Zooey Deschanel scored on the big screen in (500) Days of Summer and now she’s making a rare TV appearance, joining her sister Emily who stars as intrepid forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan in the Fox hit Bones. Deschanel explained the ups and downs of co-starring with Emily for the first time and spilled a few details to Parade.com’s Jeanne Wolf about her recent marriage to Death Cab for Cutie’s Benjamin Gibbard.
Why you have to be careful about acting with your sister:
“I think that both of us like to let each other have our space.
The one thing that I fear about working with a family member is not getting along. You always want to make sure you don’t have any silly bickering or anything like that on the set. I mean, we don’t really do that so much anymore, but you always worry that little family things might come up.”
She needn’t have worried.
“I was hesitant. I just wanted to make sure that everything was right. But, it ended up being really fun. I was glad I did it. We had a really good time and we definitely cracked up a lot. Unfortunately, sometimes it was on camera.”
Emily was in charge though.
“She was essentially my boss for a couple days because she’s one of the producers of the show.
But we’ve never really competed because we’re so different and we’re attracted to different things. I know that if we were up for the same thing, I would be happy if they chose her and she’d probably feel the same way about me.”
Why she’d never make it as a Bones regular:
“I don’t really like gory stuff. It makes me uncomfortable.
I don’t like fake blood; it gives me the creeps. I haven’t really done any movies with a lot of fake blood or anything like that. Emily seems fine with it, which is good because every week she’s around gross things.”
Growing up it was easy to tell them apart.
“Emily was sort of moody and cool, very kind of aloof.
I was very boisterous and always on. I was the energetic one and kind of crazy to the point where I was sometimes a little bit out of my mind. Whatever I thought came out of my mouth. Now, I just am completely different. I can’t explain it, but my personality changed quite a bit just with age.”

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Married life is good.
“I think we both were always pretty romantic, but it’s just that now it feels like everything is better.
I think being married is great. I make him breakfast and he cleans up. I think I’m going to keep him.”
The story that won’t go away.
“When I was like two or three years old I was stomping around our hotel room and yelling because I had an ear infection. I was so mad and my parents kept saying, 'Shhhhh.' I said, ‘Don’t you shush me.’ My mother loves to tell that about me. I used to try to stop her, but I’ve finally given up. It does make me sound like a little brat.”
Having parents in the biz:
“Both of them were able to follow their own dreams. I don’t think they felt like, since show business has been good to them, it would be to me and Emily. They were just like, ‘Whatever makes you happy.’ They’ve always been very understanding and supportive.”
Advice from her mother:
“She was like,
‘Wear blush. Always wear blush.’ That was one. She said ‘Wear lipstick’ too, but I don’t always follow that one.”