Zooey Deschanel

• 1. Introduction

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  Zooey Deschanel was named after a character in a book. That character is Zooey Glass, the protagonist of J. D. Salinger's 1961 novella Franny and Zooey. The real Zooey was born on the 17th of January 1980 and grew up to become an American actress and singer. Critics have praised both her screen work and her records. Yet one complaint ran through her early career, and she voiced it herself. How did an actress who objected to being cast as everybody's best friend end up as the lead of a network sitcom? And how did music grow from a hobby into a second career?

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• 2. Life On Location

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  Los Angeles was home for Zooey Deschanel, the younger daughter of cinematographer and director Caleb Deschanel and actress Mary Jo Deschanel, whose maiden name was Weir. Her older sister, Emily, would later star in the Fox crime comedy-drama Bones.

  Because Caleb shot his films on location, the family spent much of her childhood on the move. Zooey hated it. She disliked leaving her friends behind and having to deal with unfamiliar cultures. Later, she said she was happy to have had the experience.

  Her family tree stretches across several countries. Her paternal grandfather was French, from Oullins in the Rhône. Her paternal grandmother came from a Quaker family. She also has Swiss, Dutch, English, Irish and further French ancestry.

  Back in Southern California, she attended Crossroads, a private preparatory school in Santa Monica. There she befriended Jake Gyllenhaal and Kate Hudson, who would both become co-stars. She sang throughout high school and planned a career in musical theatre. She also spent time at the French Woods Festival of the Performing Arts.

  After high school she enrolled at Northwestern University, but she lasted only nine months. She dropped out to pursue acting. In 1998 she turned up as a guest on the television series Veronica's Closet.

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• 3. Everybody's Best Friend

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  Lawrence Kasdan's comedy Mumford, released in 1999, gave Deschanel her film debut. It follows the neurotic residents of a small town. Her co-stars included Hope Davis, Jason Lee, Alfre Woodard and Mary McDonnell.

  On the 27th of September 1999, the video for The Offspring's single "She's Got Issues" premiered. Deschanel appeared in it, though in a role with no singing.

  In 2000 she co-starred in Almost Famous, Cameron Crowe's semi-autobiographical film. She played Anita Miller, the rebellious older sister of a teenage journalist. The box office response was modest. Critics, however, were warm, and the film won the Golden Globe Award for Best Film - Musical or Comedy.

  The independent drama Manic followed in 2001. Deschanel played the love interest of a troubled teenager, portrayed by Joseph Gordon-Levitt. The film was screened at the Sundance Film Festival and had a limited theatrical release. The New York Times found her "particularly spontaneous, unaffected and emotionally direct".

  Attention built quickly. Four films carrying her supporting performances came out in 2002: Big Trouble, The New Guy, The Good Girl and Abandon. In Big Trouble, with Tim Allen and Rene Russo, she played a daughter. In The New Guy she was a guitar player in a band. In The Good Girl she was a cynical, plain-spoken big-box store employee working beside Jennifer Aniston and Jake Gyllenhaal. In the psychological thriller Abandon she was a roommate. She also played Roz's out-of-control cousin Jen in a single episode of Frasier.

  The New York Times called her "one of Hollywood's most sought-after young stars" in 2002. The Los Angeles Times saw a pattern. Early in 2003, it wrote that she had become a recognizable type through her "deadpan, sardonic and scene-stealing film performances" as the protagonist's best friend.

  Deschanel did not welcome the label. She said: "A lot of these roles are just a formula idea of somebody's best friend, and it's like, I don't even have that many friends. In high school, I stayed home all the time, so I don't know how I'm everybody's best friend now." Her first leading role was only months away.

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• 4. Breakthrough Years

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  In All the Real Girls, released in 2003, Deschanel played Noel, a sexually curious 18-year-old virgin. Noel falls into a life-changing romance with an aimless 22-year-old. The independent drama premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and became an arthouse success. Variety singled her out for "an impressively direct connection to her character's emotions". She received an Independent Spirit Award nomination for Best Actress.

