Violence, and Silence, in Nelson's 'Paranoid Park'

DATE March 27, 2008 ACCOUNT NUMBER N/A
TIME 12:00 Noon-1:00 PM AUDIENCE N/A
NETWORK NPR
PROGRAM Fresh Air

Interview: Young adult author Blake Nelson on his recently
adapted novel "Paranoid Park" and the YA industry
TERRY GROSS, host:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross.

You know the new Gus van Sant movie, "Paranoid Park"? It's adapted from the
novel of the same name by my guest, Blake Nelson. The movie won a special
prize from the jury at last year's Cannes Film Festival. The book is one of
several young adult, or "YA," novels written by Blake Nelson.

It's about an introverted teenage boy, Alex, who's one of the skateboarders in
his Portland high school, but not one of the best. At his friend's
suggestion, they go to Paranoid Park, a skate park built by kids themselves,
street punks. After going to Paranoid with his friend, Alex goes alone and
ends up hanging out with a Paranoid Park guy who looks like trouble. They hop
a freight train, which sounds like it will be a great adventure, but things go
terribly wrong. In this scene, Alex has been called into the school office,
where a detective questions him about a gruesome death near Paranoid Park.

(Soundbite of "Paranoid Park")

Mr. DAN LIU: (As Detective Richard Lu) Let me tell you what my situation is.
I have this security guard and we find him deceased on the railroad tracks;and
so we're thinking maybe he tripped or he fell, but the autopsy says he was
struck by an object. And we also have a witness that says he saw somebody
throw something over the bridge into the river. We happen to have that
object, and it's a skateboard. Now, the funny thing is there's some DNA
evidence on the skateboard that puts it at the scene of the crime.

Now, where did you go?

Mr. GABE NEVINS: (As Alex) I drove around downtown a little to Subway and
got something to eat.

Mr. LIU: (As Detective Richard Lu) OK. There's about 1,002 subways. Which
one did you go to?

Mr. NEVINS: (As Alex) By the waterfront.

Mr. LIU: (As Detective Richard Lu) OK. And the one over in the World Trade
Center? That one?

Mr. NEVINS: (As Alex) Yes.

Mr. LIU: (As Detective Richard Lu) OK. What'd you get?

Mr. NEVINS: (As Alex) Turkey and ham on Italian herb and cheese bread,
toasted, tomato, lettuce, pickle, olive, mustard, oil and vinegar...

Mr. LIU: (As Detective Richard Lu) Did you get mayo?

Mr. NEVINS: (As Alex) No.

Mr. LIU: (As Detective Richard Lu) Got to have mayo with that.

Mr. NEVINS: (As Alex) Mayo's sick.

Mr. LIU: (As Detective Richard Lu) Mayo's sick? What kind of bread was it?

Mr. NEVINS: (As Alex) Italian herbs and cheese.

Mr. LIU: (As Detective Richard Lu) And you have a receipt in your pocket for
that?

Mr. NEVINS: (As Alex) No. I don't keep Subway receipts.

Mr. LIU: (As Detective Richard Lu) OK. How much did it cost then?

Mr. NEVINS: (As Alex) Like six-something. Subway's expensive.

Mr. LIU: (As Detective Richard Lu) Six-inch? Twelve-inch?

Mr. NEVINS: (As Alex) Six.

Mr. LIU: (As Detective Richard Lu) Six-inch for six bucks. So you must have
got the meal, then, right?

Mr. NEVINS: (As Alex) Nah, I just got a drink.

Mr. LIU: (As Detective Richard Lu) OK. All right.

Mr. NEVINS: (As Alex) Large Dr. Pepper.

Mr. LIU: (As Detective Richard Lu) Who'd you eat with?

Mr. NEVINS: (As Alex) Myself.

(End of soundbite)

GROSS: That's a scene from the movie "Paranoid Park." Blake Nelson, my guest,
wrote the young adult novel it's based on.

Blake, welcome to FRESH AIR. And before we go any further, I'd like you to
read a couple of paragraphs that describe Paranoid Park from your novel.

Mr. BLAKE NELSON: OK.

(Reading) "Paranoid Park, that's where it started. Paranoid Park is a skate
park in downtown Portland. It's located under the Eastside Bridge, down by
the old warehouses. It's an underground street park, which means there are no
rules, nobody owns it and you don't have to pay to skate. They say some
old-school guys built it years ago, and somehow it's survived all this time."

