Detailed Biography

Zooey Claire Deschanel is an American actress, musician and singer-songwriter. In 1999, Deschanel made her film debut in Mumford and soon became known for her deadpan supporting roles in films such as Almost Famous , Elf , and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy . She then began playing lead roles in films, including Yes Man and Days of Summer

Since 2001, Deschanel has performed in the jazz cabaret act If All the Stars Were Pretty Babies with fellow actress Samantha Shelton. She plays keyboards, percussion, banjo and ukulele. She has sung in several of her films, and her debut album Volume One was released on March 18, 2008.

Early life

Zooey Deschanel was born in Los Angeles, California, and is the daughter of Academy Award-nominated cinematographer and director Caleb Deschanel and actress Mary Jo Deschanel . She is of Irish and French descent. She was named after Zooey Glass, the male protagonist of J. D. Salinger's 1961 novella Franny and Zooey. Her older sister Emily Deschanel is also an actress and stars in the TV series Bones.

Deschanel lived in Los Angeles, but spent much of her childhood traveling because her father shot films on location; she later said that she "hated all the travelingI'm really happy now that I had the experience, but at the time I was just so miserable to have to leave my friends in Los Angeles and go to places where they didn't have any food I liked or things I was used to." She attended Crossroads, a private preparatory school in Santa Monica, California, where she befriended future co-stars Jake Gyllenhaal and Kate Hudson. She also attended the French Woods Festival of the Performing Arts summer camp and sang throughout high school, planning to pursue a career in musical theatre. She attended Northwestern University for seven months before dropping out to work as an actress.

Career

Deschanel appeared in a guest role on the television series Veronica's Closet before making her film debut in Lawrence Kasdan’s 1999 comedy Mumford, and later in the year she appeared in the music video for The Offspring's single "She's Got Issues". In her second film, director Cameron Crowe's semi-autobiographical Almost Famous , Deschanel played Anita Miller, the protagonist's rebellious older sister. The film received critical praise, but was not a box office success. Deschanel continued to sing, and in 2001 formed If All the Stars Were Pretty Babies, a jazz cabaret act with fellow actress Samantha Shelton. The pair performed around Los Angeles. Deschanel played supporting roles in a series of films that included Manic , with Don Cheadle and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Big Trouble , with Tim Allen and Rene Russo Abandon alongside Katie Holmes, Benjamin Bratt and Melanie Lynskey, and The Good Girl alongside Jennifer Aniston and Jake Gyllenhaal. In late 2002, The New York Times reported that Deschanel was "one of Hollywood's most sought-after young stars," and the Los Angeles Times wrote in early 2003 that Deschanel had become a recognizable type, due to "her deadpan, sardonic and scene-stealing performances" as the protagonist's best friend. Deschanel objected to her typecasting, arguing, "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."

Deschanel turned down several supporting roles and played her first lead role in All the Real Girls . Deschanel's performance as Noel, a sexually curious 18-year-old virgin who has a life-changing romance with an aimless 22-year-old, received critical praise, and she received an Independent Spirit nomination for Best Actress. Later in 2003, Deschanel played a deadpan department store worker opposite Will Ferrell in the comedy Elf, which became a box office hit.

Deschanel appeared in Frasier, starring as Roz's out of control cousin, Jen.

In 2002, Deschanel appeared in The New Guy as Nora, the guitar player in the lead character's band, Suburban Funk. The New Guy was the first of Deschanel's films in which she sang onscreen; in Elf she duetted with Ferrell in the bathroom shower scene on "Baby, It's Cold Outside", and was also heard singing it on the soundtrack with Leon Redbone. Subsequently, Deschanel has sung in Winter Passing , the 2005 television musical Once Upon a Mattress , an old cabaret song in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford and the 2007 short film Raving . Her piano composition "Bittersuite" was used thematically in the dark, off-beat 2004 dramedy Winter Passing, in which she starred alongside Ferrell and Ed Harris.

In 2004, Deschanel starred in Eulogy, and in 2005 as Trillian in the film adaptation of Douglas Adams' science fiction novel The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Deschanel then played Sarah Jessica Parker's neurotic roommate in Failure to Launch , and appeared on four episodes of the Showtime television series Weeds from 2006 to 2007, playing Andy Botwin's quirky ex-girlfriend, Kat. In September 2006, Variety announced that Deschanel would play 1960s singer Janis Joplin in the film The Gospel According to Janis, to be co-written and directed by Penelope Spheeris. Deschanel planned to sing all of Joplin's songs, and took four months of singing lessons "to approximate Joplin's gritty vocals." The film, scheduled to begin shooting on November 13, 2006, was postponed indefinitely. Deschanel at the Newport Folk Festival on August 2, 2008

In 2007, Deschanel appeared in two children's films, Bridge to Terabithia and the animated film Surf's Up, in which she voiced a penguin named Lani Aliikai. In December 2007, she played DG, the lead in the new Sci Fi Channel miniseries Tin Man, a re-imagined science fiction version of L. Frank Baum's children's book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

In March 2007, Deschanel contributed vocals to two songs "Slowly" and "Ask Her To Dance" on the album Nighttiming by Jason Schwartzman's band Coconut Records. In May 2007, singer/songwriter M. Ward, who had previously performed with Deschanel onstage, said that he was "just finishing work" on her debut album, which will feature songs written by Deschanel and produced by Ward. Fox reported that Deschanel and Ward were recording under the moniker She & Him, and that the album, titled Volume One, would be released by Merge Records on March 18, 2008.

On April 27, 2008, she performeed on The Simpsons, playing the role of Mary, Cletus's daughter.

In June 2008, Deschanel starred opposite Mark Wahlberg in M. Night Shyamalan's environmental thriller The Happening.

In December 2008, Deschanel starred in the comedy film Yes Man, opposite Jim Carrey. She sings several songs featured in the film and is shown singing Uh-Huh and Sweet Ballad alongside San Franciscan all-girl electro soul-punk group Von Iva in a band called Munchausen by Proxy.

Deschanel currently stars as the title character in the popular romantic-comedy Days of Summer, opposite Joseph Gordon-Levitt . The film is directed by long-time commercial and music video director Marc Webb.

Deschanel will guest star in an upcoming Christmas episode of Bones as Brennan's never-before-seen cousin In the first-ever on-screen pairing of the Deschanel sisters, Zooey will play Margaret Whitesell, a distant relative of Emily's Dr. Temperance Brennan. Brennan's father, Max Keenan , invites Margaret to spend Christmas with him and his daughter.

In 2010, Deschanel secured the role of Belladonna in the upcoming fantasy comedy film, Your Highness. alongside Natalie Portman and James Franco.

Personal life

Deschanel became engaged to Ben Gibbard of Death Cab for Cutie on December 28, 2008. They married in September 2009. Zooey — who is allergic to eggs, dairy, and wheat gluten - eats a vegan diet and was featured on the eighth episode of first season of the Bravo show Top Chef Masters where she asked the chefs to cater a vegan lunch party for her family and friends using no eggs, dairy, soy, or gluten.