Behind Blue Eyes

Zooey Deschanel steps up to the top of the marquee in All the Real Girls and creates a heartbreaking portrayal of young love

Zooey Deschanel could probably be the world’s greatest secret agent. A back-to-back viewing of all her films to date reveals that she never seems to look the same in any of her roles, even though the only thing she may have changed is her hairstyle. You’re watching a film like last year’s Big Trouble wondering who this great young actor playing a carefree high school student is, until it hits you that it’s the same person who played Anita in Almost Famous two years prior, a film in which Deschanel looked considerably older and much more serious. The fact that she’s a terrific actress with a broad range certainly has something to do with this chameleon-like ability to transform herself, but there’s still an element that’s almost mystical about it. The one thing that would give her away as a potential master of disguise for the C.I.A. is those wide blue eyes. From the moment she walks in the door at the Santa Monica coffee house where we’re meeting for our interview, they’re recognizable as the same eyes that looked down at young actor Michael Angarano in Almost Famous, promising him, "One day, you’ll be cool."

A few days after our meeting, Deschanel flew off to the Sundance Film Festival where Sony Pictures Classics’ All the Real Girls was premiering and where it would take home a Special Jury Prize "for emotional truth." Deschanel would also be lauded for her work by many film critics, such as Ray Pride of Indiewire who deemed her "an All-American Marvel." Girls is the first film in which Deschanel really carries the story as a lead and she’s very excited to talk about it. As she should be, because her performance is quite a revelation, although it’s not really a surprising revelation. For an actor who has been seen predominantly in supporting roles to date, Deschanel has garnered an unusually strong fan base both in Hollywood and outside of it who have been waiting eagerly for her ascension to leading lady status for some time. A search of the internet reveals tribute websites such as “The Nature of Zooey Deschanel: The Number 1 Site for all your Zooey Needs” which are rabid in their devotion to her and the acting promise she has displayed. Of course, the film industry has also been buzzing about her for quite a while. The early entertainment press that she garnered a few years back often centered around her family background, because her parents are Oscar-nominated cinematographer Caleb Deschanel (The Natural, The Patriot) and actress Mary Jo Deschanel (The Right Stuff, Twin Peaks). But All the Real Girls proves definitively that, impressive lineage aside, she is an original talent all her own. It’s her first entry in what should be a good year for Deschanel: she has a full plate of upcoming projects, including the release of Manic, as well as Elf, which is being directed by Jon Favreau and stars Will Ferrell.

All the Real Girls is the sophomore film of director David Gordon Green, who previously directed the widely acclaimed George Washington in 2000. Green developed the screenplay with longtime friend Paul Schneider, who also stars in the film opposite Deschanel. The story is one of young love, but it’s young love as we’ve rarely seen it in the movies. Girls doesn’t feature any "falling in love" montages over pop songs, and it is almost defiant in its determination to avoid any cliches. However, it’s very true to the young love that many of us know from real life - full of moments of transcendence but also of pain and of reality’s hard knocks. Paul Schneider plays Paul, a 22-year-old who has lived his entire life in a small North Carolina mill town and whose most notable achievement to date is the amount of womanizing he’s done. But then he’s hit with the proverbial thunderbolt of real love when Noel (Deschanel), the 18-year-old sister of his best friend who has been away at boarding school for years, returns home. Deschanel has described the characters’ relationship very accurately as "a train wreck at the exact moment of impact." They connect on a very deep level but the reality is they aren’t quite ready for this type of relationship yet, so things eventually spiral into heartbreak for both of them. What is remarkable about the film is just how authentic Girls feels, as if the viewer is literally a fly on the wall watching this relationship develop and then dissolve. It’s also refreshing that the dialogue isn’t "movie speak," where everyone is clever and every line is a set-up or a punch line. That being said, the film is never boring and, given time to work its magic, it will eventually mesmerize you.

Venice: All the Real Girls is one of the first films in a long time which shows young love like it really can be - a devastating emotional experience.

Zooey Deschanel: That was one of the things that really struck me about it when I read it. There are no cliches of young love. It’s pretty much trying its best to be a realistic look at it. David Gordon Green and Paul Schneider wrote it when they were in college. So [my character] was sort of a composite of a couple of different girls. I think they kind of wrote it with a broken heart. It’s a pretty real look at what young love is. Because young love can be so amazing and so sad and so poignant and so poetic and sort of wonderful in its tragedy. A tragedy in the true sense of the word, as I learned it in English class [laughs], is a fight between two goods. It’s having to choose one good over another good. And I think that’s what this is in a sense. The most interesting characters are when you see how their trying to do good becomes their downfall. Those are the most interesting stories. The 400 Blows is one of my favorite movies and I think that’s a great example of that. [The lead character] means so well and yet everything he does is taken in the wrong way. And I can relate to that so much. In a way, that’s what All the Real Girls is. You have two people who have the best intentions, but their actions, within the context of the story, end up being their downfall.