"A lot of the best skaters come there, from California and the East Coast and
all over. It's also kind of a street kid hangout. There's all tese stories,
like how a skinhead got stabbed there once. That's why they call it Paranoid
Park. It has that dangerous, sketchy vibe to it."

GROSS: Like, what was the genesis of the story? What made you decide to
write a story about a skater set in part at this skateboard park, but there's
also a murder?

Mr. NELSON: I think the original idea of it was just a kid under great
stress because of some sort of guilt situation, and that's kind of where I
wanted to start. And then I kind of, from there I started to think like, `OK,
what would be an interesting crime that he could commit sort of
semi-accidentally?' You know, what would be an interesting milieu for him to
be part of that would lead to that. And I remember this great skate park,
it's called Burnside Skate Park in reality, and it's in Portland, and it is
this, you know, famous scene of skate kids and street kids; and it just all
kind of came together in my mind as, like, that would be a great place. You
know, a nice kid from the suburbs kind of venturing into this environment
would be interesting, and then maybe something happens that puts him in this
difficult situation.

GROSS: Your book opens with an epigraph from Dostoevsky's "Crime and
Punishment," and the quote is, "`Young man,' he went on, raising his head
again, `in your face, I seem to read some trouble of mind.'" It's a great
quote, and, you know, later on, the main character in your novel thinks--and
this is after the crime has been committed and you feel so guilty. He says,
"Any place could be a prison, I realized, if your head wasn't right, even a
nice house in the suburbs."

Mr. NELSON: Yeah.

GROSS: Do you see "Paranoid Park" as being a kind of teen version of "Crime
and Punishment"?

Mr. NELSON: Yes, definitely. I sort of--I'd never done this before. I
blatantly stole the plot of "Crime and Punishment," even down to the detective
who shows up. And in "Crime and Punishment"--and I hadn't read "Crime and
Punishment," I didn't re-read it to write the book, I kind of was just doing
it on memory; and I remembered that one of the fun things of "Crime and
Punishment" was that the detective becomes friends with the murderer. They
sort of bond because they both live in a world of some amorality. So when I
brought in the detective in the book, I made sure that he and the kid could
kind of bond a little bit, and it came very naturally; so there must be some
universal truth about police and thieves being somehow connected, or they
understand each other in some way.

GROSS: When you were writing "Paranoid Park," what did you do to get a sense
of what skateboarders were like then, as opposed to when you were a teenager?
Where did you hang out? How did you fit in there and not look incredibly out
of place, or like, you know, an FBI agent or something?

Mr. NELSON: You know, I'm lucky. I'm blessed with some weird ability to
blend in in situations. So I was able to go to Burnside Park and just sit
around and, I don't know, maybe I look like a homeless person; but I find it
fairly easy in those situations to just hang around and watch people, since I
do that a lot anyway, I guess. And I also used the Internet quite a bit. I
read a lot of--on a lot of skate sites there'll be a place where they
encourage kids to just write in and tell funny stories about stuff that
happens to them while they're skating. And those were really helpful, I
really enjoyed reading those. And they were often like badly punctuated by
people that didn't appear to really know how to write in the normal way; but
they would tell these really funny stories, and they would describe their
tricks in the most sort of minimalist slang, you know, speaking to each other
as opposed to trying to explain it to novices or whatever.

GROSS: What do you find so interesting about the skateboard subculture?

Mr. NELSON: I love the loner aspect of it. I love the separation of it. I
could see myself, if I was 16 right now, I would be doing it. That would be
my way to get away from my parents, to get away from my school, to hang out
with a couple of my close buddies. I like the fact that you spend a lot of
time perfecting small little tricks that are of no great use to you, you know,
in real life, but which I'm sure you would take great pride in.

One thing I find interesting, as I look at teenagers, is you look at qualities
that will serve them as adults, you know, like one thing I did when I was a
kid is I would fit--I was very--you know, I had all the foibles of a teenager,
but I was fairly focused and I was good at finishing things, which served me
well as a writer because nobody's telling you to finish a book. You really
have to do that yourself. So I find myself interested in teenagers that are
doing things that, even if they seem completely irrelevant, the teenager is
learning how to perfect something, or they're learning how to dedicate
themselves to something, and I find that part of skateboarding really
interesting.

