Zooey Claire Deschanel (; born January 17, 1980) is an American actress and musician. She made her film debut in Mumford (1999) and had a supporting role in Cameron Crowe's film Almost Famous (2000). Deschanel is known for her deadpan roles in comedy films such as The Good Girl (2002), The New Guy (2002), Elf (2003), The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (2005), Failure to Launch (2006), Yes Man (2008), 500 Days of Summer (2009) and Our Idiot Brother (2011). She has also ventured into dramatic film territory with Manic (2001), All the Real Girls (2003), Winter Passing (2005), Bridge to Terabithia (2007), The Happening (2008) and The Driftless Area (2015). From 2011 to 2018, she starred as Jessica Day on the Fox sitcom New Girl, for which she received nominations for a Primetime Emmy Award and three Golden Globe Awards. For a few years starting in 2001, Deschanel performed in the jazz cabaret act If All the Stars Were Pretty Babies with actress Samantha Shelton. In 2006, Deschanel teamed up with M. Ward to form She & Him, and subsequently released their debut album, Volume One, in 2008. They have since released six albums: Volume Two (2010), A Very She & Him Christmas (2011), Volume 3 (2013), Classics (2014), Christmas Party (2016), and Melt Away: A Tribute to Brian Wilson (2022). She received a Grammy Award nomination for Best Song Written for Visual Media for "So Long", which was featured on the soundtrack of the 2011 film Winnie the Pooh. Besides singing, she plays keyboards, percussion, banjo, and ukulele. Deschanel is also a co-founder of the female-focused website HelloGiggles, which was acquired by Time, Inc. in 2015. Early life Zooey Claire Deschanel was born in Los Angeles, California, the younger daughter of cinematographer and director Caleb Deschanel and actress Mary Jo Deschanel (née Weir). Her paternal grandfather was French, from Oullins, Rhône, and her paternal grandmother came from a Quaker family; she also has Swiss, Dutch, English, Irish, and other French ancestry. She was named after Zooey Glass, the male protagonist of J. D. Salinger's 1961 novella Franny and Zooey. Her older sister is actress Emily Deschanel, who starred in the Fox crime comedy-drama 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: She attended Crossroads, a private preparatory school in Santa