Lake Bell: In A World changed my life

Lake Bell is ''thankful'' for her role in 'In A World...' as it led to her being the lead actress in 'Man Up'.

The 36-year-old actress landed her lead female role in new romantic comedy 'Man Up' - in which she stars opposite Simon Pegg - because of her film about dialect, which she spent five years making and is now yielding the rewards.

She told The Independent newspaper: '''In A World...' changed my life a thousand per cent. I feel thankful that something I believed in so much - I love dialect, so I dedicated five years of my life to making a film about it - yielded such rewards. It led to 'Man Up', as well as 'No Escape', which comes out later this year ... two movies where I am the female lead. And I'm also involved now in movie pre-production, production and as a director.''

The 'What Happens In Vegas' actress was apparently picked for 'Man Up' according to her co-star Simon because Big Talk Productions ''wanted to find someone surprising, fresh and exciting''.

Meanwhile, Lake believes the secret to a good romantic-comedy is to embrace the genre fully and not try and be clever with the format.

She explained: ''I think the key to a great romcom is to not fight against the genre. The trend more recently has been to apologise, or be snarky, so it's an anti-romcom. Out comes that wide smile ... Just lean in and embrace the fact it's a love story and it's funny and it's light. It can still be uber-smart and deal with zeitgeist issues.''