Lake Bell

  Lake Siegel Bell (born March 24, 1979) is an American actress, screenwriter and director. She has starred in various television series, including Boston Legal (2004-2006), Surface (2005-2006), How to Make It in America (2010-2011), Childrens Hospital (2008-2016), and Bless This Mess (2019-2020) and in films including Over Her Dead Body (2008), What Happens in Vegas (2008), It's Complicated (2009), No Strings Attached (2011), Million Dollar Arm (2014), No Escape (2015), Man Up (2015), The Secret Life of Pets (2016), Shot Caller (2017) and Home Again (2017).She wrote and directed the short film Worst Enemy, which debuted at the Sundance Film Festival in 2012, followed by her 2013 feature film directing debut In a World..., in which she also starred. In 2017, she directed, wrote, co-produced and starred in I Do... Until I Don't. As of 2021, Bell starred as the voice of Poison Ivy in the HBO Max series Harley Quinn (2019-present), and Natasha Romanoff / Black Widow in the Disney+ series What If. (2021). Bell was born in New York City. Her mother, Robin Bell, owns the design firm Robin Bell Design in New York. Her father is real estate developer Harvey Siegel, who bought the then-closed Virginia International Raceway and converted it to a racetrack country club, and who owned New Jersey Motorsports Park.Bell's father is Jewish and her mother is Protestant. Bell has stated that she was raised in a "comically dysfunctional" family.Bell attended The Chapin School in New York and Westminster School in Simsbury, Connecticut. As a high school junior, Bell attended School Year Abroad (SYA) at its school located in Rennes, France. For part of her teenage years she lived in Vero Beach, Florida and attended Saint Edwards School. She attended Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, New York, before transferring to Rose Bruford College in London. There she acted in theatrical productions including The Seagull, The Children's Hour, Six Degrees of Separation, Light Shining in Buckinghamshire and The Pentecost.