Wowee Zooey

"Can I get wholemeal toast with lots of butter and raspberry jam, please?” Zooey Deschanel is ordering lunch in her characteristically sultry tones and frankly I’m a little shocked. As a rising starlet sprung from Hollywood royalty (her father is the Oscar nominated cinematographer, Caleb Deschanel, her mom and sister are both actresses) surely a request for such decidedly common fare can only provoke the wrath of the dreaded carb-police?

“Yeah, but I love my carbs,” Zooey declares gleefully. “When I was a teenager I ate nothing but bread and pasta and I looked like a total waif, so I think white bread is the way to go for me.”
Well, her unorthodox diet seems to be working out. As she curls her slinky frame into a cute foetal ball, she threatens to disappear into the couch, but for her red stained generous smile and raven ringlets. Maybe it’s the striking pigmentation, or maybe its her quasi-gothlet garb, but she looks for all the world like Brody Dalle’s sweeter kid sister. Happily, that’s not the only thing setting her apart from the toothy blonde anonymity of her peers.
A series of scene stealing supporting roles in modish flicks like Almost Famous and The Good Girl, her charming chanteuse in Elf and a tender turn in David Gordon Green’s indie-heartbreaker All The Real Girls have showcased Ms. Deschanel’s rare capacity for acting and established her as a hipster screen icon for the Interview magazine set. But if the 24 year old is one of the cool kids, it doesn’t appear to have gone to her head. Today, awaiting her toast, she seems exactly as one might suppose from her performances – utterly unaffected, candid, witty, smart and given to appealing flights of fancy.
Little wonder she landed the role of Trillion in the endearingly eccentric film version of The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy. Or that she felt right at home on a set with slobbering Vogons and Guide geeks.
“I was already a fan of the book,” she tells me, “I like its philosophical kind of humour and once I heard Hammer and Tongs would be involved, I decided that it would be a really cool movie to do. Trillion is a great character. She has two guys chasing after her – well, one guy and one half mad alien – but it’s nice to have a choice.”
Speaking of alien, how did she find it being surrounded by British men? Were they all reserved like they’re supposed to be?
“Wow. It was really intimidating at first. British people always seem so much more articulate. Especially when you’re around someone like Bill Nighy. He is just so clever. But everyone was so nice and so determined to see out Douglas Adams’ vision that I got over it pretty quickly.”
If Hitchhiker’s catapults Zooey into the A-list, she’s unlikely to start signing up for hefty pay checks or Love Is Nice. Her heroines include such women of substance as Frances McDormand, Parker Posey and Katherine Hepburn, plus she possesses fine cinematic instincts, having spent her infancy on the sets of The Right Stuff and Being There.
“My dad schooled me in the French New Wave and the screwball comedies of the ‘30s so I have very quaint tastes and film was always around me," she says. "I can remember watching The Wizard Of Oz when I was two and wanting to be Dorothy, so I suppose I never really pictured doing anything other than acting. That was actually one of the best things about Hitchhiker’s – being on a set with an eight-foot puppet and a robot was a bit like being in Oz.”
Acting may be her focus, but Zooey is scarily multi-talented. She knits, crochets, sings and plays ukulele as one half of the jazz cabaret duo If All The Stars Were Pretty Babies. (“Every home should have a ukulele” she advises. “They only have four strings and they’re really easy to play.”) She has also written a screenplay entitled Circus Girl.
“It’s about a witch and evil red killer balloons” she explains.
How does that work then? Do they float along and engulf you a la The Prisoner?
“No. Nothing like that. They have pretty evil strings that strangle you.”
For a girl with such an extravagant imagination and oddball pursuits, Zooey seems remarkably sensible and self-possessed. She didn’t bother with a prom date at high-school and avoided boyfriends altogether until she was twenty. She claims though to have now found true love. Her current paramour of some two years is Jason Schwartzman, latterly of Phantom Planet and one of the Bright Young Coppolas.
“Jason is just the sweetest,” she gushes. “I knew of him since we were at school because we went to rival private arts colleges and everybody knew about Phantom Planet.”
She stares off dreamily before bursting back into the moment; “Guess what?” she cries.
Er, is it about the killer balloons again?
“No, but I’m going to Paris in two hours to see Jason. I can’t wait. That’s the only weird thing about our relationship. We’re always off working.”
Hang on a second. Sensible? Hardworking? What’s wrong with today’s Hollywood brats? Shouldn’t she and Jason be off crashing sports-cars?
“You know what it is? Both Jason and I have good parents, but also if you’ve been raised in Hollywood it’s not such a big deal. More importantly, you know what happens to people who act like divas. You do occasionally see people arrive and they get a little success and start ordering others around. I remember working on a film with a girl making her debut who seemed really sweet on her first day and suddenly became a nightmare. And I just felt like saying, ‘You know, this could be your last movie’. It‘s like any other job. You have to work hard.”
And with that I leave Zooey to get prepped for Paris and her colour coordinated boyfriend. “I know,” she gasps. “We’ve got such dark hair. We had a long talk and decided it’s very unlikely that we’ll have blonde children. Even my mom ironically calls us Hansel and Gretel.”
Given the Salinger character Ms. Deschanel was named for, that seems oddly appropriate.

The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy is on general release.