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Zooey Claire Deschanel (born January 17,
1980) is an American actress.
Early life: Deschanel was born in Los Angeles,
California, and brought up in various international
locations because of her father's work. She is the
daughter of Academy Award-nominated cinematographer
Caleb Deschanel and actress Mary Jo Weir; her sister,
Emily Deschanel, is also an actress. Her paternal
grandfather was French hence her typical French last
name (meaning "from the channels" or
"from the little jugs" depending of the
patronymists; it is from the Ain region) and the
remainder of her ancestry is Irish.
Her sister revealed in a recent French
interview that when they were little they spent lots of
summers near Lyon, France where they still have family.
The name "Zooey" was inspired by the male
character of the same name in J. D. Salinger's novel
Franny and Zooey.
Zooey attended the French Woods Festival of the
Performing Arts, an elite performance summer camp
located in New York. She attended Northwestern
University before dropping out to pursue her acting
career.
Career: She made her film debut in Lawrence
Kasdan’s (1999) comedy Mumford. Deschanel then
appeared as Patrick Fugit’s rebellious older sister in
Cameron Crowe's semi-autobiographical Almost Famous
(2000). Her next roles were in the small independent
film Manic as a mental patient and in the Tim Allen
movie Big Trouble. Next she co-starred in Abandon with
Katie Holmes playing her best friend. Her role as a
disaffected drugstore clerk in the Jennifer Aniston film
The Good Girl (2002) followed after that.
Her next starring role was in All the
Real Girls (2003), as a sexually curious 18-year-old
virgin who has a life-changing romance with an aimless
22-year-old man (Paul Schneider). For the role,
Deschanel was voted Best Actress at the Mar del Plata
Film Festival and also nominated for a 2004 Independent
Spirit Award.
Deschanel played a department store elf opposite Will
Ferrell in the comedy Elf (2003), and a lead role in the
2004 film Eulogy. Later that year, she worked again with
Ferrell, starring opposite Ed Harris in the dark,
off-beat dramedy Winter Passing. She also starred as
Trillian "a rather nicely descended
ape-person," in the movie adaptation of Douglas
Adams's science fiction series The Hitchhiker's Guide to
the Galaxy (2005). Recently, she appeared as Sarah
Jessica Parker's neurotic roommate in Failure to Launch
(2006). She has also appeared as Ms. Edmunds in Bridge
to Terabithia (2007). Deschanel was also costar to voice
Lani Aliikai in the recent penguin hit Surf's Up (2007).
Most recently, she has signed on to star opposite Mark
Wahlberg in M. Night Shyamalan's The Happening (2008).
Television: Deschanel has appeared as a
television actress on the programs Veronica's Closet and
Frasier and in various music videos, including The
Offspring's "She's Got Issues." She also
appeared in a TV commercial for Gap clothing "Down
on Khaki Street" in 2002. She has most recently
been on Showtime's Weeds, as Andy Botwin's quirky
ex-girlfriend, Kat. She will play DG, the lead in the
new Sci Fi Channel miniseries Tin Man, a re-imagining of
the The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.
Singing: Deschanel appears with fellow actress
Samantha Shelton in a cabaret act named "If All the
Stars Were Pretty Babies". As well as performing
vocally in several of her films, including (Bridge to
Terabithia, Elf, Once Upon a Mattress, The New Guy, and
Winter Passing, Deschanel has performed live with a
number of musicians, including M. Ward and The Citizens
Band Her piano composition "Bittersuite" was
used thematically in Winter Passing, in which she
starred. She has also recorded a version of the song
"Hello Dolly" from the musical of the same
name.
Private life: A friend of actor Jason Schwartzman
since childhood, she dated him for several years before
breaking up in 2005. She also dated British actor Martin
Freeman, playwright Jeff Smeenge, and Hunter Burgan, the
bassist from AFI for a time. |
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