When Mike Schur sat down in a quiet office with Kristen Bell to pitch a new show about the afterlife, he didn't even have a script yet. He had a "kernel of an idea." He told her, point-blank, that he couldn't get her out of his head for the lead. Most actors would be flattered, sure, but Bell actually wondered if he was pranking her.
As it turns out, Schur was dead serious. He knew that for a show about a "medium-bad" person mistakenly sent to heaven to work, the lead had to be someone the audience would forgive for almost anything. Kristen Bell on The Good Place wasn't just a casting choice; it was the foundation the entire moral experiment rested on.
The "Arizona Trashbag" and the Art of Being Likable
Eleanor Shellstrop is, objectively, a nightmare. In her Earth life, she sold fake medicine to the elderly. She hounded environmental activists with "eat my farts" jokes. She skipped out on being the designated driver by faking a back injury. She was a "dirtbag."
But here’s the thing.
If anyone else played her, we might have just wanted to see her get tossed into the lava. Bell brought this weird, "beady-eyed greed" to the role—that’s how the AV Club described it—that made you root for her to keep her spot in paradise even when she clearly didn't earn it. She has this innate brightness. Even when Eleanor is being her most selfish, Bell plays her with a hint of inner pain that suggests she's just a defense mechanism in a human suit.
Schur actually talked about this on The Good Place podcast. He felt Eleanor was so inherently unlikable on paper that Bell was the only human being who could pull it off. She sells that razor-thin line between self-involved jerk and self-aware hero. It’s a hard walk. Most people in real life can't do it.
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That Season 1 Twist: The Secret Only Two People Knew
We have to talk about the "Holy Mother Forking Shirtballs" moment. It’s one of the greatest reveals in TV history.
At the end of Season 1, Eleanor realizes the truth: they aren't in the Good Place. They are in the Bad Place. Michael (Ted Danson) isn't a benevolent architect; he's a demon who has been psychologically torturing them the whole time.
What’s wild is that only Kristen Bell and Ted Danson knew.
Schur told them the secret before they even signed on because he felt it was unfair to ask them to play an angel or a "good person" and then pull the rug out four months later. He wanted them to have the full picture. The rest of the cast—William Jackson Harper, Jameela Jamil, Manny Jacinto, and D'Arcy Carden—were kept completely in the dark.
When the news finally broke during a table read for the finale, Bell actually pulled out her phone and filmed their reactions. She wanted to see their "unique ability to digest this betrayal." You can find the footage online; it’s basically an episode of America’s Funniest Home Videos but with high-stakes existential dread. They were paralyzed. They’d been acting in one show, and suddenly they were in another.
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Acting Through the Lens of Ethics
Playing Eleanor wasn't just about landing "butt gags" and eating frozen yogurt. The show leaned heavily into real-deal moral philosophy. They even hired consultants like Todd May and Pamela Hieronymi to make sure the ethics weren't just window dressing.
Bell has mentioned in interviews—specifically her Reddit AMA—that she’s always been sort of preoccupied with why we should be nice to each other. She brought that curiosity to the set. Eleanor’s journey from a woman who thinks "hell is other people" to a woman who sacrifices her own happiness for the sake of the universe is a slow burn.
- Season 1: Pure survival. Eleanor is just trying not to get caught.
- Season 2: The "Veronica Mars" phase. She’s savvy, street-smart, and trying to outmaneuver a literal demon.
- Season 3: Empathy starts to itch. She tries to save her friends and family back on Earth.
- Season 4: Leadership. She takes over the neighborhood when Michael loses his nerve.
There is a subtle moment in Season 1, Episode 12, that fans often point to. An environmental activist asks Eleanor, "Why are you like this?" It’s a quiet question. Bell’s face does this thing where she looks like she might actually cry for a split second before she snaps back into defensive anger. That’s the acting mastery people overlook. It’s called "duping delight" when she’s lying, but when she’s hurt, it’s raw.
Why We’re Still Talking About Eleanor Shellstrop
The show ended in 2020, but Kristen Bell on The Good Place remains a masterclass in character redemption. It wasn't a "lightbulb" moment where she suddenly became a saint. It was a tedious, painful process of learning that other people matter.
She eventually earned her spot. Not because she did one big good deed, but because she tried. She failed thousands of times (literally, Michael rebooted them 802 times), and she kept trying.
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The ending of the series is heavy. Eleanor has to let Chidi go. The old Eleanor—the one from Phoenix who stole shrimp and hid from her problems—would have begged him to stay for her own selfish reasons. The new Eleanor, the one Bell carefully built over four seasons, lets him walk through the door because she loves him.
Actionable Insights for Fans and Creators:
If you're looking to revisit the show or apply its lessons to your own life (or writing), keep these things in mind:
- Watch for the "tells": Go back to Season 1 and watch Bell’s expressions when she’s lying. She puts in these tiny smirks—the "duping delight"—that hint at her true nature before the twist.
- Study the pacing of change: Notice how Eleanor doesn't stop being snarky or "trashy" just because she’s becoming "good." Real growth doesn't delete your personality; it just redirects your motivations.
- Read the source material: If the show’s themes moved you, check out T.M. Scanlon’s What We Owe to Each Other. It’s the book Chidi uses to teach Eleanor, and it’s the backbone of the series' philosophy.
- Embrace the "Medium" person: The show reminds us that most people aren't purely evil or purely good. We’re all just "medium," and the goal is simply to be a little bit better today than we were yesterday.
Eleanor Shellstrop was a mess, but Kristen Bell made her our mess. She took a character who could have been a footnote in sitcom history and turned her into a profound exploration of what it means to be a decent human being.
To fully appreciate the nuance of her performance, try re-watching the "Janet(s)" episode in Season 3. Bell has to act as Eleanor pretending to be Jason, and then as Eleanor pretending to be Chidi while trapped inside Janet’s void. It’s a dizzying display of character work that proves why she was the only choice for this role.