Zooey Deschanel Biography

Zooey Deschanel is the bright-eyed brunette whose turn as Joseph Gordon-Levitt‘s object of affection in (500) Days of Summer (2009) led to her own TV show in 2011, New Girl. She grew up in a film family: her father is cinematographer Caleb Deschanel (The Natural, The Passion of the Christ), her mother is actor Mary Jo Deschanel (Eileen Hayward in Twin Peaks) and her sister is actor Emily Deschanel (TV’s Bones). Zooey made her film debut in 1999’s Mumford (co-starring Jason Lee) and was a stand-out as the older sister in Almost Famous (starring Billy Crudup). Since then she’s been busy appearing in films and singing, in a cabaret stage act and a folk duo (with M. Ward). Her films include The Good Girl (2002, with Jake Gyllenhaal) Elf (2003, with Will Ferrell) and Failure to Launch (2006, starring Sarah Jessica Parker). In 2007 she seemed to be just about everywhere, appearing in more than half a dozen films, including Raving, the drama written and directed by actress Julie Stiles, the children’s films Bridge to Terabithia and Surf’s Up (Deschanel was the voice of Lani) and the Brad Pitt and Casey Affleck western The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. She also starred as DG (the Dorothy Gale character) in Tin Man (the 2007 cable TV miniseries inspired by the book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz), and in M. Night Shyamalan‘s The Happening (2008, with Mark Wahlberg).