The ‘Nobody Wants This’ star jokes about being competitive with her husband Dax Shepard, but says they’re “nice to each other” when they play pickleball

Kristen Bell Instagram

Kristen Bell says that she and Dax Shepard love playing pickleball on the weekends, so much that they drew a court on their driveway.

“Oh, it gets used, let me just say that,” Bell, 44, tells PEOPLE, noting that they mostly play for fun and keep the trash talk to a minimum.

“We’re competitive together all the time, but we’re nice when we’re playing pickleball,” she says. “We’re not trying to make each other break a hip or anything.”

Bell, who currently stars in the new Netflix series Nobody Wants This, got married to the 49-year-old actor and podcast host in 2013. The pair are parents to daughters Lincoln, 11, and Delta, 9.

While she prefers to keep her kids private and off social media, she does say the new school year has been great so far — except for an adjustment to a new school and a new amount of schoolwork.

“It’s a grade that requires them to acknowledge more responsibility,” she says. “So I’m doing my best to support that and not make it too serious. Like saying, ‘Look, if you forgot that homework, you forgot that homework. It’s not like you’re not going to get into college. Let’s be realistic. It’s sixth grade. But at the same time, let’s try to do better tomorrow.'”

Kristen Bell/Instagram Dax Shepard and Kristen Bell with their daughters on Instagram

Bell is also starting anew, in a way. After taking a few years off, she’s excited to get back to working on a series again.

She says that Nobody Wants This (which also stars Adam Brody and is out Sept. 26) was exactly the type of project that appealed to her.

Based partly on the real-life experience of creator and executive producer Erin Foster (daughter of musician David Foster), the show focuses on Bell’s character, a confidently agnostic sex podcast producer, falling in love with a kind rabbi (Brody).

“I liked it so much because it felt like a very modern take on romance, and the characters are not 22, they’re, like, 38,” she says. “It addresses everything from the perils of dating apps to more serious topics like what it means for people with different backgrounds and outlooks on life to bridge those differences in the name of love.”

The Veronica Mars alum also says that “it was time” to get back to work — her only concern was that it would be fun to shoot.

“I’m definitely drawn to projects where I think I’m going to have a good time experientially versus going through some intense hardship and hoping for a great creative outcome,” she says.

“I guess I’m a lazy artist.” She corrects herself: “A joyful artist.”