-You know my first guest from the series "The Good Place"
and as Princess Anna from "Frozen."
She is the best. She has a new children's book
called "The World Needs More Purple People,"
which is out now.
Here is Kristen Bell!
Yeah! Aww. Look at you.
Oh, my God. You are the greatest. Come on.
Thank you so -- -We'll be the audience. Hi!
-Yeah. Thank you for being the au--
Hi. Thank you so much for coming on the show.
Congrats on the book, by the way.
Number one. Not too shabby. -Thank you.
-Quickly, before we get into this,
thank you so much.
You sent the nicest video message
to my 5-year-old turning 6 on her birthday,
and it changed her life.
She was -- You were just -- Not only did you say hi,
but you really put time into it and, like, spent a lot of time
with my daughter, and she watched it forever,
and all she did was talk about it,
and she said it was the best birthday of her life.
She was like, "Princess Anna and I --
The only thing -- We have a lot in common,
but the one thing we don't have in common,
we don't -- she doesn't like to swim."
All she could do was talk about you, talk about you.
And, anyways, me and my wife just -- We're obsessed with you.
You're a good egg, as they say. -That makes me so happy.
That makes me so, so happy.
-That was so cool of you to do. I know how busy you are.
You probably get a thousand requests a day,
but that was just -- Honestly, we need --
The world needs more Kristen Bells.
Let's just say that.
That's the sequel. That's the sequel book.
We both have daughters around the same age.
What kind of things are your girls into right now?
-Right now, well, with --
I mean, you know, with quarantine,
what I've actually been doing --
They've been doing nothing but roller skating.
I'm apparently raising roller-skating champions.
-Wow. -They love it.
They are on them all day every day,
and they can do the, like, around-the-world
where they, like, hold their foot out.
-No! That thing. Yeah. I know. The leg kick out and then --
Like that? -It's sick! It's sick.
Their balance is sick. I don't know where they get it.
And they know they're not supposed to do it in the house,
but they do, and our wood floors are wrecked.
But show me someone in 2020
whose wood floors aren't wrecked.
-Thank you. -You know what I mean?
-I have to imagine that you were a pretty good kid growing up.
Am I correct or no? -I was. Oh, yeah.
I have a spotless record. -Right?
-Well, except -- Okay. I was a very good kid.
I was, like, a goodie-goodie except, when I got to college --
I've always been a bit of an entrepreneur,
and I noticed that, in 1998, the New Jersey --
You remember this, by the way, 'cause we were both in New York.
The New Jersey licenses were literally a piece of paper
with lamination over it.
So in college, I made and sold fake IDs.
-Fake IDs. Really?
-I did. I sold them for $20 a pop.
-That's not bad. That's the going rate probably.
Wait. You're younger than me.
But did you have to print it out?
Did you have a printer? Where would you do this?
-Yes. -Used the school?
-I printed it out on -- Not the school.
'Cause I had a desktop.
My roommate and I shared a desktop. We had a desktop.
And so I'd print it out.
Then I'd just get lamination paper and take --
And there was sort of this weird wink-wink happening
around the campus of NYU.
I would sell them to my friends,
and all the bars around NYU, when you were 19,
they would see it, and I would have to imagine they knew
because it was, like, you know, a terrible fake ID replica.
But they kind of were like, "I'll give you a beer with this,
and you better be able to walk out of here,
but, like, we're not getting drunk on it.
This is going to be a one-time pass."
You do silly things when you're a kid.
And wait. What year did you start "SNL"?
-'98. -'98.
Do you ever remember meeting me there?
I knew you didn't. That's okay. So, listen.
So, when I was in college --
This is a major blast from the past.
When I was in college, Ariel Ashe,
who was one of my best friends in college, who was the --
I know. Hello. I know.
-I love Ariel Ashe.
-The assistant -- the intern in the set department...
-Yes.
-...to Landon, I think his name was.
And so obviously I went there every weekend
and would, like, walk around the halls.
But mind you, I looked maybe 13, okay?
I was 18, but I was definitely like --
-This is a photo of you from that time.
-That's a photo of me. Right. Exactly.
That was my ID at the time.
I blew it up and put it on the back of the book.
-Ariel Ashe is the best.
-But that's where I first became friends with Mike Schur.
Because, I mean, look. You were on the show. You were very cool.
But, like, Mike, who was also a little baby-boy writer there,
that's how I first became friends with him.
-And you ended up doing "The Good Place."
Wow. That is -- -Cut to "The Good Place."
Isn't that nuts?
-And Ariel's sister is married to Seth Meyers.
-Seth. Exactly. Alexi. I know. We have so many "connec-shees."
-That's wild. Oh, I love that story.
-I know. -Thanks for telling me.
I want to talk to you about your new children's book,
"The World Needs More Purple People."
I love the idea about this book.
It's the number-one "New York Times" best seller.
So congrats on that. -Thank you very much.
-How'd the idea come about?
And I think you're a great person to do this,
because I like
"Are you kind? Are you curious?
Can you be really, really ridiculously silly?"
I kind of think that you do -- -Yes, yes, yes.
-I think you do all these things. Yeah.
That's very on-brand. -I try.
You know, purple is obviously a little bit of a metaphor.
It's not, you know, super under-the-radar.
But we -- One of my other best friends,
Ben Hart and I, we were having a family dinner two years ago.
You just wrote a children's book,
so you know it takes a long time,
even though they're only 20 pages.
-Two years. Yeah. -It takes like two years.
-Yeah. I agree. -Right.
So we were sitting around the table, and we were just
sort of noticing this very polarizing political culture
seep into our kid's daily lives,
and we were like, "This feels wrong.
It feels like we're seeing enemies everywhere."
And so we wanted to do something helpful with the language
that they were even subliminally digesting
when they saw the television
and they saw red versus blue, blue versus red.
And I was like, "It's not 'versus' anything."
And so I wanted to sort of create a social identity
that positions our kids towards other human beings,
to work out any disagreements, any different opinions.
So, like, we came up with five great pillars
that we thought no one could argue with.
Like, what would everyone agree on?
So we were like, "Ask great questions,
laugh a lot, use your voice, work hard, and also just be
the unique you and celebrate all the differences."
Because we were like -- I don't think I could find a person
on the planet that was like,
"It's really bad to laugh a lot. You shouldn't do it."
-Yeah. Exactly. -You know?
-Look at the drawings. The art is fantastic.
-You know what's so funny is --
When I was reading this to my children --
We talk a lot about being a purple person
'cause, to us, it just is this kind, curious human being
that you can be in the world.
And I read them the book,
and they were just, like, not interested.
And I was like, "Uh-oh. I've done something wrong."
And I was like, "No. Wait a minute.
They're just not interested in this Google Doc on my computer.
They need art."
So when Daniel Wiseman came on board,
who drew those amazing pictures,
then it changed, and then they really liked it.
But we're very, very proud of sort of what the book means
and how we can celebrate being unique
but all live in the same place together.
-You've got a winner here, pal. Congrats on this.
When we come back... -Thank you.
-...I heard that you might have a Christmas song prepared.
Is that... -I do, Jimmy.
I have something very, very special for you.
And it's the first time I'm sharing it,
and I'm excited to bring it to your ears.
-I cannot wait. More with Kristen Bell after the break.
Stick around, everybody!