GROSS: You know, there's a lot of teenagers who are so outwardly sullen, and
they don't really show what they're thinking to adults, and they maybe or
maybe not show much of it even to their friends. So I guess, it feels in your
novel like you really manage to get inside the head of a teenager who, on the
whole, probably isn't very communicative; and that's how the movie feels, too.
But I wonder, how do you do that? I mean, how do you get deep inside the kind
of person who probably wouldn't be revealing very much about himself to you?

Mr. NELSON: Yeah, you know, I think for me, a lot of it is memory. I
really, for some reason, I just really remember being that age very clearly,
and I remember the separation I felt from adults. I remember the separation I
felt from my peers, even. And that's really why I write YA books, is I just
have a natural aptitude for it. And also I just find it deeply, deeply
interesting, and so I'm not sure why I can recreate it.

You know, the closest thing that happened to me to what happens in "Paranoid
Park" is once I got busted with some friends driving around with a case of
beer, and the sheriff said that, `We're going to tell your parents.' He took
our addresses off our drivers' licenses. He said, `We're going to tell your
parents.' And some of the kids said, `Well, I bet he won't tell our parents,
so don't say anything.' So I didn't say anything. And every day I would go
home thinking, `Oh, today was the day that the sheriff probably told my
parents,' and I had such dread and such angst over it. It was like the worst
thing that could've ever happened to me, in my mind; and sure enough, the
sheriff never told my parents. But for a week I just lived in this horrible
limbo of I was going to be discovered, having done this horrible thing of
driving around with a case of beer in my friend's car or whatever.

So it just--you take something like that and you extrapolate from it, and you,
in this case, exaggerate it quite a bit. And I just find things like that
interesting, because I think that if I went on, I was a businessman and I
extorted money from my company, that really wouldn't be as affecting as the
first time you had to live under the weight of a lie or whatever. And so I
just find the things that kids of that age go through are just so interesting,
because it's often the first time they're going through it. And it's really
the moment where they set the moral tone for the rest of their lives.

GROSS: Now, you've written several, you know, a bunch of young adult novels.
Some of them are from a very male point of view, like "Paranoid Park," but
some of them are from a girl's point of view, like your very first young adult
novel, "Girl." What made you decide right at the start to write from a teenage
girl's point of view?

Mr. NELSON: Well, that was an accident. I'd had a couple beers that night,
and I wanted to make--I was going to write a goof of F. Scott Fitzgerald's
"Bernice Bobs Her Hair." And in my version, it was going to be a punk rock
version, and it was going to be "Cybil Shaves Her Head." And it was going to
be basically the same story, but just updated; and instead of the bob, they
would do the head shaving. So I started goofing around with the story, and I
was totally making fun of the teenagers, and I was, you know, ruthlessly
making fun of the way they talked. And when I got done with this little short
story that I really was just writing for my own amusement, I realized that I
kind of had the best characters--this was early on in my career, when I was
just sort of starting. I realized I kind of had the best characters I'd ever
written, so I continued the story a little more and a little more and a little
more; and then the next thing I knew I had a novel. And it was very--like I
said, it started off I was making fun of the teenagers; but by the end of the
book, it had become very heartfelt and I had found my calling.

GROSS: So did you go back and rewrite it with a less mocking tone?

Mr. NELSON: Slightly, slightly. But you'd be surprised how you don't have
to, you know, the line between the sort of ridiculous and the sublime when it
comes to teenage vernacular can be pretty slim.

GROSS: Now, you write about sexuality from a male and from a female point of
view, depending on the book that you're writing, so I want to quote a little
bit from one of your male point of view books and one of your female point of
view books. In "Paranoid Park," the main character is dating a girl who is
like very, very attractive and is completely different than he is. I mean,
he's kind of, you know, inward and into skating and, you know, skateboarding,
and she's really into like, you know, nice clothes and a great hairdo and
being popular and all of that. They're terribly mismatched. And he thinks,
"She was a virgin, which meant she'd want to `do it' and some point, and then
things would get all serious. I mean, worse things can happen. I just wish I
liked her more. I wish we had more in common." And it's interesting that, to
him, the whole thought of her losing her virginity is not about how exciting
it would be for him to participate in that, you know, to deflower her, so to
speak. It's troubling to him that that would just open the door to a kind of
commitment he doesn't feel emotionally enthusiastic about.

