Deschanel soon became known for his dry humor and for his performances as a "Manic Pixie Dream Girl" with roles in films such as Elf (2003 ) , The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy ( 2005) Failure to Launch (2006 ) , Bridge to Terabithia (2007) The Happening (2008 ) , Yes Man (2008 ) , and ( 500 ) Days of Summer ( 2009). She currently stars in the Fox series New Girl, for which she was nominated for a Golden Globe , Grammy and Emmy .
Since 2001, Deschanel also acts with his partner , actress Samantha Shelton in jazz cabaret numbers of your group If All the Stars Were Pretty Babies. Besides singing , playing the keyboard, percussion, banjo and ukulele . In 2006 , Deschanel teamed up with M. Ward to release their debut album Volume One (recorded with M. Ward under the name She & Him) which was finally published in March 2008 . Their second album Volume Two was published a couple of years later in the U.S., in March 2010 . They also often sings in her films .
In September 2009 , Deschanel married singer of Death Cab for Cutie Ben Gibbard , but she filed for divorce in December 2011 , and the divorce was finalized in December 2012.
Born in Los Angeles in 1980 , Deschanel is the daughter of cinematographer / Director Caleb Deschanel and actress Mary Jo Deschanel (née Weir ) . It is of French ancestry ( her paternal grandfather ) and Irish . She was raised as a Catholic .
Deschanel lived in Los Angeles, but spent much of her childhood traveling because her father filming movies in different shooting locations . He later said that he hated all the traveling ... "I am very happy now that I had the experience, but at the time I was very sad to leave my friends in Los Angeles and go to places where they had no food I Like it or things to which I was accustomed . " She attended Crossroads School, a private preparatory school in Santa Monica , California, where a friend of future co - stars Jake Gyllenhaal and Kate Hudson did. She sang throughout high school, intending to pursue a career in musical theater and attending French Woods Festival of the Performing Arts. She attended Northwestern University for seven months before dropping out to work as an actress.