Why Kristen Bell calls husband, ‘Family Game Fight’ co-host Dax Shepard, her ‘greatest safety net’

Kristen Bell and Dax Shepard don't play around when it comes to games.

"When we met, she was like, 'I have a standing charades game every Saturday," Shepard remembers. "'There's like 25 people. People do go to the hospital afterwards. Just so you know, that's a part of my life.'"

"It was full contact," explains Bell, 41. "So, we'd had a broken nose, we'd had a sprained wrist."

"Thrown some backs out," adds Shepard, 46. "We are gamers."

In fact, it was over a game of charades that Shepard first thought he might be falling for the actress, who starred in UPN's "Veronica Mars" and NBC's "The Good Place."

"I was watching her tell everyone the rules of charades at her house, and she turned from America's sweetheart to just a drill sergeant," he recalls. "Like the worst from 'Platoon,' or any of these war movies. All of a sudden she was just screaming ... And I just was like, 'What is this 5-foot-1 hurricane all about? Where did this side of her personality come from?' It was very intriguing."

Now the pair, who wed in 2013, are taking their love of games to the small screen for NBC's "Family Game Fight" (Wednesdays, 9 EDT/PDT).

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In their first TV collaboration, the duo hosts and are pitted against each other as members of dueling foursomes compete for a chance to win $100,000. The competition can get messy: Ice shoots down players' backs as a penalty for a wrong answer in a game called "Brain Freeze." Contestants can also be hit in the face with a sweet treat in "Pie Rollers."

The show is inspired by their highly entertaining 2019 appearance on "The Ellen DeGeneres Show," where in a round of "Taste Buds," the blindfolded couple had to identify a food based on taste, and feed clues about the item to each other.

"It turned into the biggest blow-up, frustrating couples fight caught on TV," Shepard days.

Still, they saw an opportunity, Bell says: "We very quickly – as storytellers – recognized that was awful for us, but that was really good content."

As executive producers of "Family Game Fight!" alongside DeGeneres, Shepard and Bell reveal what it's like competing against a spouse, their daughters' mild reaction to their new gig, and why they're so candid about their relationship. (Edited for length and clarity.)

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Question: How do you think being together for so long benefits you as hosts and contestants?

Dax Shepard: We're so good at reading each other. When Mama's a little tired or Papa's a little tired, and the other one can really pick up in those moments – I don't know (that) you would have that in a normal co-host situation.

Kristen Bell: And then you leave going, "You saw that I was tired and you picked up all the slack during that last episode." And then you leave work with your head on his shoulder, and it just feels really nice.

Q: What type of competitors are you?

Bell: Intense.

Shepard: It's like a tornado. It gets real hot and muggy. The light augments; it's yellow for a minute, and then it's over. Then it's the prettiest summer day you've ever seen. So I think in the afterglow of these battles, we're very supportive. It's a weird thing. I want to win, and then the second I win, I feel terrible, and vice versa.

Q: Did you learn anything about your spouse during this experience?

Shepard: I get reconfirmed, when I get to work with Kristen, just what a pro she is.

Bell: I would say the same thing. It's certainly something I knew – that Dax is the greatest safety net you could have next to you on any stage or in front of any camera.

Q: Did you learn anything about yourselves?

Shepard: As it turns out, I don't like having ice water dumped on my head 18 times. After three times you're like, "This is a bad game. Let's never play this again."

Bell: A lot of them are really, really bad games. They're torture games. They're not nice games, but we got through it.

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Q: What stands out as most challenging?

Shepard: Kristen and I've been at this for a minute – 20 years apiece. After the very first day of filming, we got home and I said, "I don't want to be reckless with this statement, but I think that's the hardest day in show business I've ever had." And she was like, "Oh my God, me too!"

Bell: Between the emotional tension of wanting to root for the families, there's a lot of money on the line for them, (so) you want to do well. There's your partner, (to whom) you have to maintain that you're going to be married after the show. Then there's the endurance factor. Then there's also –

Shepard: Child care, because it goes longer and longer than was predicted.

Q: Have your kids (Lincoln, 8, and Delta, 6) seen the show? Is this something you're going to watch as a family?

Shepard: We had a rehearsal day, (and) brought them to set thinking, "Oh, they'll love this." It's messy, there's pies. But I think because we were involved they were like, "Alright. Is there another stage on this lot we can go look at something that will be more of our interest?"

Bell: Anything with your parents is just uncool, like (it's) in your DNA. You're not supposed to like anything your parents do. We thought there's a spinning stage and there's big costumes and lights and fun props, and they were like, "Ah."

Shepard: "Let's go grab something to eat."

Bell: "Where are the snacks?"

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Q: When you're giving each other clues on the show, you sometimes share tidbits about your lives, like how popular nachos made with crackers are in your house. You recently posted to Instagram about a toilet paper incident. And you're also open about more serious topics, like sobriety and couples therapy. Tell me about your decision to be so honest with the public.

Shepard: I don't believe that it was something that got motivated out of a mission of ours, (but instead) out of our fear that people were seeing us in commercials and hashtagging "Couples Goals." And ethically we thought, "Well, we're misleading all these people if they think we met each other, and it's been a perfect, easy fit like in a movie. Because it really hasn't, and (yet) I would want everyone to have the marriage I have. But also, I want to be honest about the fact that you gotta work it like a job. You gotta think it's as important to nurture as anything else. I dedicate an hour a day to working out to stay physically fit. I need to dedicate that much thoughtfulness to a marriage, or it don't work.

Bell: It really did come out of the idea of we felt like we were being inauthentic, and authenticity is really important to both of us. So, to think that there were people looking at us going, "Oh, I just have to find my Dax," (meant we've) got to set the record straight here and be like, "No, these two people are very difficult on their own. Together? Whoo!" But it is worth it. It's just like working out or making a really great, big meal. It takes five hours, but it's gonna be delicious. Everything in life takes hard work, and so we thought, "Why not pull the curtain back a little bit and start talking about the hard work?"

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Kristen Bell, Dax Shepard: Day 1 of Family Game Fight ‘hardest' in biz