Mr. NELSON: Yeah. Yeah.

GROSS: And then I just want to read another paragraph from his point of view.
You write--he's thinking, "She wanted to lose it tonight. She'd made up her
mind. I didn't try to stop her. I should have. The whole situation was so
weird, anyway. For most of it, I felt like I wasn't even there, like I was
outside my body floating above the whole thing. At one point I was like,
`Please, God, just let this be over. I give up. I don't know how to be
human. Everything I do is wrong.'" And this is after the accidental murder,
so, I mean, he's terribly guilty and worried and all of that; but still, you
know, this is the kind of scene, like, the losing-the-virginity scene that is
such the big scene in all the teen movies and, you know, and he's so
disengaged. I thought it was so interesting to write about it that way.

Mr. NELSON: Yeah, yeah. You know, the teenage sexual experience is so
varied, and it's so much more complicated than we think of it, you know,
looking back or, you know, judging it as adults. You know, every possible
combination of things can happen to them, just like to us. And, you know, I
remember, you know, I think that's just how he would feel. It felt like
that's a very genuine scene. And, you know, I haven't read the book in a
while, and just as you read it, I was like, `Wow, that's really sad for him.'

GROSS: And then, in your first novel, "Girl," there's a scene in which the
girl main character is making out with a boy, and she's pretty alienated, too.
She's in the car with a very popular senior, and he's put the seat down of the
car and told her what a great body she has, and she's thinking, "It was so
strange because he was Mark Pierce, senior, with a car and very cute, who
millions of girls liked. And I felt like I should like him more. And I tried
to, but it was hard in the dark when he was just this big weight grinding into
you."

Mr. NELSON: Yeah. Gosh.

GROSS: Tell me about writing that because that's such a girl's point of view
of like having this big weight on top of her grinding into her. Like, you're
a guy. Like, how would you know about that feeling?

Mr. NELSON: I just, you know, it's just life, I guess. I don't know. You
know, I just, when I write these books, I just put myself in the position of
the kid, you know, whichever sex it is or whichever person it is, and I could
just see that so clearly. You know, and I know that guys are like that, and I
know--you know, one interesting thing about switching back and forth--and I've
often told people this, because I find it sort of fascinating myself--is that
when you're writing from a girl's perspective, the boy characters start to
flatten out and they start to lose their three-dimensional-ness. And when
you're writing from the boy's perspective, the girls become like "the cute
girl," "the smart girl," "the brainy girl with the cute shoes. Like,
whichever sex you're inhabiting, the process of objectification seems to just
happen the minute you adopt the viewpoint of whichever sex you're talking
about. So when I was writing "Girl," all these boys suddenly lost their real
essence and just became "the jerk senior" or "the nerdy junior," and I found
that really interesting; and it really made me, you know, I think you need to
be sympathetic to what a girl's experience would be if you try to write a book
from a girl's perspective. Obviously you have to think about that, and if you
don't have any sensitivity to it, it's not going to be a good book. So
obviously I'm trying to do that.

GROSS: Has the whole young adult field changed a lot since you started
writing in it?

Mr. NELSON: Oh, yeah, and it's been really interesting and really fun to be
part of it. When I wrote my first book, "Girl," that wasn't published as a YA
book originally because the YA world at that time, which was 1994, was so
dead. It was like this dusty ghetto that nobody would dare go near. You
couldn't get an agent. Like agents would say on their little Web sites or
whatever they had in those days, you know, `I am interested in all kinds of
books except young adult books.' Like, there was just nothing happening.
There was no money there. There was no excitement there. Nobody wanted to
write a book like that. And in fact, my first book really was a YA book, but
of course we didn't sell it as a YA book because nobody wanted to go near
that. And there was no YA reviews in the newspapers. There was no YA reviews
in The New York Times, which has been the case even right up to two or three
years ago. And just the other day I picked up the Sunday book review, and
there was four YA books, or maybe more. There was one review that had a
couple of different books it.

And so I've had the very fun experience of having my relatively short career
as a YA writer span this weird upswing where now everybody wants to write a YA
book, you know. Sherman Alexie had his. Nick Hornby, or whatever that guy's
name is...

GROSS: Nick Hornby! Yeah, right. He wrote one, too, yeah.

