• teenage private eye veronica mars has gone from punky to - dare we say - preppy

The title character of The CW series - with her quick, bright wit and sharp eye for life's darker moments - has left high school and is going to college, doffing her dark threads and spiked tresses for something a little more stylish.

"Just don't call it mainstream," says Kristen Bell, who plays Veronica.

"It's simply that she doesn't feel the need to spike her hair up and wear so much black leather and stuff that's tough," Bell says of her character. "A lot of kids dress to conceal themselves a little bit ... Veronica dressed really tough because she felt hurt and vulnerable and dressed to try to combat that. But now I think she's sort of accepting who she is; she's not feeling the need to be so punky."

Bell, 26, but easily able to pass for 19, is wearing a neat beige suit, with her now-long, blonde hair smoothed into a sleek ponytail, as she chats between scenes at a soundstage on the outskirts of San Diego, where Veronica Mars is shot.

This season's changes are a natural expression of Mars' new life and attitude.

How she is feeling is very much the heart of the show,and despite the new outer gloss, her emotions still run strong and deep.

"She was wise beyond her years, or jaded, however you want to call it. But actually being a young kid and wise beyond your years is slightly different from being an adult and simply being wise," Bell says in explaining the subtle transition she's aiming for with Mars' emerging maturity.

Although she hadn't seen upcoming scripts, Bell said, "I would hope that Veronica would choose to be vulnerable a little bit more. She's so sarcastic, but she's always funny and witty, which is always great, but I think it would be nice to see her a bit more raw this year."

At a press conference during a summer gathering of TV critics, show creator Rob Thomas assured that however Mars looked she wasn't going to lose her edge.

"My fear with the character is never let her get too huggable, too cuddly, too warm," he said, nothing he tells the show's writers to "write her like a porcupine."

In its third season, Veronica Mars, which usually gets better reviews than ratings, now airs Tuesdays at 9pm on The CW, the amalgamation of the defunct WB and UPN. Veronica aired on UPN its first two seasons.

Bell admits to a moment of trepidation that her series wouldn't make the new network's cut, especially when she heard that The CW had picked up 7th Heaven, and thought that family drama might fill Veronica's potential time slot.

But, Bell said, "I've always had confidence in the show, and it wasn't cockiness, it was just belief." That faith could be tested, though. Only 13 episodes have been ordered so far, not the customary season-long 22.

Joining Mars this year at the local Hearst College are most of the friends with whom she shared high school adventures in the fictional Southern California beach town of Neptune. They include her best pal, Wallace Fennel (Percy Dag III), and her boyfriend, Logan Echolls (Jason Dohring).

She also, of course, still has plenty of time to stop by the office of her private investigator dad, Keith (Enrico Colantoni).

Veronica is doing that in a scene shooting this day. She's surprised to find her father laughing intimately with an attractive brunette, Harmony Chase (Laura San Giacomo).

San Giacomo, who costarred with Colantoni on the hit sitcom Just Shoot Me!, is guest starring in several upcoming episodes as Chase, a client a little bit too attracted to the man she's hired to investigate her husband.

San Giacomo said being a guest on Veronica Mars appealed to her not just because of the fun of working again with Colantoni but because "the series seems really to delve into some issues and be really responsible about it, without hitting you over the head."

Colantoni credited the perfect casting of Bell as the key to establishing the right tone of this very modern twist on the detective genre.

"It's just one of those X factors, that's inexplicable. You either have that wonderful charm and humour and insightfulness, or you don't. She's very funny and I marvel at some of the lines she pulls off with such offhandness," he said. "She's just a [tough] chick who wants to restore order in the word [even] if it kills her." back to the top

• actress left her church after being accused of dressing provactively

Even though Jessica Alba played a stripper in Sin City, she's not about to bare it all for anyone in public.

In an Elle magazine interview, the 25-year-old says that the film's directors offered her the option to do nudity in the film, but she refused.

"I don't do nudity. I just don't," says Alba. "Maybe that makes me a bad actress. Maybe I won't get hired in some things. But I have too much anxiety."

The actress isn't into baring much skin in real life either.

"I never dress for men - I dress more for women," she explains. "I'm not the mini-skirt-and-cleavage girl, ever ... I'm guilty in an LA way, of wearing too much sweatsuits, but it's because of work. I have such long hours that I want to be in my pyjamas."

But she does like to dress attractively on occasion, even though it caused so much pressure at the born-again Christian church she attended, she decided to leave when the religious leaders accused her of being too sexy.

"Older men would hit on me and my youth pastor said it was because I was wearing provocative clothing, and it wasn't," she says. "It just made me feel like if I was in any way desirable to the opposite sex, that it was my fault, and it made me ashamed of my body and of being a woman."

Her church's condemnation of premarital sex and homosexuality was also at odds with her odd viewers.

"I thought it was a nice guide, but it certainly wasn't how I was going to live my life."

Albs is currently shooting the comedy Good Luck Chuck with Dan Cook, about a man who women seek because once they break up with him, the next man they meet will be their future husband. back to the top