Deadwood Doll Goes to Mars
On HBO's gritty Western Deadwood, Kristen Bell raised viewers' eyebrows as Flora, the ill-fated con artist and sometime prostitute. Over the course of three episodes, she schemed, connived — and died one of the most disturbing deaths ever seen on TV. (Flora was brutally beaten and gunned down by Powers Boothe and his crew. Not nice.) Now, she's the teen private eye on UPN's Veronica Mars (Tuesdays at 9 pm/ET), a troubled girl who lost her virginity whilst unconscious from a date-rape drug. Yikes! Guess this actress isn't into light roles.
"I got it bad on Deadwood," Bell concedes with a chuckle. "That was brutal. I mean, I've been very lucky that the parts I've played have been very deep. I don't think that any character that I've been allowed to play has been easy — neither one of these roles."
Comparing Flora and Veronica, Bell points out that "they're both very strong girls. Unfortunately, Flora was a little bit more of a sociopath. She was a little bit crazier, so it's nice that Veronica is sane."
Sane maybe, but hardly typical. Unlike most 17-year-old girls, Veronica attends high school by day and helps out her divorced daddy (Just Shoot Me's Enrico Colantoni) at his detective agency by night. Her typical assignments include snapping candid photos of cheating husbands caught in the act. That said, Bell saw the assertive Ms. Mars as a good role model for girls when she accepted the part.
"I think that her strength is what I admired so much, because I think so many girls [whose] parents are divorced do struggle with being an outcast," Bell says. "[Veronica] really deals with it. She's not a pushover, and she doesn't just let [negative things] happen. Her strength and ability to deal with her life was what I liked so much."