  That same year she appeared opposite Will Ferrell in the Christmas comedy Elf. She played a deadpan department store worker who becomes the love interest of a man raised by Santa's elves. Elf earned US$220.4 million worldwide against a budget of US$33 million.

  The following years kept her busy. In 2005 she played Trillian in the film of Douglas Adams's novel The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. She also acted in Winter Passing, again alongside Ferrell. In Failure to Launch, in 2006, she was the neurotic roommate of Sarah Jessica Parker's character. From 2006 to 2007 she appeared in four episodes of the Showtime series Weeds as Kat, Andy Botwin's ex-girlfriend.

  One project never reached the screen. In September 2006 it was announced that she would play singer Janis Joplin in The Gospel According to Janis, co-written and directed by Penelope Spheeris. Shooting was postponed indefinitely. The film was revived with a planned 2012 release, then cancelled in 2011. Deschanel said she had spent three years working on imitating Joplin's scratchy singing voice, and she expressed frustration.

  In 2007 she moved between very different worlds. She played Ms. Edmunds in Bridge to Terabithia and voiced a penguin in the animated Surf's Up. She took a small role as Dorothy Evans in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. She starred in the comedy Flakes, which was released in only one theater. In December she starred as DG in the Syfy miniseries Tin Man, a science fiction retelling of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

  The year 2008 brought a debut of another kind. On the 27th of April, she first voiced Mary, Cletus's daughter, on The Simpsons, in the season 19 episode "Apocalypse Cow". She would return in seasons 24 and 36. In M. Night Shyamalan's thriller The Happening, she starred opposite Mark Wahlberg as a couple fleeing an inexplicable natural disaster. Reviews were largely negative, though Roger Ebert felt the two leads "bring a quiet dignity to their characters". The film made US$163 million worldwide. Yes Man, in which she played the girlfriend of Jim Carrey's character, grossed US$223.1 million.

  Then came (500) Days of Summer in 2009, a reunion with Joseph Gordon-Levitt. This independent romance about the rise and collapse of a relationship became a "sleeper hit". It earned over $60 million worldwide on a $7.5 million budget. Mark Adams of the Daily Mirror praised "top-notch performances by Deschanel and Gordon-Levitt".

  In December 2009 she guest-starred in a Christmas episode of Bones. It was the first time the Deschanel sisters had ever appeared together on screen.

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• 5. Jess Day And After

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  In an early draft of Joss Whedon's The Avengers, Deschanel was the top choice for Janet van Dyne, known as The Wasp. That draft gave the character a prominent role. Once Scarlett Johansson was cast as Black Widow, Deschanel was no longer considered. Years later, Janet's daughter Hope van Dyne took up the mantle in the Infinity Saga, played by Evangeline Lilly.

  Her 2011 film work was mixed. In Our Idiot Brother she played the independent, bisexual sister of Paul Rudd's idealistic character, and the film screened at Sundance to generally positive reviews. In the stoner fantasy-comedy Your Highness she played Princess Belladonna, and the film bombed. Roger Ebert wrote that she "might as well be a mannequin" and called her "an intelligent, nuanced actress, standing there baffled".

  The television role that defined her arrived in September 2011. New Girl, created by Elizabeth Meriwether, premiered on Fox. Deschanel played Jessica "Jess" Day, a bubbly and offbeat teacher. She also became a producer and helped build the character. She has described Jess as partly herself, especially in "the sort of enthusiasm and optimism" of her youth. USA Today said the role was tailored to turn a respected indie actor into a television star. The show earned her an Emmy Award nomination and three Golden Globe nominations. The series finale ran on the 15th of May 2018.

  During the show's run, she hosted Saturday Night Live on the 11th of February 2012. That year she also appeared in a commercial for the iPhone 4S, featuring Siri.

