Lake Bell's Rising Star

Lake Bell is hilarious on camera. Her roles in movies and TV confirm that she's an actor whom audiences, directors, and critics all adore. What's most intriguing about Lake's set of talents is that her skills behind the camera might be as promising as her performances in front of it.

Roman Coppola, the executive producer of W Hotels and Intel's short film series, Four Stories, pegged Lake to helm the winning screenplay set at W Mexico City because the script's comedic sensibilities matched hers.

Lake has been playing comedic characters on the big and small screens for the better part of a decade. From roles on FX's Children's Hospital and HBO's How to Make it in America to roles in feature films such as No Strings Attached and It's Complicated, Lake shines—getting laughs with a mix of goofy absurdity and sure-timed wit.

So it's not surprising at all that Lake brings narrative focus and comedic vision to her burgeoning duties behind the camera. This February, Lake will premiere her second film at the Sundance Film Festival. She wrote and directed In a World..., a dramedy about the daughter of a legendary voice-over artist who decides to follow her father's long shadow into the industry. In 2010, Lake wrote and directed the short Worst Enemy, a film that follows the body image issues of a young woman in a compassionate and humorous way.

Watch Lake's Four Stories film, ¡El Tonto! >

Watch The Making of ¡El Tonto! >