Kristen Bell hosted the Actor Awards for a third time on March 1, and opened the show by handing some of the room’s best-known names new stage names. The ceremony renamed itself too. The union that presents it, SAG-AFTRA, dropped “SAG” from the title this year. Bell noted that the statue has always been called The Actor.

What she did with the mic

Bell opened her monologue by singing about the rebrand. From there she turned it into a running joke, telling nominees they could all be doing more with their own stage names. Jacob Elordi became “Jacordy O’Lordy.” Ted Danson became “Teddy Dandaughter.” Teyana Taylor became “TeyTay.” Chase Infiniti, she decided, needed no notes.

Later in the show Noah Wyle, star and executive producer of the medical drama The Pitt, challenged her to read one of the series' monologues while he timed her. She also ran a table tennis tournament between nominees, starting with Danson against Jackie Tohn. Bell told The Hollywood Reporter beforehand that she rehearses every beat before show day, camera marks included, down to practising how to read a teleprompter and how to look as though she is not.

A new film role alongside the show

Ten days before the ceremony, the makers of Sonic the Hedgehog announced that Bell would voice Amy Rose, the hammer-wielding hedgehog who is Sonic’s best pal, in the franchise’s fourth film. Ben Schwartz, who voices Sonic, broke the news himself: “We have our Amy Rose.”

Amy Rose had already turned up briefly once the credits rolled on the third film. The fourth is due out in March 2027, and joins Bell to a cast that includes Keanu Reeves as Shadow and Idris Elba as Knuckles. It adds to a voice career that already runs through Princess Anna in the Frozen films and Priscilla the sloth in Zootropolis.

What else is on her schedule

Around those same weeks, Bell was preparing to shoot the third season of her Netflix comedy Nobody Wants This and to workshop a new stage musical, Three Months Later, in Los Angeles. She says she spends about six weeks of the year in “high octane mode.”

The rest of the routine holds regardless of how many of those weeks overlap. Her phone goes into another room at five o’clock each evening, and the hours after that belong to her family.