Zooey Deschanel Biography

 Zooey, named after Zooey Glass, the fictional character in J.D. Salinger's Franny and Zooey, was born in Los Angeles California in 1980. Her father, Caleb Deschanel, is a cinematographer who has worked on projects such as Twin Peaks and the Passion of Christ. Her older sister Emily Deschanel is also an actress.
She attended a private preparatory school in Santa Monica, California and later went on to Northwestern University. After seven months, however, she dropped out to pursue a career in acting.
 
Deschanel first film role was in the movie Mumford. She went on, after that, to appear as Anita Miller, the rebellious older-sister, in the critically well-received (yet box office failure) Almost Famous. In 2001 she appeared in a supporting role in Manic, alongside Joseph Gordon-Levitt, the same actor she would later share screentime with in (500) Days of Summer. Also in 2001, Deschanel, alongside fellow actress Samantha Shelton, formed a Jazz Cabaret act titled "If All the Stars Were Pretty Babies". Deschanel sang and practiced music throughout high school, a talent which plays a role in many of the films she is in. 

Her next big role was in 2002's The Good Girl where she played a girl working in the cosmetics department of a drugstore. In the film she acted alongside Jake Gyllenhaal, a schoolmate from high school.
In 2003 she earned critical acclaim for her role in All the Real Girls as a lovestruck  boarding schoolgirl and was nominated for the Independent Spirit Best Actress award. Later in the same year she played Jovie, a deadpan department store worker in the box office hit Elf, where she made a spash in the mainstream puplic's eyes. In Elf she sang the song "Baby It's Cold Outside" alongside Will Ferrel.
In 2004 she starred in Eulogy, a comedy. In 2005 she made another big splash as Trillian in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. 
 
2005 had Deschanel alongside Will Ferrel once again in the comedy/drama Winter Passing where, once again, her talent for music played a large role. She both composed a song for the film (Bittersuite) and sang in the film itself (again alongside Ferrel). 
Also in 2005, she sang in the musical Once Upon a Mattress.

In 2006 it was announced that Deschanel would play the role of Janis Joplin in the biographical film the Gospel According to Janis where she would sing all of Joplin's songs. The film was postponed indefinitely and was announced later to have been rescheduled for a 2012 release. 

She played roles in two children's movies in 2007, Surf's Up and Bridge to Terabithia, as well as playing the lead role in the Sci-fi (Syfy *roll eyes*) channel's miniseries Tin Man, a recreation of L. Frank Baum's original Wizard of Oz story.
2007 also marked the completion of Deschanel's collaboration with musician M. Ward, recording under the name She & Him. Their first album was released in 2008, titled Volume One. One of these songs would appear in the film (500) Days of Summer.

2008 had her play roles in Jim Carrey's Yes Man (where she sang in the fictional band Munchausen by Proxy, a reference to the psychological disorder) and Gigantic, but in 2009 perhaps her as of yet most memorable performance occured while playing the role of Summer Finn, an attractive but romantically uncertain girl who Tom Hansen (played by Gordon-Levitt) obsesses over, in (500) Days of Summer. The film was nominated for a Golden Globe Best Picture award.