in just that 30 second promo. And yeah, I'm pretty sure this is this first character I've loved before they're even on the air.

She actually said something like that? Well I guess I'm going to have to love Kristen Bell even more now. I never liked Logan in the first place.

I was very excited to see her in the promo for next week, but I must admit, my first thought when I saw her was, "What happened to her hair!?" It would be awesome if it were power-related as you all have suggested, though.

And I'm gonna have to respectfully disagree with you on KB's acting, PinkBlondie. I never considered myself a "shipper," but to me, throughout the entire series of Veronica Mars, KB's exceptional performance was one of the few constants during the ups and downs of the show. As much as I love Logan, even Jason Dohring seemed to stop trying there towards the end, but I never got that feeling with KB. I also don't think her personal beliefs had ANY influence over the character of Veronica, and to me, Veronica never acted OOC unless the writers were making a point of it. She started off as a deeply flawed character, and was clearly that same person, if a little older and wiser, at the end (while not a big fan of season 3, I LOVED the finale). If anyone's beliefs tainted the whole Logan/Veronica romance thing, it would be Rob Thomas, who always thought the best of Duncan and the worst of Logan. But he's the creator, so it's harder to blame him considering how grateful we all are for him giving us the show in the first place. I personally always preferred Logan and Veronica apart, so I'm not really bitter about the way that was handled, but YMMV, of course.


On the topic of Elle, as I said in the episode thread, I'm nervous about this character - not because of KB's acting skills, which I think are awesome based on VM and other great roles I've seen her in, but because of the abilities of the Heroes writers. They aren't bad, but they're not the best writers ever (especially now that Bryan Fuller's gone), and considering that they didn't have Elle planned to be a major character from the beginning and only fleshed out the role specifically for KB, I'm worried the character is really going to feel forced.

I hope I'm worrying about nothing though, and I am really looking forward to next week.

Amazing how on point and obvious her hair issues are!

I look forward to deep discussions about this in 7 days.

I'm actually holding out hope that the fact that Elle was fleshed out for Bell (rhyming! yay!) is a good sign- writers can be good mimics, writing to the "voice" of whomever was casted as a character. Claude was written for Christopher Eccleston and turned out to be thoroughly distinct, so maybe something similar was done to fit Elle around Bell's acting.

As for Bell's work ethic- she was the lead, narrator, and anchor of a weekly show for 3 years. That's unbelievably hard work, and for me she was hitting her notes all the way until the end.

Word, that's how Elle is for me, too! I think I screamed when I saw the previews here, no lie. Spoilers, obviously.

I was checking out the Dream Casting thread, and as it turns out, even TWoPpers can see into the future! Seriously, they even got her power right. And this was written nearly a year ago!

I like your thinking, Ginn! I'm gonna use this perspective to be cautiously optimistic 'till Monday. I wasn't on the Heroes bandwagon last year, so I had no idea Claude was written specifically for CE. This definitely makes me feel better about the situation.

I agree with what you are saying here. And about Logan. I guess it takes a shipper to understand a shipper.

About Elle. I'm keeping myself open minded but I really hope she doesn't overplay like she sometimes did with Veronica. Because overplaying the actions of a villian will only make it seem more cartoonish and unnatural.

I'm an L/V shipper. Not everyone sailing on the same ship gets seasick. I agree with Quentin and co. on KB and her acting talent.

Happily for me, so do a lot of people in Hollywood, hence the scrum to secure her services post-VM. Happily for the cast and crew of Heroes, they seem to really like and rate her too. I'm looking forward to her appearance. She's already proved that she can easily handle complex characters which bodes well for Elle.

I'm definitely looking forward to Elle, so long as she doesn't end up to be another Company Drone (Candice, Eden) or Sylar fodder (Dale, Charlie, Candice, Eden).

Only six days until her debut. I hope she doesn't become another love interest for Peter.

Live Blog: Kristen Bell & Tim Kring : Spoilers

Full version of the interview : Spoilers

Heh, I don't care what she is as long as she kicks ass and is not Sylar fodder. Given that he has Shanti's virus though, I think the rest of the super's are safe for a little while as long as they don't let Sylar surprise them with a brick to the head. Although...I'd love to see them interact, as long as neither died. Mainly I just want Elle to be this strong character as most of the female characters that are alive are weaker or have been weaker and have needed others to protect them, etc. The strong female hero characters are all dead, other than Mama Petrelli. We have Monica now though, which seems to be a good addition, so hopefully the trend of 'non-Sylar fodder' strong female characters of this generation continue. I mean, I do love seeing various characters find themselves and grow into their strengths, etc, but I'd like to see more female characters that are a 'power to be reckoned with'...

I also think we're just six days away from Kristen Bell's first TV episode commentary ever. You'd think that since she was the focus of Fight or Flight, she'd be asked to do the video commentary for it. Last night's video commentary was from Kring, Pasdar and Dana Davis. No audio commentaries are planned for next week's Veronica Mars S3 dvd, so just be aware of that nice possibility. :)

First Look: Kristen Bell on HEROES : Interview and clip from next week.

In addition to what Chris posted, the behind-the-scenes clip is of her filming, too!

edited because 'addition' is not 'edition'.