Kristen Bell‘s role in the 2010 movie Burlesque opened doors for the blonde actress. The racy backstage musical led The Good Place actress to appreciate her sexuality and the way she looks with dark hair. In interviews, Bell revealed how interacting with actual burlesque dancers changed her view on her own sensuality.
Bell’s Burlesque Boldness
Bell spoke with Parade about her role in the movie, calling it “one of the most empowering things I’ve ever done.” In a movie centered around a burlesque club, costumes are bound to be outrageous. Bell’s character, in particular, was often draped in barely-there corsets, which was a new sensation for the actress. “I came to an acceptance with the sensuality in this film,” she said. “There’s no nudity in it, but it’s definitely embracing female sensuality and the comedy and insecurity and passion that goes along with it.”
Though she may have felt discomfort at the beginning, Bell learned to work with what she had and dismantled a bias she’d been carrying. “I always felt as though being too sexual meant that you were demeaning yourself, and I learned quite the opposite lesson on this movie. I was working with so many confident women that were not at all exploiting themselves,” Bell recalled.
New ‘Do, New You
Expressing her sexuality wasn’t the only way the movie changed Bell. For the film, Bell donned a dark brown wig and, surprisingly, loved the way the new color changed her looks. “I’m a big fan of the transformation. I see my own face plenty throughout the year. I’m tired of sort of looking the way that I look all the time, so to put on a wig or a crazy amount of makeup was really invigorating,” Bell said in an interview with InStyle. “When I had the wig on I didn’t even recognize myself in the mirror. I felt like another person.”
For Whom The Bell Tolls
Kristen Bell’s popularity soars with each new project she tackles, so it’s no wonder tabloids use her name to promote their fiction. In April 2019, OK! ran an article claiming that Ellen Degeneres was grooming Bell to take over her talk show. An unnamed insider told the magazine, “Ellen thinks she’s adorable and would not only make a great interviewer, but also connect with her demographic.” The source added that Degeneres was “convinced that Kristen is the perfect person to take her place.” Gossip Cop investigated the claims and found them to be totally false. We checked in with a source close to the situation. Though they were unable to speak on the record, they informed us the story was made up.
In an article published in 2017, Star claimed Bell and her husband Dax Shepard often engaged in “racy role play” with costumes they swiped from movie sets they’d worked on. A supposed source close to the couple leaked the information, but it seemed unlikely to Gossip Cop that anyone close to the couple would know or leak such private information. The story wasn’t a complete bust, since truth is often stranger than fiction, but we couldn’t let the story slip by without adding our suspicions.