Lake Bell is singularly funny, smart, weird but not too weird, beautiful, vocal about her ambitiousness, and actually named “Lake Bell.” That’s why it’s strange that her rise to lead-actress status been something of a slow burn. After getting her start on shows like E.R. and The Practice, Bell popped up as the other love interest in a series of mediocre rom-coms: Alec Baldwin’s haughty wife in It’s Complicated, Ashton Kutcher’s spastic date in No Strings Attached, an amorous psychic being harassed by a dead Eva Longoria in Over Her Dead Body. Things steadily improved from there — Bell went on to star in HBO’s short-lived cult hit How to Make It in America; land a regular role on Adult Swim’s Childrens Hospital; and write, direct, and star in the critically acclaimed indie comedy In a World.
But it’s only now, after years of charming the hell out of niche audiences with her infectious, offbeat wit, that Bell’s finally headlining high-profile films that didn’t spring from her own fevered imagination. Her two latest projects couldn’t be more different, but she’s equally engaging in both (which is yet another thing we can tack onto the list of reasons why it’s bizarre she’s not yet a massive star). In the action-thriller No Escape — a.k.a. “that movie where Owen Wilson throws his kids off a roof” — Bell plays Annie Dwyer, an American woman who’s just moved to a nondescript Southeastern Asian country to support her husband’s (Wilson) career, only to realize her family is the target of a violent uprising. In Man Up, Lake adopts a frighteningly convincing British accent to play Nancy, a kooky thirtysomething who hijacks another woman’s blind date with Simon Pegg and ends up falling for him.
We caught up with Bell as No Escape hit Blu-ray, DVD, and streaming services and Man Up went into a wider U.S. release to talk about subverting genre stereotypes, how her new husband dramatically changed her cynical views on marriage, and why studio heads are stupid not to hire female directors.
So, we’re talking about two of your movies today — Man Up and No Escape — and I tried to find the common thread to sort of get us started, but they really couldn’t be more different.
[Laughs.] That in itself is sort of the interesting point.
Are you having a hard time at all today switching gears back and forth between Southeastern-Asian uprisings and British blind dates?
It’s refreshing, because I think when I do a lot of comedy, it’s nice to have a respite, to flex different type of muscles with a drama. After doing a heavy, hardcore movie like No Escape, it’s great to bounce back to something that’s lighter, to crack up on set. There were no real jokes going on on the No Escape set. It was funny to me to, you know, finally star in a movie with Owen Wilson, and yet there’s not one laugh.
I was about to ask — you and Owen are both known for being primarily comedic actors. Was it ever hard to find the gravity in a particular scene? Did you find yourselves accidentally making each other laugh?
No! We was never goofed around on that set. Owen sort of led the charge on the tone and commitment that we were all gonna lean into. It was really awesome. I really enjoyed working with him because we leaned on each other in times of fully committing to these extraordinary circumstances. No Escape was a very different type of film for both of us, so there was no room for goofing around.
The one commonality in No Escape and Man Up is that they’re both about these “strong women,” so to speak — characters who upend their respective genre’s stereotypes. Annie is not at all a damsel in distress; she’s holding a hotel door closed with her body, she’s talking her husband down from a panic attack, she’s beating up the bad guys. Nancy, meanwhile, is the one comforting Jack (Pegg) in a bathroom while he cries; she’s the one who’s got her shit together, at least relative to him. Is it important to you, to play female characters like that?
Yeah, I think in general, I gravitate toward characters that are strong and have a respect for themselves despite their flaws. It’s not only that I gravitate towards them, but roles do come to me, as well, that are of this ilk. While Nancy is quite messy in her state of life and singlehood, there’s something very kind-spirited about her, about the movie. Both of these movies take on a genre that we know and kind of turn something familiar, yet refreshing.
Why do you think those types of roles come to you, specifically?
I don’t know… Maybe because I don’t give off an inherent flightiness? [Laughs.] I don’t know! I’m not really sure. Maybe it’s because I have a lower voice? A lower register? Maybe that indicates that I can handle a grounded character. But at the end of the day, I think it’s just — as people get to know you within the industry, they know what you’d be good at. That’s all it is. I’m sorry I don’t have a better answer for that. [Laughs.]
I read that you didn’t break your British accent once during filming Man Up.
Correct. That is true. Save when I spoke to my husband [tattoo artist Scott Campbell], of course. When I would speak to or Skype [him], I obviously wouldn’t have the accent. But for every other waking thing that I did, whether it was go down to the shops to buy some milk or if I talked to my agents on the phone about something else, they had to deal with a British-speaking client. People on the set definitely thought that I was British. They didn’t question it.
Speaking of voices: In a World was about sexism in the voiceover industry, and also a critique and examination of female speaking patterns. Why are dialect and vocal tics such a passion for you? Where did that start?
