House of Lies - Interview with Kristen Bell

Are the characters political consultants?
Kristen Bell: Really anything. It's basically a group of cutthroat management consultants that will do whatever is necessary to get the job and the after-work. It's murky as to what they actually really do, which I think is the actual description of consultants. If someone has a problem, we come and fix it -- you're downsizing, you need to stop fighting, whatever needs to be done. And their moral compasses are a little bit wonky. ... But there's a dynamic between the four of us -- Don Cheadle, me, Josh Lawson and Ben Schwartz -- that's very fun. We travel together all the time, we spend 100 hours a week together. So it's kind of our life as traveling salesmen.

Would you call it a comedy, a dark comedy, what?
It's a dark comedy -- a dark dramedy, I'd say actually. Tonally, it's very Showtime.

What about the role appealed to you?
I'd been searching for the right TV project. I knew I didn't want anything built around me, for the reason of it's difficult to be No. 1 on the call sheet. It's a very different workload than No. 2. But also I wanted to find a writer or creator who had a story to tell, who wasn't just like, "OK, what can we do with her?" I didn't want it to be sold on me; I wanted to be part of a good project. And I trust Matthew Carnahan ["Dirt"], our creator, implicitly. I think he's very funny, he's very dark, he's very provocative. I think Showtime also has a lot more they can do with storylines -- what they show, the subject matter they broach. And working with Don Cheadle is not a bad thing. He's pretty exceptional, both as a human being and as an actor, and I just feel like I'm learning a lot from him. I'm trying to absorb how he works.

Source: Full interview @ Zap2it