  The film roles that followed were uneven. In Rock the Kasbah, in 2015, she played a Los Angeles singer taken to Afghanistan by her former manager, played by Bill Murray. The budget was US$15 million, yet the film made only US$3 million at the North American box office. The same year she played a mysterious woman in the neo-noir drama The Driftless Area, which screened at the Tribeca Film Festival. In 2016 she voiced Bridget, a kind-hearted Bergen, in the animated Trolls, which grossed US$344 million worldwide. She returned for Trolls World Tour in 2020 and Trolls Band Together in 2023.

  Television and audio projects filled in the later years. In 2021 she co-hosted the ABC series The Celebrity Dating Game with Michael Bolton. In January 2022 she began co-hosting Welcome to Our Show, a New Girl rewatch podcast. Her co-hosts were castmates Hannah Simone and Lamorne Morris, and iHeartRadio distributed it. In August 2023 she appeared in season 3 of Physical and in Dreamin' Wild, and in August 2024 in Harold and the Purple Crayon.

  In March 2024 she was cast in the Amazon MGM romantic comedy Merv, directed by Jessica Swale and due in 2025. It follows an estranged couple who discover that their shared dog is depressed after their breakup. They take the dog on a holiday to Florida to lift its spirits.

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• 6. She And Him

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  In 2001, Deschanel formed a jazz cabaret act called If All the Stars Were Pretty Babies with fellow actress Samantha Shelton. The pair performed around Los Angeles. It was a modest start for what became a long recording career.

  In 2006 she teamed up with M. Ward to form She & Him. Before their debut, in March 2007, she sang on two songs, "Slowly" and "Ask Her to Dance", for Nighttiming, the album by Jason Schwartzman's band Coconut Records.

  Volume One came out on Merge Records on the 18th of March 2008. Paste magazine voted it the number one album of 2008. Patrick Caldwell of the Austin American Statesman described "13 tracks of sun-dappled pop, with a gentle Orbisonian charm and sweet, wistful vocals from Deschanel". Volume Two followed on the 23rd of March 2010. Besides singing, she plays keyboards, percussion, banjo and ukulele.

  Outside the band, she and Ward both appeared on The Place We Ran From, the 2010 album by Gary Lightbody's side project Tired Pony. In 2009 she also recorded "The Fabric of My Life" for an advertising campaign for Cotton Incorporated.

  Baseball gave her a national stage. On the 19th of October 2010, she sang "God Bless America" in the seventh-inning stretch of game three of the National League Championship Series, at AT&T Park in San Francisco. On the 23rd of October 2011, she sang "The Star-Spangled Banner" before game four of the World Series at Rangers Ballpark in Arlington, Texas.

  A Very She & Him Christmas, a 12-track album, was released on the 25th of October 2011. That year, she also earned a Grammy Award nomination for Best Song Written for Visual Media, for "So Long" from the soundtrack of Winnie the Pooh. Meanwhile, on the 28th of December 2011, she and Joseph Gordon-Levitt recorded an informal version of "What Are You Doing New Year's Eve?" for her HelloGiggles YouTube channel. It drew over 6 million views within four days.

  In May 2012, at the Ryman Auditorium, country singer Loretta Lynn announced a Broadway musical based on her autobiography. She said that "there's a little girl back stage that's going to do the play of 'Coal Miner's Daughter' on Broadway". Then she brought Deschanel onstage, and the two sang the title song as a duet.

  Volume 3 arrived in May 2013 and debuted at number 15 on the Billboard 200. Deschanel wrote eleven songs for it. Classics, released in December 2014 on Columbia Records, is made up of 13 covers recorded live with a 20-piece orchestra. Robert Hamm of Alternative Press wrote that she was "at times coy and romantic, and in other moments, moody and pensive". She also sang as a guest on Brian Wilson's 2015 album No Pier Pressure. Christmas Party followed in 2016, and the tribute Melt Away: A Tribute to Brian Wilson in 2022.