Mr. NELSON: You know, he did his. Like everybody--you can't stop them now.
Everybody like, this is where the party is, and everybody's running over to
our side of the street now.

GROSS: Well, Blake Nelson, thanks a lot for talking with us.

Mr. NELSON: It was great to be here.

GROSS: Blake Nelson writes young adult novels. His book "Paranoid Park" was
adapted by Gus van Sant into the new film "Paranoid Park." Here's some music
from the soundtrack by Nina Rota, who wrote scores for several Fellini films.
I'm Terry Gross, and this is FRESH AIR.

(Soundbite of "Paranoid Park" soundtrack)

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Interview: Actress, singer and songwriter Zooey Deschanel on her
new album with M. Ward, "She and Him Volume 1," and her career
TERRY GROSS, host:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross.

It's not always good news when an actor decides to make a record, but it is in
Zooey Deschanel's case. You may have gotten a taste of her singing in the
movie "Elf," in which she starred opposite Will Ferrell. Her other movies
include "Almost Famous" and "All the Real Girls," and she's appeared on the
Showtime series "Weeds."

She recently teamed up with indie rock musician Matt Ward, who goes by the
name M. Ward. Their new CD, "She and Him Volume 1," features her original
songs and a couple of covers. The arrangements are by Ward, who's also
featured on guitar. Here's one of Deschanel's originals, "Change Is Hard."

(Soundbite of "Change Is Hard")

Ms. ZOOEY DESCHANEL: (Singing) I'm all out of luck,
But what else could I be?
I know he's yours
And he'll never belong to me again
I did him wrong
So don't brag, keep it to yourself
I did him wrong

I was never, no I was never, no I was never, no
But I can try, I can try to toughen up
I listen when they told me
If it burns, you let him go
Change is hard
I should know
I should know
I should know

(End of soundbite)

GROSS: Zooey Deschanel, welcome to FRESH AIR.

Ms. DESCHANEL: Thank you.

GROSS: Congratulations on the new CD. I really love it.

When I hear your album, here's one of the things I think about that makes me
think that you really love music and have a fairly like diverse record
collection, and that you love country music and you love jazz and you love
girl groups and the Beach Boys, and somehow like all of this is reflected in
the songs that you write and sing. The song that we opened with, "Change Is
Hard," has a country-ish sound to it.

Ms. DESCHANEL: Mm-hmm.

GROSS: And would you talk a little bit about what you were thinking about
when you wrote it, what you were thinking about musically? Or do songs just
kind of come to you?

Ms. DESCHANEL: I don't know. I guess I have certain sort of chord
progressions that I'm attracted to. I don't usually come at it from the point
of view that I'm, you know, I'm trying to be in a certain genre, which is
probably why it sort of spans a lot of genres; because I do have a diverse
music collection and my taste is kind of eclectic, so I'll just go right into
it and sort of start writing. It's sort of a spontaneous thing. And
sometimes things come out that I'm surprised--I didn't know that I had that
impulse in me, and then it just sort of comes out.

GROSS: The next song I want to play from the new CD, "She and Him Volume 1,"
is "Take It Back," another song that you wrote. And this one, I wouldn't call
it a jazz song, but it certainly sounds very influenced by jazz.

Ms. DESCHANEL: Yeah.

GROSS: Where does jazz fit in to your musical background?

Ms. DESCHANEL: Well, I grew up, especially in high school I listened to a
lot of Ella Fitzgerald and Nina Simone and Billie Holiday and Stan Getz, Chet
Baker, Anita O'Day, a lot of different jazz artists. And I think that like
when I was sort of teaching myself to play piano, I mostly would go through
the jazz the "Real Book." I had a "Real Book" and I would just go through and
play all the songs. So I think a lot of, you know, at least my knowledge of
music theory is based in jazz theory, and a lot of the writers of standards,
Rodgers and Hart and Gershwin, so a lot of my tastes are rooted in that
tradition.

GROSS: Why don't we hear "Take It Back," and this is a song by Zooey
Deschanel, and she's featured singing and at the piano. M. Ward is on
guitar. He produced the record. They perform together under the name She and
Him. And from their new album, this is "Take It Back."

