Zooey Deschanel: Expect “Chaos” for “New Girl” on Season 2

Last year's breakout TV comedy star returns for more "New Girl" hijinx.

New Girl” and Zooey Deschanel aren’t as new as they were last year, but just as funny.

Deschanel emerged as TV’s breakout star of the previous season as the quirky and – yes, we’ll say it – “adorkable”Jess, who re-finds her footing in life after moving in with a supportive trio of new found guy pals. As the show enters its sophomore stretch, Deschanel reveals how the big success of the show struck her, and what fans can expect from the new season.

What new “New Girl” shenanigans will Jess encounter this season?

I think that Jess is going to get fired from her job and that's just going to throw her into a lot of chaos – and I think that's good.

Has the show been everything that you hoped it would be when you decided to try television?

It's exceeded my expectations in the sense that when you do a show, a pilot, you don't know if it's going to be picked up, all this stuff. You don't know if it's going to do well, if people are going to like it, or if people are going to like you. You don't know any of that stuff, and so it's been really a lovely experience.

What was the big surprise of that first year, something that you weren't expecting?


Well, I'm used to doing movies, and so that's like you never know what's going to happen there even more. This was even more of a sure thing. Doing 13 episodes of a TV show is still more of a sure thing than doing a movie. At least you know that people are going to get to see it.

What did it mean to you to see your costars on the show emerge as stars of their own?

It's like seeing your sibling get success. I think it's a wonderful thing, and I'm so proud of them all…Every episode it switches. That's one thing that I like: that it's like a rotating clown. You have a clown and you have a straight man and everybody has to play the straight man and everybody has to play the clown at some point. So it's sort of like that and I like that, because everybody has the possibility of going slightly insane.

How has the big first year of the show change your life, if at all?

It changes. It's really wonderful to have validation, but at the same time, when I go home and I go to sleep and I brush my teeth, it's all the same. Get up, get dressed, go to work, do all the same stuff. Work keeps me going.

What's been important to keep the same no matter how successful the show might've gotten?

The same things make me happy, so you just don't want to do the things that make you happy. Really, the things that make me happy are being creative and working on the show and having good friends and family around me – sort of the same stuff that makes everybody happy.

You have become associated with your character Jess in the public eye. Has that happened with any of your film roles?

Summer from '(500) Days of Summer' definitely had that. It's funny because definitely, like, whatever the last thing you did that was popular, people think that you're that person. There's varying degrees of truth in the characters that I play. I definitely put my heart into it, but it doesn't mean that it's me. But I'm happy to be associated with Jess.

What has been the feedback about your iPhone commercial with Siri?

There was a strange cut in the commercial, because the first shot showed me in close-up and I was supposed to be in my bathroom. We shot it on a bathroom set, but then I turned around and I was like, 'Oh, it's raining,' but it looks like from the commercial that I'm in front of my window. So there was definitely a misunderstanding with that, and so I got a lot of people commenting on that. I was like, 'No. I'm supposed to be in my bathroom.’ But I love the commercial. I think it's cute.
 

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