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• 7. Songs On Screen

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  Deschanel made her on-screen singing debut in The New Guy in 2002. Her best-known early moment came the next year, in Elf. She sings "Baby, It's Cold Outside" with Will Ferrell during a bathroom shower scene. On the soundtrack, the same song is a duet with Leon Redbone. She also sings "Auld Lang Syne" with James Caan at the piano.

  In Winter Passing, she co-starred with Ferrell and Ed Harris. Her own piano composition, "Bittersuite", is used thematically through the film, and she sings "My Bonnie Lies over the Ocean".

  The year 2007 piled up singing credits. She sang in the television musical Once Upon a Mattress and in the short film Raving, performing "Hello, Dolly!". In The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, she sings the old cabaret song "A Bird in a Gilded Cage". In Bridge to Terabithia, she and a cast of school children sing Steve Earle's "Someday" and War's "Why Can't We Be Friends?".

  In Yes Man, she performs with the San Francisco all-girl electro soul-punk group Von Iva. They play as a fictional band called Munchausen by Proxy, singing "Uh-Huh" and "Sweet Ballad".

  In (500) Days of Summer, she sings a cover of The Smiths's "Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want", which appears on the soundtrack as performed by She & Him. She also covers Nancy Sinatra's "Sugar Town". To accompany the film, she and Joseph Gordon-Levitt made a music video called Bank Dance, directed by the film's director Marc Webb. Michael Rooney choreographed its complicated dance routine, set to the She & Him song "Why Do You Let Me Stay Here?". The film's producer, Mason Novick, said the short exists because Deschanel proposed it, since she had not danced in the movie as Gordon-Levitt had.

  She wrote and performed the theme song to New Girl. In the season three episode "Prince", she and Prince sing "Fallinlove2nite" together. In Rock the Kasbah, in 2015, she sang a cover of Meredith Brooks's "Bitch", which appears on the film's soundtrack.

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• 8. Off Camera

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  In May 2011, after the success of her HelloGiggles YouTube channel, Deschanel founded the website HelloGiggles.com. Her partners were producer Sophia Rossi and writer Molly McAleer. It was an entertainment website geared towards women. Time, Inc. acquired it in 2015. In 2023 she hosted the Max informational show What Am I Eating?, based on an earlier ATTN: series called Your Food's Roots.

  Food has long been a practical matter for her. She is allergic to eggs, dairy products and soy. She once had a gluten allergy, but she said in a 2022 interview on Armchair Expert that she no longer suffers from it. She was a vegan for a time, then gave it up because she struggled to eat enough calories with her wheat and soy sensitivities. A year before she quit, she appeared on episode eight of season one of Bravo's Top Chef Masters. The chefs had to cater a vegan lunch party for her family and friends, using no soy or gluten. She is now a pescetarian.

  Her personal life has seen two marriages end and a third engagement begin. In December 2008 she became engaged to Ben Gibbard, lead vocalist of Death Cab for Cutie and The Postal Service. They married on the 19th of September 2009 near Seattle, Washington. They announced their separation in November 2011. She filed for divorce the next month, citing "unhappy and irreconcilable differences". The divorce was finalized on the 12th of December 2012.

  She confirmed her engagement to film producer Jacob Pechenik in January 2015, and they married on the 21st of June 2015. They have two children, a daughter and a son. The couple separated on the 8th of January 2019. Pechenik filed for divorce that October, and it was finalized on the 1st of June 2020.

  In August 2019, while filming an episode of Carpool Karaoke: The Series, she met Property Brothers star Jonathan Scott. They announced their engagement at Edinburgh Castle in Scotland on the 13th of August 2023.

  In January 2025, the Pacific Palisades house where Emily and Zooey Deschanel grew up was destroyed by the Palisades Fire, part of that month's Southern California wildfires.

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