The film is notable for its "real" dialogue, which is completely natural and unaffected. Did you have to make a conscience decision to keep the dialogue feeling authentic in your performances and not make punch lines out of certain pieces of dialogue?

Well, we improv’d a lot of it. There was a wonderful script already written and then we rehearsed for, like, two weeks. I think all of what ended up being the dialogue on-screen came out of the chemistry [among] Paul and me and David all working together. It was a great creative process. You’d do something and David would be like, "That’s great, I love that." Or you’d do something and he’d be like, "No, I don’t like that." It all came out of that. None of us really wants to go for the obvious, so I think we’re all pretty much on the same page.

What do you think attracts your character Noel to Paul?

I think he’s kind of a mysterious person. Paul has this thing where there’s always something hidden underneath. He’s intriguing, funny, and smart, but it’s not so obvious. He doesn’t wear everything on his sleeve, it’s all hidden. And they have a great chemistry too. Also, I think within the character history, he’s her older brother’s best friend and you know, there’s always that thing of having a crush on somebody that’s older than you. When she finally comes back from boarding school, she’s probably had a crush on him forever. She’s really just growing up now. It’s a little bit of an arrested development situation. She gets out and her first love - there he is.

What do you think happens to Noel ten years down the road?

We always talked about this. Because sort of the idea was to leave people with the feeling that the story of these two wasn’t over. That they could get together ten years down the line, after they’ve learned stuff. But the whole tragedy of their relationship is just that they’re too young. These two people need to experience more before they get together. But at the time they’re just so hurt that they can’t salvage it. I think for Noel, she needs to live in the place she grew up in for a little bit. I think she ends up leaving but she has to experience things like working in the factory. She has to do that because that’s part of growing up there. I think she probably goes to college eventually. She’s pretty smart and interesting.

Did you meet anyone on location in North Carolina who could be the real-life Noel?

No, no, I didn’t. You know, sometimes I’ll read characters who remind me of people. But this one, it’s funny, because people would go, "It’s not you." But I would go, ‘It is me. It’s totally me!’ In a lot of ways it reminded me more of myself at a younger age, a few years ago. Except she grew up in the South and went to boarding school, you add these different elements. But that’s kind of the way I work. I end up thinking of myself and how I relate to it and maybe adding different aspects of other people I know. Generally, most of the characters I do are somehow me, just maybe me at a different moment. Sometimes it’s the me who’s alone, you know? Because nobody ever sees that person who’s alone. It’s like the me driving in my car alone; nobody ever sees who that person is. Except me. So this is my way of revealing parts of myself that nobody else ever sees. [laughs]

Tell us about Manic, which is getting its release later this year.

It’s a really good movie. I want this movie to come out. It’s such a small movie that it keeps kind of getting pushed under the rug. It’s a hard movie I guess because it’s disturbing to some degree.

A lot of Manic was improv’d as well, wasn’t it?

There was a good script but then we had all this rehearsal and we improv’d a lot of it. Most of the stuff I did was improv’d. You’d improv in rehearsal and then they’d script it. They’d write down what you said and then you go and do the scene like how you did it in rehearsal, or you can go off it a little bit. A lot of times really interesting things come out of that.

You play a mentally disturbed girl in it. Tell us about her.

[She’s] a really shy, introverted, anorexic patient. It’s very different from anything I’ve done. I really want it to be seen just for that reason. People love to categorize you. They can’t handle it if they can’t go, "Oh, you’re this girl who does this. That’s your specialty." Well, I don’t want to think anything’s my specialty. I want to think that acting is my specialty, which means I’m versatile and, you know, that’s my job. I’ve gotten a lot of attention for certain things I’ve done but then there’s other things I’ve done which are very different that nobody’s seen.

You look different in every part you play. You’re very chameleon-like. I’m sure you’ve heard that before.

Yeah, yeah. [laughs]

You could stick with one look if you wanted to.

If I wanted to, but that’s not fun. [laughs] The chameleon thing, somehow I have something about me, I never even realized it, that looks incredibly different if I change my hair color or my hair-cut or my make-up or my clothes, I look like a totally different person. That’s why, in Almost Famous, I wore a lot of make-up and I had my hair a certain way, and everybody thought I was a lot older than I was. But in real life I always looked a lot younger. So it was really strange. They’d call me in for these parts and I’d be like, ‘I’m way too young for this.’ And I’d go and they’d be like, "Wait a minute, you’re really young." And I’d be like, ‘Yeah, I’m really young, I know.’ I did Almost Famous when I was 19. So it was really interesting. I do change a lot. And I can look a lot younger or a lot older. I guess that’s what a chameleon is. You put it on a branch and it turns brown. You put it on a leaf and it turns green.

