We all know that Kristen is a talented actress and television personality but what a lot of people don’t know is that the celebrity is also a singer.
Kristen Bell can sing. She is classically trained and has sung both on stage in Broadway musicals and on screen as Anna from Frozen.
Read more below about Kristen’s musical background and hear her perform as Anna by following the links.
Kristen Bell on Broadway
After graduating from high school, Kristen attended Tisch School of the Arts at New York University to study for a degree in Musical Theater.
However, the actress and singer dropped out to play the role of Becky Thatcher in the Broadway show, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.
“Music has been a very big part of my life for a long, long time,” Kristen has said in an interview. She continued, “I grew up studying opera and sang in solo and ensemble competitions instead of playing a sport. I studied music in college and it’s kind of what brought me to acting. I realized I liked music so much and when you could be a storyteller while you were singing, that was the best of both worlds.”
On a separate occasion, speaking to Vanity Fair in 2020 about her acting career timeline, at the year 1998, when Kristen was 18 years old and in her first film, she said, “I had already discovered my love of music and theatre and acting so I was auditioning for anything that I could get my hands own.”
So, the actress clearly holds music and singing in high stead, alongside her acting.
Singing in Frozen
There are actually 32 songs in the first Frozen movie, made in 2013, and even more in Frozen II, the most famous of all being “Let It Go”, sung by the ice-queen herself, Elsa, who was voice-acted by Idina Menzel.
However, Elsa’s younger sister Anna, voice-acted by Kristen Bell, also has a few of her own songs. Near the beginning of the film, Anna sings the song “Do You Want to Build a Snowman” to her sister, Elsa after she has decided to cut herself off from her family and friends, worried that her newfound powers might bring them harm.
As well as this, Anna also sings the song “For The First Time In Forever” when the palace plans on re-opening its doors. Kristen also sings in Frozen II and has a solo song in the movie called “The Next Right Thing”.
During an interview with Yahoo Movies Bell’s co-star Idina Menzel admitted that she was surprised at the actresses hidden talent. “I didn’t know how great a singer she was. I quickly found out and need to constantly tell her because she doesn’t tell anybody else! She’s always playing it down,” Idina said.
Bells’ director, Jennifer Lee was also impressed, explaining to Yahoo, “it was definitely a wonderful surprise hearing her voice [during auditions], not knowing that she had been classically trained. Also, she had such a warm, sweet voice. She was everything that we could’ve hoped for Anna. I don’t think there could be any other Anna but Kristen Bell.”
Other Disney Songs
Not only does Kristen sing beautifully as Anna, she can also do many other Disney songs, basically making her a real-life Disney princess. She wowed her fans on The Tonight Show With Jimmy Fallon by performing a 16-song medley from Disney animated films spanning over nine decades.
So, it turns out that Kristen Bell can sing, and pretty well at that. She was classically trained both growing up and whilst at New York University, and as we can see from the Frozen films, it has definitely paid off.