Early Life
Born in Los Angeles in 1980, Deschanel is the daughter of cinematographer/director Caleb Deschanel and actress Mary Jo Deschanel (née Weir). Her ancestry includes French, Swiss, Dutch, English, and Irish. She was raised as a Roman Catholic. She was named after Zooey Glass, the male protagonist of J. D. Salinger's 1961 novella Franny and Zooey. Her older sister, Emily Deschanel, is also an actress and stars in the TV series Bones.
Deschanel lived in Los Angeles, but spent much of her childhood traveling because her father shot films on location; she later said that she "hated all the traveling ... I'm really happy now that I had the experience, but at the time I was just so miserable to have to leave my friends in Los Angeles and go to places where they didn't have any food I liked or things I was used to." She attended Crossroads, a private preparatory school in Santa Monica, California, where she befriended future co-stars Jake Gyllenhaal and Kate Hudson. She sang throughout high school, planning to pursue a career in musical theatre and attending French Woods Festival of the Performing Arts. She attended Northwestern University for seven months before dropping out to work as an actress.
Read more about this topic: Zooey Deschanel
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