VARIETY ‘Actors on Actors’: Kristen Bell and Adam Scott on SEVERANCE, NOBODY WANTS THIS and More

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In a new conversation for VARIETY’s “Actors on Actors” issue, Adam Scott and Kristen Bell discuss the voicemails Bell and husband Dax Shepard send to Scott after they watch “Severance,” the chemistry and friendship between Bell and her “Nobody Wants This” co-star Adam Brody, Bell guest-starring on Scott’s “Party Down,” the “Severance” scene Scott was nervous to film, and more.

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Scott and Bell on the voicemails Bell and Shepard send to Scott after watching “Severance”:

Scott: “Now seems like a good place for you to maybe officially apologize for the voicemails that you and Dax [Shepard, Bell’s husband] leave me?”

Bell: “I would try, but I’m not that good of an actor. The endings to every episode of ‘Severance’ are so biologically frustrating that I don’t know how you guys expect anyone to sleep after an episode with that level of a cliffhanger. So what Dax and I tend to do is, when we see someone whose work we love or whose work frustrates us—as in your case—we leave you a nice, long, detailed, unedited voice memo. And you got a lot of those.”

Scott: “I sure did. And I’ve kept all of them. They’re hilarious and deeply flattering, but also deeply insulting.”

Bell: “My favorite one was when Dax pretty much screamed into the voice memo, ‘Hey, Adam. Kristen just fell out of a two-story window. I bet you’d like to know how she’s doing. I’ll tell you next week!’”

Scott: “Or the one where you guys called while we were in the middle of shooting Season 2 and just said, ‘Hey, just curious, are you guys shooting this one minute per week? Why is it taking so fucking long?’…Just because you guys left that message, it’s now going to take seven years for the next season.”

Scott and Bell on the chemistry and longstanding friendship between Bell and her “Nobody Wants This” co-star Adam Brody:

Scott: “You and Adam Brody obviously have this palpable thing. The word ‘chemistry’ is overused with actors because it generalizes something that either works or doesn’t and is incredibly special. Sometimes it’s manufactured and the audience can’t tell, and they think people have incredible chemistry.”

Bell: “And sometimes you can’t stand the person, but you read like you have incredible chemistry. Isn’t that weird?”

Scott: “It is weird. But with you and Adam, I feel like there is something crackly and special there. And you guys know each other.”

Bell: “We were in ancillary friend groups since our 20s. He was on ‘The O.C.’ I was on ‘Veronica Mars,’ and he dated a close friend of mine. So I always assumed I knew him—mainly because sometimes we were at his apartment when he wasn’t there. Then we worked together on this movie, ‘Some Girl(s),’ and he played a love interest of mine on ‘House of Lies.’ I was eight months pregnant; we had a sex scene, which he affectionately refers to as our ‘threesome’…It was a whole thing. He’s always been such a delight to watch. He makes so many weird choices, and you can’t tether him. He’s so alive.

When I read [the script for ‘Nobody Wants This’], I was completely convinced it had to be Adam, and I said that to everyone. They were like, ‘Adam Brody, huh? We hadn’t thought of him,’ and I was like, ‘Please trust me.’ And then I showed the producers a tape of Adam and I working together, and I’m like, ‘Something about what we can manufacture with that lens just works.’”

Bell and Scott on Bell’s guest-star stint on “Party Down”:

Bell: “That was actually one of my favorite characters ever. I have a hard time when people are like, ‘What’s your favorite character?’ (A) I can’t think spontaneously like that; and (b) it’s not like I’m marinating about my favorite characters at home, so I don’t have an answer. But if I really were to think about it, Uda [Bengt, from ‘Party Down’] would have been it, because she was so stoic and sharp and just on another planet. She was in another key than everyone else was in.”

Scott: “I remember when you came to do it, we hadn’t seen each other or worked together since ‘Veronica Mars,’ and I remember being palpably nervous [about you doing] the episode. I’m totally serious.”

Bell: “Why?”

Scott: “Because I hadn’t seen you since then, and I don’t know, I just remember being nervous. It actually made it easier for me because I could be nervous and not know what to do, because Uda is such a force of nature.”

Scott on being nervous to film the scene where his character’s work self and at-home self meet face-to-face:

“If you read something like that, you just immediately start dreading…I was terrified to do that…I just see it as a series of opportunities to screw it up and lean in too far.”

Bell and Scott on being nervous around people they see on TV:

Bell: “I get what you’re saying about being nervous around people. You’re very comfortable for me, so I wouldn’t say I’m nervous. But when I see other actors, even [those] that I’m friends with, I’m like, they’re still someone who’s on my television. I’ve never said it before, but people should know: I get nervous and excited to meet people because they’re on my TV too.”

Scott: “People who grow up in Los Angeles or around show business, the big advantage they have on the rest of us is that that’s not a big deal for them. Whereas for me, being on a television or on a movie screen or something felt about as likely as going to the moon. So I’m still pretty freaked out about it and get excited on a set.”

[Photo Credit: Peggy Sirota for Variety Magazine – Video Credit: Variety/YouTube]

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