Gown, Elie Saab ($7,100). Neiman Marcus, Fashion Show, 702-369-0704. Red coral Gwendoline ring, Dior ($17,500). Via Bellagio, 702-731-1334

 
  Red cotton top ($1,090) and pink silk skirt ($1,680), Salvatore Ferragamo. The Shoppes at The Palazzo, 702-933-9333. Ruby earrings, Amrapali ($11,460). fragments.com. Quatrefoil link bracelet, David Yurman (price on request). The Forum Shops at Caesars, 702-794-4545. Oval ling flower bracelet, Tiffany & Co. ($22,000). Crystals, CityCenter, 702-545-9090. Rose-cut diamond bangle, Amrapali (price on request). fragments.com. Gwendoline ring, Dior ($16,000). Via Bellagio, 702-731-1334

Although she has since made her mark in the big-screen comedies Forgetting Sarah Marshall and Couples Retreat, Kristen Bell is still followed by the ghost of Veronica Mars. Nerdy boys everywhere can’t help but call out “Veronica!” when they see the vivacious blonde actress who became a cult star in the titular role of a teen private investigator on the acclaimed TV series. After the show went off the air in 2007, a recurring stint on Heroes only cemented her place in the pantheon of geek heroines. “People feel like they know me, which is both flattering and frightening,” Bell says. “Like when people come up and touch me when maybe touching isn’t necessarily appropriate with a stranger?”

Yet she understands—she acted the same way when she first met Ty Pennington from Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, the sort of hilarious admission that makes Bell all the more relatable. “I wasn’t seeing him as Ty Pennington who probably goes home to his partner and cooks, calls his mom on holidays,” she says. “In that moment he was simply the guy who gives huge gifts away to the American public. I have to recognize that I, too, represent something to the fans.”

Life in LA...Visits to Vegas
In person, Bell, 31, lives up to her sassy, approachable small-screen persona, delivering smart, quirky observations and down-home phrases like “Oh, geez, Louise” as she zips around LA in her black Chevy Volt, working a casual chic look down to her black Madewell motorcycle boots and red and blue flannel from the boys’ section of GapKids. Bell has just come from visiting her fiancé, Dax Shepard, on the set of the NBC series Parenthood, 45 minutes north in Santa Clarita, and is making her way to Culver City to put some final touches on the season finale of her new Showtime series, House of Lies.

On the show, Bell plays Jeannie Van Der Hooven, a slick, shrewd, go-for-the-jugular management consultant alongside co-star Don Cheadle. The character is decidedly less noble than her TV breakthrough role, yet she skillfully makes even an ethically challenged, high-stakes consultant doing dirty deeds seem likable. Explaining her approach to the part, she says, “I’ve been told that the job is simply to attach yourself to the host and bleed them dry.”

It’s no wonder Bell says at the end of some days of filming that she just wants to be cuddled; fortunately, Bell has Shepard waiting at home. “And he’s just the perfect size to completely envelop me!” says the actress, who is more than a foot shorter than her 6-foot-2 fiancé.

The happy couple often spends time in Las Vegas, visiting Red Rock Casino, Resort & Spa with Bell’s family. Her dad is one of 12 siblings, so Bell has several aunts and uncles in Sin City. “My step-mom will play Keno until four in the morning, and my dad likes video poker,” says Bell, who prefers the blackjack table, although she also has a prowess for poker. Bell’s co-star in the upcoming film Big Miracle, Drew Barrymore, confirms that Bell is indeed lucky at cards: “Kristen and [Big Miracle costar] John Krasinski would have poker nights at their hotel rooms all the time while we were filming in Alaska,” she says, “and she definitely whooped my ass!”

Still, Bell lives up to her geek-crush reputation when she describes her wildest Vegas adventure. “Vegas in the nighttime scares me a little,” she says. “So one time my best friend and I decided to do Vegas by day. We treated it like an amusement park. We got up at 7:30 AM. Mind you, no one is getting up in Vegas then. They may still be up, but they’re not just getting up.” A hearty brunch at the Hash House—“some sort of berry waffle tower and the best grilled cheeses,” she recalls—was followed by a rollercoaster tour of the town and trinket-shopping, complete with best friend rings with their names carved in them. “By 3 PM, we were back in the room,” she says, “completely crashed out.”

A Winning Couple
Even though she loves Vegas, don’t expect a Sin City elopement anytime soon: Engaged since 2009, Bell and Shepard have no plans to set a date. “We consider ourselves already married—we already wear the rings,” Bell says. “I don’t want a wedding. It’s too much stress.”

If planning a wedding with Shepard is too stressful, working with him has been a piece of cake. They met several years ago on the set of their first film together, When in Rome. And they just co-produced and starred in another film, Outrun, a 1970s-inspired car-chase flick written and directed by Shepard. “It was the most wonderful experience,” Bell raves. “We spent every waking moment together for eight weeks and did not get sick of each other. We are the couple that can do that.”