Although she made her film debut in the little-seen Pootie Tang, this plucky actress had much better luck with her subsequent projects. After studying at NYU's prestigious Tisch School of the Arts, she quickly found stage work, including a leading role in the campy off-Broadway musical Reefer Madness, which was eventually turned into a TV-movie also starring Bell. The small screen ended up being her primary medium, and she had a number of guest appearances and TV-movies under her belt when she landed the title role of a teen-outcast-turned-investigator on Veronica Mars. Although Mars didn't fare too well in the ratings, the show developed a cult following and ran for three seasons on UPN and the CW, and Bell's portrayal of a high-school gumshoe who's wise beyond her years earned her a great deal of critical respect. She followed up that series with a reoccuring role on the NBC show Heroes and also returned to film with parts in the raunchy comedy Forgetting Sarah Marshall and the romantic fantasy When in Rome. Off screen, Bell is also a vegetarian and an animal lover who has adopted three rescue dogs: Sadie, Lola and Shakes.