Kristen Bell

Born: July 18 1980
Where: Detroit, Michegan, USA

The "geek chic" star hit a career high when she was cast as the titular Sarah Marshall in the comedy Forgetting Sarah Marshall.

She plays the girl who dumps Jason Segel's composer and takes up with irritating British rock star Aldous Snow, played by Russell Brand.

In America, Bell was also known for the role of Veronica Mars in the long-running TV series.

The daughter of a TV news director and a nurse (who divorced when she was two), Bell was raised in the Detroit suburb of Huntington Woods where she studied singing and tapdancing while at school.

Just before her freshman year of high school, Bell's parents decided to pull her from the public school system and she attended Shrine Catholic High School in nearby Royal Oak.

During her school years she landed the starring role in the school's 1997 production of The Wizard of Oz as Dorothy and also appeared in productions of Fiddler on the Roof and Lady Be Good.

As a 17-year-old she suffered a personal tragedy when her best friend Jenny DeRita was killed in a car crash. "Once you learn not to take people for granted, you live a lot happier life," Bell later commented.

As a youngster, Bell's mother had already sought out a manager and she landed advertising jobs as well as an uncredited role in the locally filmed movie Polish Wedding.

After graduation she moved to New York and attended the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University, majoring in musical theatre.

In 2001, during her senior year at New York University, Bell left a few credits shy of graduating to take a role in the Broadway musical of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.

The same year she made her first credited film debut in Pootie Tang. However, her one line in the film was cut and her appearance exists only as a scene shown during the credit sequence.

In 2002, she appeared in the Broadway revival of The Crucible with Liam Neeson, Angela Bettis and Laura Linney.

Bell then moved to Los Angeles because of her friendship with writers Kevin Murphy and Dan Studney and appeared in a handful of television shows as a special guest.

In 2003, she landed a role in the Hallmark movie The King and Queen of Moonlight Bay and made her movie debut proper in David Mamet's Spartan.

She played Laura Newton, the kidnapped daughter of a high-ranking US government official, acting alongside Val Kilmer.

She subsequently won the role of the 17-year-old title character in the detective drama Veronica Mars in 2004.

In 2005, Bell starred in the spoof Reefer Madness: The Movie Musical, reprising the role she played in the off-Broadway musical.

The following year Pulse, the American remake of the Japanese horror film Kairo, starred Bell as the lead Mattie.

Shortly after Veronica Mars was cancelled, Bell was cast in the Judd Apatow-produced comedy Forgetting Sarah Marshall.