Kristen Bell Channels HerFrozenCharacter Anna in Sweet 'Do You Want to Be an Actor' SAG Awards Musical Opener

Mar. 15, 2025

Kristen Bell at the 2025 SAG Awards.Photo:Netflix

Netflix

Kristen Bellis kicking off the 2025 SAG Awards!

The actress, 44, opened the Feb. 23 show with a hilarious and heartfelt monologue that included breaking into song. Channeling her character Anna from 2013’sFrozen, she sang a version of “Do You Want to Build a Snowman?” with lyrics devoted to the joy of acting.

“Do you want to be an actor?” Bell sang as a montage played on screens at Los Angeles' Shrine Auditorium and Expo Hall showing many of the evening’s nominees in their earliest roles. “It can be a bumpy ride. Sometimes there’s no stability. Put aside your pride. But everybody started somewhere as we do,” she sang as a smiling Jodie Foster, Zoe Saldaña, Jeff Goldblum, Kieran Culkin and more reacted to seeing their younger selves on screen.

The SAG Awards telecast, streaming on Netflix, began with a pre-taped bit involving the cast of the comedyHacks. As her character Deborah Vance,Jean Smartreacted to the news that Bell was hosting the show instead of her. TheGood Placestar then took the stage and apologized to Smart.

“I just want to say everyone in this room, and I do mean everyone, including the camera operators,” said Bell, “started out as a kid in ‘Somewhere, Earth’ going to bed and waking up every morning thinking, ‘It’s going to be me.'”

She continued, “There are a lot of birthday candles and pennies in fountains across the globe that all hold this shared dream. And that is to be a working artist. And it’s a beautiful thing. And that dream has a backdrop and it’s called Los Angeles. And it too is a very beautiful thing.”

Of the L.A. wildfires, Bell said the city has “been put through the ringer,” shouting out the members of the LAFD attending the SAG Awards in recognition of their efforts. “Though this room is full of sparkles and glamour and also what the kids are calling ‘riz,’ the most attractive tables I need to point out are right over there.”

Kristen Bell at the SAG Awards on Feb. 23.David Fisher/Shutterstock

David Fisher/Shutterstock

Bell is returning to the stage after becoming thefirst host the SAG Awards ever hadin 2018. Later that year, she led the People’s Choice Awards and, in 2020, she hosted the Nickelodeon Kids’ Choice Awards.

In January, it was unclear if Bell’s hosting gig would come to fruition after she — along withmany of her contemporaries— called for awards season to be skipped due to thedeadly wildfires that tore through Southern California.

“It felt very superfluous to have an awards show,“she told PEOPLEin an exclusive interview earlier this month. “I felt, ‘We should cancel all of the awards this year and donate all of the money!’”

After thinking about the financial impact awards season has on California, however, Bell said she changed her mind.

“I realized, ‘Wait a minute. If you cancel the awards shows, you are canceling hundreds of hundreds if not thousands of jobs for people in Los Angeles who need them.'” Bell explained. “Gig workers, musicians, hairstylists, makeup artists, drivers, caterers, tech workers — it’s actually imperative to the economy of rebuilding that we have these awards shows.”

Kristen Bell.Eric Charbonneau/Netflix via Getty

Eric Charbonneau/Netflix via Getty

She also noted that the sense of normalcy and joy the SAG Awards bring to the community was needed after so much devastation.

“Especially having it airing it on Netflix and making it seem global, it allows people to have a night of just fun, normal, goofy jokes and see all of the stars of television and film that they love,” she said.

The fires weren’t the only reason for Bell’s initial hesitation to take the job. She admitted to PEOPLE that she wasn’t sure if she was ready to return to work after taking a break in 2024.

“I was coming off of eight months of not working — well, you can say not working, but I’ve been a stay-at-home mom, which is a whole load [of] work in and of itself and more emotional work than anything,” she said. “But I hadn’t been acting. And I thought, ‘Wow do I want to get back into this? Do I want to take this on?’ But it felt like it’d oddly be creatively fun and fulfilling. And so far, it has been.”

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SeePEOPLE’s full coverage of the 31st annual Screen Actors Guild Awards, airing on Netflix.

source: people.com