Kristen Bell: Saved By the Bell

House of Lies is also very racy, so it’s perfectly sandwiched between Shameless and Californication.
Yeah, it’s a sexy Sunday night sandwich for everyone — another one of my gifts to America. There’s a lot of T&A. It’s witty and smart, but it’s also very provocative, just as you’d expect from a Showtime show. If you like blampers and cupcakes, you’ll love the show, especially if you love chocolate cupcakes like those sweet chocolate Cheadle cupcakes.

Blampers and cupcakes?
Cupcakes are your bottom cheeks, of course, unless you’ve got a flat ass, in which case they’re called flapjacks. Blampers is my preferred word for breasts. It’s an Australian and New Zealand term for boobies. Dax shot a movie in New Zealand, and I love when he says it, so that’s how we refer to boobies around our household.

Will we see your blampers on the show?
No, not my blampers, but everyone else’s blampers. My blampers don’t come out.

Speaking of nude scenes, you were a part of one of the most famous male nude scenes of all time in Forgetting Sarah Marshall. During shooting, how long did you have to look at Jason’s Segel’s junk?
It felt like an eternity. And as much as Jason wants to say that he felt vulnerable, he wrote it, he knew what he was doing, so don’t give him too much sympathy. There was a point when we were doing a tighter shot, shooting from the shoulders up, and I asked the director, “Um, can’t Jason put pants on?” Everyone else in the room had forgotten he was naked. I guess there’s only so long before you become immune to a penis.

Veronica Mars was a critical darling and a cult hit. Were you aware of the show’s big gay following?
Hell, yeah. Veronica always stood up for the underdog, and many people in the LGBT community identify themselves as an underdog because that’s what America does to them. Veronica was always a friend to outsiders and very much against bullying of any kind.

Veronica also tackled various gay-themed mysteries. In one episode, a closeted lesbian cheerleader played by Kristin Cavallari blackmailed a group of her closeted classmates. The second season’s major rapist-murderer was a young man who had been molested by his baseball coach and was now struggling with his sexuality. Those types of “creepy gay villain” storylines are always risky, because they may encourage viewers to equate being gay with being a pedophile or being evil.
I think the point of how some of those Veronica Mars characters were written is that closeted gayness or stifling one’s true identity causes pain, torment, and hurt, and hurt people tend to hurt people. If you see a character doing something bad, and then that character admits that they’re in the closet or that they were molested or something, I believe it’s the writer trying to prove the point that bad things can happen when we stifle or abuse people. I certainly wouldn’t be a part of any project that I felt was disrespectful to anyone.

Have you ever played a lesbian role?
I played a role with lesbian interaction when I played Flora on two episodes of Deadwood. I saw her as an opportunist, and her sexuality fell under that umbrella. I tried to play her as a sociopath, and what she wanted in any given moment far outweighed anything else. There’s a scene where Flora seduces Joanie, who was a lesbian, but Flora was taking advantage of her, and it was meant to show Flora’s psychosis. There was actually a lot more of that scene that I shot with Kim Dickens, who played Joanie; they didn’t show it because it didn’t work for the scene, but we laid down on the bed and really went at it.

You also narrate Gossip Girl as the voice of the titular blogger. Fans know that Georgina has recently taken on the persona since Blair’s accident. But when the true identity of the original Gossip Girl is finally revealed, what are the chances that she’s actually a gay man?
[Laughs] I would love it if Gossip Girl were a gay man — or a drag queen! I hadn’t even thought of that, but that would be brilliant. I’m actually going to suggest that as soon as possible.

Gossip Girl is well into its fifth season now. Are you still enjoying the gig?
It’s a job I get to do in my pajamas — what’s not to like? The studio’s very close to my house, so I often go in to record in my pajamas, most days just to prove the point that I can.