Kristen Schaal — Movies, TV Shows & Roles

Actor · Director

1978-01-24 · Longmont, Colorado, USA · Female

62 series in the catalog

Kristen Joy Schaal ( SHAHL; born January 24, 1978) is an American actress, comedian, and writer. Known for her distinctive high-pitched, childlike voice, she voices Louise Belcher in Bob's Burgers and voiced Mabel Pines in Gravity Falls. She also played Mel in Flight of the Conchords, The Guide in What We Do in the Shadows, Hurshe Heartshe in The Heart, She Holler, and Carol Pilbasian in The Last Man on Earth. She provided several voices for BoJack Horseman; for the character of Sarah Lynn, she was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Character Voice-Over Performance. Other roles include Amanda Simmons in The Hotwives of Orlando, Hazel Wassername in 30 Rock, Victoria Best in WordGirl, Trixie in the Toy Story franchise (2010–2026), Bobbi in My Spy, Shannon in Despicable Me 2, Number Two in The Mysterious Benedict Society, Barb in Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2 and Anne in Wilfred. She was an occasional commentator in The Daily Show from 2008 to 2016. She voiced Sayrna in the 2019 EA video game Anthem.
Early life
Schaal was born on January 24, 1978, in Longmont, Colorado, to a Lutheran family of Dutch ancestry. She was raised on her family's cattle ranch, in a rural area near Boulder, Colorado. Her father is a construction worker and her mother a secretary.
Schaal attended Skyline High School where she graduated in 1996. She has a brother, David, born in 1975. She attended the University of Colorado in Boulder for a year and graduated from Northwestern University. She then moved to New York in 2000 to pursue a comedy career. In 2005, she had her first break when she performed at the People’s Improv Theatre in New York doing character work and was included in the New York article "The Ten Funniest New Yorkers You've Never Heard Of".
Live comedy
In 2006, Schaal performed at the 2006 HBO US Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen, where she won the award for "Best Alternative Comedian". She was also the winner of the second annual Andy Kaufman Award (hosted by the New York Comedy Festival), Best Female Stand-up at the 2006 Nightlife Awards in New York City, and "Best Female Stand Up Comedian" at the 2007 ECNY Awards. At the 2008 Melbourne International Comedy Festival, she won the Barry Award for her show Kristen Schaal As You Have Probably Never Seen Her Before, tying with Nina Conti. Also in 2006, Schaal appeared on the first season of the Comedy Central show Live at Gotham. She co-hosts the weekly variety show Hot Tub in Los Angeles, which was voted "Best Variety Show of 2005" by a Time-Out New York's readers poll. She also performs at the Peoples Improv Theater on the improv team, "Big Black Car". She is a founding member of the theatre company The Striking Viking Story Pirates, which adapts stories by children into sketches and songs.
Schaal performed live at the Edinburgh Fringe 2007, where she was one of six acts (chosen from over two hundred American productions at the Fringe) requested to perform at the US Consul General-sponsored "Fringe USA" Showcase.
On her return to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in August 2008, Schaal was nominated for the If.comedy award for Kristen Schaal And Kurt Braunohler: Double Down Hearts.
Schaal has also performed at the Royal Albert Hall, London, as part of The Secret Policeman's Ball 2008 in aid of Amnesty International, and at the Bonnaroo 2009 music festival. In 2010, Schaal appeared as a stand-up comic on John Oliver's New York Stand Up Show and at the Solid Sound Festival at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art.
Film, TV, and radio
In 2001, Schaal had a bit role in the film Kate & Leopold. Schaal appeared on HBO's Flight of the Conchords as the stalker-fan Mel, a role which earned her an EWwy nomination for Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series in 2009. She was also a credited consultant and writer for Season 11 of South Park, and appeared on the BBC's Never Mind the Buzzcocks.
She made her first appearance as a "special commentator" on Comedy Central's The Daily Show on March 13, 2008, often presented in recurring appearances as its news team's "Senior Women's Issues Correspondent". In 2008, she made an appearance on Good News Week during the Melbourne International Comedy Festival. In October 2008 she appeared in Amnesty International's The Secret Policeman's Ball 2008. She also appeared on an episode of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver about sexual education, talking about abstinence and non-abstinence only education.
Other film and television credits include Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Snake 'n' Bacon, Norbit, Get Him to the Greek, Conviction, Cheap Seats, Freak Show, Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant, Adam and Steve, The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard, Delirious, Good News Week (Australia), Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Law & Order: Criminal Intent, The Education of Max Bickford, Comedy Central's Contest Searchlight, Ugly Betty, How I Met Your Mother, MTV's Human Giant, and Mad Men. She was a contributor to the sketch/music series The Nighttime Clap on the Fuse music network.
She appeared on Fuse's original comedy series The P.A. She appeared in two TV pilots written and directed by Jersey City comedian Dan McNamara – The Calderons and Redeeming Rainbow, both of which were screened as official selections at the 2006 and 2007 New York Television Festivals. She appeared in television commercials for T-Mobile, Wendy's, RadioShack, Starburst, Sony Xperia, and Zaxby's. She made an appearance, in April 2008, on the IFC sketch comedy show The Whitest Kids U' Know. On April 3, 2009, she taped an episode of Comedy Central Presents. From 2010 to 2015, she added her voice to the PBS Kids GO! series WordGirl as Victoria Best, a child prodigy whose parents taught her to be the best at everything that she does. Schaal voiced 12-year-old Mabel Pines on Disney Channel's hit TV series Gravity Falls from 2012 to 2016. Since 2011, she has voiced the character Louise on the FOX Network series Bob's Burgers.
She starred in A. D. Miles' MyDamnChannel.com series Horrible People. In October 2008, Schaal appeared in an episode of Spicks and Specks. On June 10, 2009, Schaal broadcast her first radio show, High Five!!, on Sirius XM Radio's 'RawDog' channel with co-host Kurt Braunohler. Schaal stars in her own web series, Penelope Princess of Pets, one episode of which doubled as the video for the New Pornographers' "Mutiny, I Promise You". She voiced Trixie the Triceratops in Toy Story 3 and Pumpkin Witch and Palace Witch in Shrek Forever After. She was also in the music video for Joey Ramone's "New York City." She also guest-starred in the Modern Family episode "Fifteen Percent", as well as the music video for "Conversation 16" by The National. Schaal guest starred on the MC Frontalot album Solved. She was featured with Kurt Braunohler on the Radiolab episode "Loops". Schaal was in a commercial for the Xperia Play version of Minecraft.
Schaal guest starred on The Simpsons May 8, 2011, episode "Homer Scissorhands," in which she plays Taffy, a love interest of Milhouse Van Houten. She is incorrectly listed in the credits as "Kristen Schall". This prompted Simpsons writers to issue her a unique apology on the next week's episode in which Bart's chalkboard joke in the intro to the show states "It's Kristen Schaal, not Kristen Schall." Schaal voiced Shannon, a girl who goes on a date with Gru, in Despicable Me 2; she then appeared in a music video for "Weird Al" Yankovic's 2014 song "Tacky", a parody of Pharrell Williams' "Happy". In 2013, Schaal guest starred in the two-part episode "Sea Tunt" of Archer, lending her voice to a character named Tiffy. In 2014, Schaal co-starred alongside Casey Wilson, Danielle Schneider, Tymberlee Hill, Andrea Savage, and Angela Kinsey in the first season of the Hulu original series The Hotwives of Orlando. She co-starred alongside Will Forte in the FOX comedy The Last Man on Earth, which premiered on March 1, 2015.
Schaal also voices various characters…