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Zooey Deschanel
Deschanel as Trillian in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Birth name	Zooey Claire Deschanel
Born	January 17, 1980 (age 27) Los Angeles, California USA
Notable roles	Jovie - Elf Trillian - The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Kit - Failure to Launch

Zooey Claire Deschanel (born January 17, 1980) is an American actress.

Contents 1 Biography 1.1 Early life 1.2 Career 1.2.1 Film 1.2.2 Television 1.2.3 Singing 1.3 Private life 2 Filmography 3 References 4 External links

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 and the remainder of her ancestry is Irish^[1]. The name "Zooey" (IPA pronunciation: ['zo.i]) 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.

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 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 an 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 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). Most recently, she appeared as Ms. Edmunds in Bridge to Terabithia (2007).

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 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.

Deschanel appears with fellow actress Samantha Shelton in a cabaret act named If All the Stars Were Pretty Babies. She has performed vocally in several of her films (Bridge to Terabithia, Elf, Once Upon a Mattress, The New Guy, Winter Passing). Her piano composition "Bittersuite" was used thematically in Winter Passing, in which she starred along with Ed Harris, Will Ferrell, and Amelia Warner. She has recently been chosen to play the lead role of Janis Joplin in Gospel According to Janis.

A friend of actor Jason Schwartzman since childhood, she dated him for several years before breaking up in 2005. She also dated Hunter Burgan, the bassist from AFI, for a time.

Year	Film	Role	Other notes
2008	Gospel According to Janis	Janis Joplin	Pre-production
	Escape from Paris[citation needed]	French Chef	Pre-production
2007	Barry Munday	Jennifer	In production
	Bridge to Terabithia	Miss Edmunds
	Flakes	Miss Pussy Katz	Post-production
	Raving		Post-production
	The Good Life	Frances
	Surf's Up	Lani	Post-production
	The Go-Getter	Kate
	The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford	Dorothy Evans
2006	Failure to Launch	Kit
	Weeds	Kat
	Live Free or Die	Cheryl
2005	Once Upon a Mattress	Lady Larken
	Winter Passing	Reese Holden
	The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy	Tricia McMillan/Trillian
2004	Eulogy	Kate Collins
2003	Elf	Jovie
	House Hunting	Christy
	It's Better to be Wanted for Murder Than Not to be Wanted at All	Gas station girl
	All the Real Girls	Noel
	Whatever We Do	Nikki
2002	Abandon	Samantha Harper
	Sweet Friggin' Daisies	Zelda
	The New Guy	Nora
	Big Trouble	Jenny Herk
	The Good Girl	Cheryl
2001	Manic	Tracy
2000	Almost Famous	Anita Miller
1999	Mumford	Nessa Watkins

1. ^ http://www.fedge.net/~zdeschanel/articles/latimes-2-16-03.html

• Zooey Deschanel at the Internet Movie Database
• Fansite: "The Nature of Zooey Deschanel"
• Zooey Deschanel United States