As a young kid, I always was — when I thought of being an actor, part of what was so cool about it was that you could take on different personas via different sounds. I was really into languages. My name was two nouns and I could always translate my actual name into any language. I thought that was such a cool trick. Any person I’d meet from foreign lands, I would say, “Well, how do you say ‘Lake’ and ‘Bell’ in…?” I’d collect my name in different languages. I just always thought there was something so sexy and kind of mysterious about dialects. And as an actor, you get to be all of those people and all of those roles for a moment, and then take on another one. I thought it was so exotic. I was rewarded with a compliment early on in my life: “Hey, kid, you got a good ear.” And at that point, any positive reinforcement of anything, I was like, “Oh, okay, I guess if I got a good ear, I want to continue to do that, whatever that means.”
And in No Escape, you casually break out into flawless French. Do you actually speak French?
[Laughs.] Yes, I do. I went to France when I was 15 to 16 for a full year abroad. That was great. That was the moment where I was like, “Oh, great, my French is finally paying off.” One day I hope to play a French character.
Man Up was released in the UK in May, but just about to come out here. It was really well-received there. Do you anticipate the critical response differing at all, or do you see American audiences receiving the movie differently?
It’s so interesting — obviously it’s a smaller movie here than it was in the UK. It was quite a big movie in the UK. I think like any British movie — and I think of it as a British movie — it will find its niche audience. It’s certainly really easy to watch. It’s a lovely respite to a lot of programming in TV and film right now. Everything’s very difficult to watch; it’s like, “Oh, it’s great, but you’ll cry the whole way through,” or whatever. Even with No Escape, that’s a rollercoaster of a movie. You could see No Escape, and in order to go to bed and not have nightmares, you can watch Man Up.
That’s literally what I did yesterday.
That’s perfect.
I know you’re married now, but pre-marriage, how much — if at all — did you relate to the way Nancy views dating in the film?
It’s funny, because I didn’t have too wild and crazy of a dating landscape. I had a couple crazy moments. But, naturally, I’m kind of an optimist; Nancy’s cynicism is something that I had to excavate from friends of mine, who make me laugh with their incredible sort of jaded [point of view]. All I can say that I relate to initially is that, before I met my husband, I was staunchly opposed to the concept of marriage. I thought it was archaic and overly romanticized. I have been in that place. But I will admit that every unromantic, I think, at their core is desperately hoping to be proved wrong. I was like, “Ah, it’s all hogwash!” But the second I met Scott, I was floored. He was like, “We’re gonna get married.” And I was like, “Okay!” I think all of that cynicism can get thrown to the wind for the right person.
To that point, I know you’re working on a second film, this time about marriage. How much of it is based on the experience you just described?
It’s premature to talk about it, but I did write a film that delves into that conversation and explores my feelings prior to meeting Scott and after meeting Scott. It’s sort of an unromantic romance.
A.O. Scott, in a review of In a World, wrote that, “…It may be that to find a leading role worthy of her gifts, Ms. Bell had to make one herself.” Is that something you believe to be true, or why you’re writing yourself another meaty role?
That A.O. Scott review was, you know, profoundly validating and amazing. But that comment… it’s somewhat true, yeah. I feel very lucky that I can write myself something that I’m excited to play in a way that feels refreshing and different than what I’ve been offered. Not only just parts, but even the genre. Tonally, I wanted to be in a movie that existed in a genre that was, I hoped, all my own.
What’s your take on the current conversation regarding women directors and the lack thereof in Hollywood? How are you feeling about the landscape right now?
The best part of this wave of conversation and discussion about female filmmakers and female presence in Hollywood is the fact that it’s trendy. What a great trend, you know? It’s part of the consciousness, and finally, alas, it’s being investigated in a way that’s not ignorable. There’s no way to gloss over it. At the end of the day, it’s a hyper-complicated conversation, and that’s why it’s not solvable in one night. There’s also this sense of… Women are mothers. [Bell has a 1-year-old daughter, Nova –ed.] Men don’t have that same kind of chemical pull toward their child, which allows them to be more prolific. That’s just animal stuff. That makes the conversation vastly complicated.
There’s no avoiding the fact that there are tremendous directors that are female, that are not on the list for all of these big blockbuster movies and whatnot. In the studio system, they’re really lacking. I’m just confused. Because I feel that, in a household, any large appliance or car or big purchases or “what movie are we seeing this weekend?” — all of those big decisions fall on the wife. It’s almost a cliche. For me, it’s just weird, and bad business, for those markets to not be tapped into. If I was a studio head, I’d be like, “We gotta tap into this market,” not because it’s trendy, but because it’s good business. If we’re gonna do another action picture, let’s put a female director on it. Not only are we gonna get a more refreshing voice, because it’s like, do we really wanna see another testosterone-injected action picture? Or do we want to see one with a fresh energy? We’re doing a lot of the same stuff here. I can see the marketing alone! You’re gonna get so many more butts in seats. So, I hope the trend will turn into something we’re not just talking about, but that actions will be taken. I think we’re gonna see that it’ll actually be considered lucrative to hire more women.
Man Up opened in Los Angeles and New York November 13, and expanded to additional theaters (and On Demand) November 20. No Escape is available On Demand, Blu-ray and DVD.
