Today's guest is one of the most recognizable faces of her generation — an actor whose voice you'd know in a single frame. But her real story isn't the one you've watched. It's the one she kept secret: for 20 years she's been a songwriter, and barely anyone — even people who know her — knew it.
This is one of the more honest conversations we've had about being underestimated — as an actor who \"couldn't\" really be a musician, and as a woman the industry assumed didn't write her own songs — and about what it costs to keep making things purely because you love them.
And The Writer Is... Zooey Deschanel of She & Him!
In this episode of And The Writer Is, we go deep on:
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NMPA is the National Music Publishers' Association. They fight for songwriters and they fight for this podcast, too.
Chapters
0:00 Intro
1:00 Meet Zooey Deschanel
1:51 Writing alone — and erasing social media to do it
4:49 Why the \"industry plant\" is a myth
6:37 \"You'll never be taken seriously as a musician\"
7:25 Her secret identity as a songwriter
11:15 How She & Him released with no name attached
13:01 \"I Thought I Saw Your Face Today\" — never a single, now #1 on TikTok
15:35 The story behind writing \"I Thought I Saw Your Face Today\"
17:24 Her dad, the records, and growing up musical
22:44 Brian Wilson, Gershwin, and the Great American Songbook
26:13 Five desert island albums
28:21 Why \"A Hard Day's Night\" beats the White Album
30:16 Teaching herself piano at six
32:46 Writing her first song at ten
38:42 \"I identify as a songwriter, not an actor\"
42:15 Dropping out of Northwestern
45:59 A word from our lead sponsor, NMPA
49:23 Finding her voice in the studio — the mic chain
51:56 Recording with Brian Wilson & the gifted mic
55:57 Why she never sold out — turning in finished records
67:03 The lonely sets where her first two records were written
69:35 Almost Famous & Cameron Crowe
72:50 \"I'm allergic to selling myself\"
76:19 Nobody believes a woman writes her own songs
79:00 Writing for other artists & how publishing splits really work
82:07 Why she loves writing Christmas songs
84:24 500 Days of Summer & music in film
88:36 The songwriting trick: \"What if I am her?\"
93:21 Dyslexia, reading scripts & why melody sticks
94:56 Why she doesn't do more theater
98:38 Staying clean through party-era Hollywood
100:50 M. Ward — 20 years, never one fight
109:57 Writing alone when everyone's afraid to
111:43 The biggest misconception about her
114:18 Finding your North Star
Credits:
Hosted by Ross Golan
Produced by Joe London & Jad Saad
Edited by Jad Saad
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