Call the police! The movies' young scene stealer comes clean.

Whether it's as the cosmetics-crazed, snarky shop clerk in last summer's The Good Girl, the wry college coed in last fall's Abandon, or the flush-with-first-love teenager in the just released All the Real Girls, Zooey Deschanel has a knack for stealing every scene she's in. Born and raised in Los Angeles, this 23-year-old company child (her father is cinematographer Caleb Deschanel and her mother is actress Mary Jo Deschanel) boasts an independent, sardonic sensibility that hints she's always got another trick or quip up her sleeve. Here we paired her with a like-minded leading lady of independent cinema, Parker Posey.
PARKER POSEY: Hi! How are you?
ZOOEY DESCHANEL: I'm good. How are you?
PP: Fine, thanks. Can I tell you, I thought you were the best thing in The Good Girl.
ZD: Oh, thank you!
PP: Did you enjoy working with Miguel (Arteta, the film's writer-director]?
ZD: Oh yeah, I love Miguel. I'm so happy you were able to do this--I'm such a big fan of yours.
PP: I'm a big fan of yours, too. Now, was The Good Girl a long shoot?
ZD: Well, for me it was really short. I was on the set for, like, two weeks, so it was all fun and games. [laughs] I just got to--
PP:--Be a clown with all that makeup.
ZD: [laughs] Yeah, and I got to mess with people. Which is the fun part about being an actor.
PP: I'm feathering my hair in the play I'm currently doing [Fifth of July, through March 9 in NYC]--
ZD:--You're feathering it?
PP: Yeah, because when I was about nine years old I was like, "I want feathered hair," but that was a little too sophisticated for a nine-year-old. Tell me, is it correct that hair is 90 percent of acting?
ZD: [laughs] It is! And if you notice, there are certain actors who really recognize that - and makeup and clothes, too. I have to include the other two visual elements as well, you know. [both laugh]
PP: Have you seen Daniel Day-Lewis in Gangs of New York?
ZD: He's amazing. And there's an example of what we're talking about: That mustache of his acts. And he makes shoes, too. I think he likes making shoes more than acting. [both laugh]
PP: I like doing pottery more than acting.
ZD: Really? Sometimes I like singing more than acting. It depends.
PP: I'm pro-craft, I have to say. Sometimes you just want to get lost in something.
ZD: I like to knit and crochet. You have to have something to take the edge off, and as an actor there's either a lot of downtime or no downtime, and you have to stay used to being busy.
PP: Mm-hmm. Tell me about your new movie, All the Real Girls.
ZD: Well, I haven't seen it yet. I decided at a certain point not to see any of my movies without an audience. You know how they show it to you before [it's released in theaters], with you and your mom and your agent? Having just two people reacting to it really throws me off. But I'm excited to see it, because the director is amazing.
PP: Who's the director?
ZD: David Gordon Green. He did a little tiny film called George Washington a few years ago, and this is his second film. It's kind of cool, I think, to be working with somebody when they start out. You feel as if you have some sort of claim: "I worked on their second movie!"
PP: [laughs] Well, it's such an opportunity and a luxury for directors, even now, to be able to direct and write their own movies and get them made. So when they finally get to make their movie, you can really trust them and believe in them. What's your film about?
ZD: It's a love story, but it's a sad love story. But not like Love Story [1970]. [laughs] It's about heartbreak. I haven't seen it yet, so I can only guess what it's going to be like, but it'll definitely have its own take. The director and a lot of the people who worked on it went to college together--
PP: --Where did they go? Do you know?
ZD: North Carolina School of the Arts.
PP: You're kidding! I went to the summer programs there! I did ballet when I was about 12, and then I did acting--
ZD: --You know, I could tell you were a dancer.
PP: Were you a dancer too?
ZD: I was the kid who took every dance class, but I wasn't a serious dancer. I loved to perform, and I did a lot of musicals as a kid. But I just knew you were a dancer. You can tell by the way people carry themselves.
PP: It's true. I really like the dance approach: physicality and all that.
ZD: I'm learning that it's important, because to play different characters you have to be able to show who they are in their physicality. That's why I think it's important for actors to do dance and voice training. I'd never say that it has to be theater school, because I quit theater school-
PP: -Where did you go?
ZD: Northwestern University.
PP: And how long did you last?
ZD: Seven months. [laughs] I started working before I entered as a freshman, and it was difficult to deal with all the petty politics there. You had to be good at kissing up, which I'm really bad at. You're doing a play now, aren't you? What is it called? Now I'm interviewing you, but...
PP: It's a Lanford Wilson play-
ZD: --No way! Which one?
PP: Fifth of July.
ZD: I did The Rimers of Eldritch in high school.
PP: I did it in college! Did you play Patsy?
ZD: No, I played Eva. I miss doing live theater. I haven't done much in a while. It's so daunting to go and face an entirely different set of politics.
PP: It's a whole different process. When you do a film, you do a take and it's gone. It's a different mapping-out in theater.
ZD: That's one of the reasons I was so excited about All the Real Girls: It has that special development of characters and that mysterious something that plays sometimes have. It's really exciting when you see a script like that.
PP: I know. It's just so rare. But there are some good ones every once in a while. Did you see Lovely and Amazing?
ZD: No, I didn't.
PP: You've got to. It's already out on video.
ZD: I'll buy it, because I can't rent videos anymore. I never return them. Blockbuster owns my soul. [Posey laughs] I get letters from a collection agency saying, 'You owe $10.98 to Blockbuster." And I'm like, "I could've bought the movie for that!" Now I owe my firstborn to Blockbuster. I've ruined my life! I won't be able to buy a house! [both laugh]
PP: You're just having paranoid fantasies.
ZD: I'm pretty good at those. [both laugh]
PP: [To someone off the line] Okay. Thanks.
ZD: Do you have to go? I don't want to keep you. I know you have your show.
PP: Yeah, I have to pick up my laundry. There's no way I'm going onstage tonight not wearing underwear. [Deschanel laughs] It's been so great talking to you. I hope to meet you one day.
ZD: I know! I want to work with you. That would be great. Listen, break a leg tonight.
PP: Thank you. And I can't wait to see your movie when it comes out. Bye.
ZD: Yeah! Okay. Take care. Bye.