Deschanel appeared in the independent drama Manic (2001), as the love interest of a troubled teen (Joseph Gordon-Levitt).The film was screened at the Sundance Film Festival and received a limited theatrical release.
The production was screened at the Sundance Film Festival, to a generally positive critical reception.
Describing her role, Roger Ebert noted in its review for the film: "[Deschanel is] brought onstage, quickly kidnapped by an evil sorcerer, spends a good deal of time as a captive in his lair, is rescued and lives happily ever after.
In high school, I stayed home all the time, so I don't know how I'm everybody's best friend now." After turning down several supporting roles, Deschanel made her leading debut in All the Real Girls (2003) as Noel, a sexually curious 18-year-old virgin who has a life-changing romance with an aimless 22-year-old.
The film screened at the Sundance Film Festival and was released for selected theaters.
; born January 17, 1980) is an American actress and singer-songwriter.
She made her film debut in Mumford (1999), followed by a supporting role in Cameron Crowe's film Almost Famous (2000).The New York Times found Deschanel to be "particularly spontaneous, unaffected and emotionally direct" in her role. In the comedy Big Trouble, with Tim Allen and Rene Russo, she played the daughter of Russo's character, and she starred in the teen comedy The New Guy as a guitar player in a band.She took on the role of a cynical, plain-spoken young woman working in a big-box store in the black dramedy The Good Girl, starring Jennifer Aniston and Jake Gyllenhaal.She took on the brief role of Dorothy Evans in the revisionist Western The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford and starred in the B comedy Flakes, which was released in only one theater.Deschanel starred as DG in the Syfy Channel miniseries Tin Man, a re-imagined science fiction version of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Deschanel also narrated the children's book Players in Pigtails. Night Shyamalan's thriller The Happening (2008), she starred opposite Mark Wahlberg as a couple trying to escape from an inexplicable natural disaster.For a few years starting in 2001, Deschanel performed in the jazz cabaret act If All the Stars Were Pretty Babies with actress Samantha Shelton. Ward to release a debut album, Volume One, under the name She & Him in March 2008.