How did you get the part of Anita in Almost Famous?

That’s an interesting story. Almost Famous was my second movie. I had done my first movie, which was Mumford (1999), my senior year of high school. And I missed my last month of school to do it. So I was corresponding with my teachers and doing my term papers. I was in all honors classes so it was like this big deal to leave school.

Were you taking the AP tests during Mumford?

Oh yeah, I was taking the AP tests in-between. Which is always something I learned how to do, because I wasn’t really social in high school; I mostly did my homework and did theater. I was doing professional theater and doing my homework backstage. I did Into the Woods for five months when I was 17 and they were all laughing at me because I was doing calculus homework. We were doing a singing run-through and I was doing "X plus Y." [laughs] So I did Mumford and then I went to Northwestern. That’s where I really wanted to go and I wanted to do theater and study theater. But I had been working for a couple of years, doing professional work, and going off to college you basically take yourself out it. So I came back for my Christmas break and auditioned for the Cameron Crowe project [which would become Almost Famous]. I read for the casting director and then I got called back a week later. And I went in and there was Cameron and I did an improv and did a reading. Then I didn’t hear about it for months and months. Apparently all the parts were cast. So I just went back to college and I didn’t even think about it. Kate Hudson was cast in my part and Sarah Polley was supposed to play Penny. Then Sarah Polley dropped out and Kate Hudson was cast in that part. They were frantically trying to find someone to play Anita. And Cameron went back through his tapes. They saw my tape and called me back in. It was weird, because a friend of mine who was friends with Cameron told me, "All the parts are cast." So I thought, ‘That’s weird. Why are they calling me back in?’ I went back in and read and then I heard that I got it. Cameron didn’t even know that Kate Hudson and I went to high school together. And then he mentioned it to her and she was like, "Oh my god, that’s so funny." She was a year older than me. We had a couple of classes together.

Were they drama classes?

No, we had math, because I was a year ahead in math. But we did do a play together, Man of La Mancha.

Did Cameron have a real-life sister that the Anita part was based on?

Yeah. I never got to meet her. I was upset because I really wanted to. And I never got to meet his mom, either. But I hear she’s just so great. She was on the commentary of the DVD of Almost Famous. They (the mother and sister) never really reconciled in real life but they reconciled after the movie, which was really cool. A lot of the pictures which are on the wall in the movie are my face superimposed on her body. The set photographer had been friends with Cameron for a long time and said, "You look so much like his real sister." And when I heard his mom’s commentary on the DVD, she said, "She looks just like her."

It’s been oft-written about you that you grew up on film sets. Is that accurate?

Yeah, I did. But I didn’t go to the film sets, I grew up going on location. I hated going to film sets. They’re boring.

I was thinking, "How does a kid entertain oneself on a film set?"

I didn’t really. I would go maybe once or twice on one movie. So to some degree [that story’s] accurate. But everybody’s like "Hollywood royalty." I’m like, ‘I’m not Hollywood royalty.’ [laughs] People just say that kind of stuff. I never met any famous people, really. I mean, my dad’s an amazing cinematographer, but I mostly knew crew members. A lot of actors like to separate themselves from crews. I’m part of the crew, that’s how I think of it. We’re all trying to make a good movie. I think I really benefited from being my dad’s daughter, just knowing that.

Do you think you learned a lot about filmmaking though, just by osmosis because you were around it all the time?

Yeah, and you know, my dad showed me all of Hitchcock’s movies, and Kubrick’s movies, and Truffaut’s movies, and Godard’s movies when I was a kid.

And sort of talked you through them?

He started with Hitchcock when I was like 11 and then Kubrick. And then later I watched a lot of the French New Wave stuff when I was around 16. So I really always loved movies. But I also loved theater, too, and I really thought I wanted to do that so I could separate myself from my parents, you know? I love musicals and I have a cabaret act, the Pretty Babies. I was going to be a singer maybe. That’s my other passion really, singing and playing music. I play piano and I play ukulele. It’s standards and some country standards. Pretty much the early part of the 20th century. We dress up but it’s about the music. Because I know there are all these burlesque acts. There’s no stripping. [laughs] We really sing. It’s me and this girl Sam Shelton, who’s also an actress.

Have you done any photography yourself?

I like taking pictures. It’s kind of a hobby but that’s not really my passion. I love beautiful photographs and I like taking them. But that’s not what makes me tick. Acting and music make me tick.