Zooey Deschanel has been melting hearts now for almost a decade, since her supporting role in Cameron Crowe's
Almost Famous, her second film after debuting in quirky comedy
Mumford with Hope Davis and Jason Lee in 1999.
Proving herself today as a worthy heart-breaker in her new movie
(500) Days of Summer, opening on Friday, she's excited to be twisting traditional male/female casting so that she's the one wearing the pants in the relationship. Joseph Gordon-Levitt's Tom is left licking his wounds after her character, Summer, dumps him.
The remarkable thing is that, according to US box office statistics, male audiences seem to enjoy their long overdue come-uppance.
"We all know guys who've had their hearts broken in real life; we just don't see it in the movies," Deschanel agrees.
Despite a string of high-profile roles in
Yes Man and
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Deschanel is still considered an indie girl, and this is the kind of delicious role that Hollywood usually reserves for its top-dollar leading ladies.
Still pinching herself that first-time director Marc Webb even cast her in Summer, which has since turned out to be one of the most critically appraised movies of the year, she says, "I was flattered. To be honest, it's not the way I think of myself. But if he'd picked one of those girls, you know, one of those actresses who everyone thinks, 'Oh my God, she's just so beautiful' - I don't think it would have worked. Because this is partially romanticising a little quirkiness, which I feel is one of the interesting things about the movie. Summer is such a fascinating character because she's seen entirely from Tom's perspective as this ideal woman, when she's actually just a smart, interesting girl with her own set of problems."
If we've all heard countless stories about actors actively soliciting roles, Deschanel laughs at the notion she might have gone after this part.
"I never go after roles. Ever. It never works for me. I was so excited when I read the script because it's so rare to see a romantic comedy that's really fresh and different. But Marc had an idea of the film he wanted from the beginning, and I think I was part of that - he just had to go about convincing people to cast me," she says.
Talking about the role reversal in
(500) Days of Summer, she says, "I don't think it has anything to do with gender specifically. I think it's more that, with our generation, those gender roles aren't something that really apply anymore. There are a lot of guys who get heartbroken and a lot of girls who are cynical about it. Another thing this movie says is that,
just because love doesn't last, it doesn't mean it doesn't have value. You will discover things about yourself if you're being romantic even if it doesn't last. Love can mean a lot of different things.
"Fear of losing it is the dark side, but the wonderful side is the feeling that you get when you fall in love.
Everyone has the heart-break that shapes them in such a way that they could never go back to the innocence that they had before,"says Deschanel, 29. She has been engaged to the indie rocker Ben Gibbard of Death Cab for Cutie this past year.
The daughter of the Oscar-nominated cinematographer and director Caleb Deschanel and the actress Mary Jo Weir, she was named after Zooey Glass from J D Salinger's novella Franny and Zooey. Together with her elder sister, Emily - at present starring in the TV series
Bones - they were educated at Santa Monica's artsy Crossroads School, whose alumni include Kate Hudson, Jake Gyllenhaal and Jack Black.
Ever the rebel, she quit theatre studies at Chicago's Northwestern University after seven months.
"I started working before I entered as a freshman, and it was difficult to deal with all the petty politics there," she admits.
lol
(500) Days of Summer has received enormous critical praise in the US. A USA Today critic, Claudia Puig, even claimed that it captures the same contemporary romantic sensibilities as Annie Hall did for a previous generation.
Delighted by such comparisons, Deschanel says,
"In terms of style icons, I've always really liked Diane Keaton because she's totally herself and you see a person who isn't looking to anyone else. In the same way, I feel my choice of clothes helps project who I am on the inside."
However, she's none too thrilled by those critics who liken her eclectic style - not to mention her signature black hair and bright blue eyes - to the pop starlet Katy Perry. "I don't really have an opinion on it. I think we both have ... hair," she frowns.
A singer and musician for as long as she's been acting, her dual careers often overlap. Tease her that singing is perhaps a contractual requirement, and she pouts, "I try to avoid it. I'm very skeptical of it because it has happened a lot of times like, 'Wouldn't it be cool if you could sing ...' They always feel they need to figure out an opportunity for me to sing. They really don't, unless it's a musical, because it gets complicated," says the actress, who last year earned rave reviews for her debut album, She & Him: Volume 1, made in collaboration with M Ward.
A fan of Ella Fitzgerald Deschanel plays the piano, banjo, xylophone and baritone ukulele, and has been performing with the cabaret act, If All the Stars Were Pretty Babies, since 2001.
Once dismissive of actors launching musical careers, she says, "For a long time, I thought that any actor who released an album must be the biggest fool but, having been a singer all my life, I've now changed that opinion.
"No one gives musicians any flack for becoming actors, so I don't see a problem working in the opposite direction."
"People tell me I have the strangest hobbies; on movie sets I used to crochet hats for the entire cast. But some of the things I like doing are perfectly normal - bowling and ice skating." rofl
"l grew up believing my sister was from the planet Neptune and had been sent down to Earth to kill me. I believed this because my sister Emily convinced me of it when I was a toddler. I think she'd seen
Invasion Of The Body Snatchers and her imagination ran away with her. There's a part of me that still believes it. I have moments when I think, 'Hmm, could that be true?' Occasionally I ask her about it and she responds by pulling an alien face."
About her sister being from Neptune. 
but i only have ugly bikinis