(Soundbite of "Take it Back")

Ms. DESCHANEL: (Singing) Take it back, oh
Take it back
I don't want your lovin' anymore
Let me live, oh
Let me live
It's not you who I sing for
So don't sit next to me
Sit by yourself

I don't want to wonder
Whether you love me
I don't want to wonder
Whether you care
So don't try to woo me
Don't try to fool me
Oh, I know all of your tricks

It's a possibility
Of staying in my corner

(End of soundbite)

GROSS: That's Zooey Deschanel singing a song that she wrote called "Take It
Back" with M. Ward on guitar. Together, M. Ward and Zooey Deschanel perform
under the name She and Him, and they just released their first CD.

You used to have a cabaret act, right, before you were well known in movies?

Ms. DESCHANEL: Yeah.

GROSS: What was that like?

Ms. DESCHANEL: It was just basically a friend of mine. Another actress,
whose name is Samantha Shelton, and I had a cabaret act, and it was basically
just jazz standards, and we'd do a little dancing, and we had a five- or
six-piece band, depending upon who was in town. And it was just kind of
something that I liked to do when I wasn't working on movies;, and I just, I
love to sing and I love performing for people in a live setting. It does
different things for you than--you know, doing movies, you don't get the
feeling of a live audience because the crew is always just so bored of what
you're doing, and they're not allowed to laugh or do anything audibly to show
that they're enjoying what you're doing. So it's nice to have an audience
there.

GROSS: If you're just joining us, my guest is Zooey Deschanel; and of course
she's an actress, but she also sings and writes songs. There's some great
evidence of that on the new CD "She and Him," which features her and M. Ward
together collaborating.

I think a lot of people were introduced to you as a singer through the movie
"Elf," in which you sang a complete song and a couple of excerpts, including
"Santa Claus is Coming to Town." So here's what I'd like to do, I'd like to
first play the scene where you and Will Ferrell meet. And Will Ferrell, of
course, is a human being who was adopted by elves in Santa Land in the North
Pole, and he goes to New York to find his birth father. And there he works in
a department store Santa Land, where he meets you, who wrap gifts there. And
in this scene, you're in the department store. And here's you and Will
Ferrell.

(Soundbite of "Elf")

(Soundbite of music and people's voices in background)

Ms. DESCHANEL: (As Jovie) Are you enjoying the view?

Mr. WILL FERRELL: (As Buddy) You are very good at decorating that tree.

(Soundbite of tree being shaken)

Ms. DESCHANEL: (As Jovie) Why you messing with me? Did Crumpet put you up
to this?

Mr. FERRELL: (As Buddy) I'm not messing with you. It's just nice to meet
another human who shares my affinity for elf culture.

(Soundbite of laugh)

Ms. DESCHANEL: (As Jovie) I'm just trying to get through the holidays.

Mr. FERRELL: (As Buddy) Get through? Christmas is the greatest day in the
whole, wide world!

Ms. DESCHANEL: (As Jovie) Please stop talking to me.

Mr. FERRELL: (As Buddy) Uh-oh. Sounds like someone needs to sing a
Christmas carol.

Ms. DESCHANEL: (As Jovie) Go away.

Mr. FERRELL: (As Buddy) Best way to spread Christmas cheer is singing loud
for all to hear.

Ms. DESCHANEL: (As Jovie) Thanks, but I don't sing.

Mr. FERRELL: (As Buddy) Well, it's easy. It's just like talking, except
louder and longer and you move your voice up and down.

Ms. DESCHANEL: (As Jovie) I can sing, but I just choose not to sing,
especially in front of other people.

Mr. FERRELL: (As Buddy) If you sing alone, you can sing in front of other
people. There's no difference.

Ms. DESCHANEL: (As Jovie) Actually, there's a big difference.

(End of soundbite)

GROSS: Well, that's Zooey Deschanel and Will Ferrell in "Elf."

And a little later, you are, you think, alone and singing. You're in the
shower singing in the ladies' room, and unbeknownst to you, Will Ferrell is in
the ladies' room sitting on a sink, duetting with you quietly, and the sound
of the shower water is drowning him out, so you don't realize he's in there
and singing with you until the end. So let's give that a listen.

(Soundbite of "Elf")

(Soundbite of shower running)

Ms. DESCHANEL: (As Jovie, singing) So really I'd better scurry
Well, maybe just a half a drink more
The neighbors might think

Mr. FERRELL: (As Buddy, singing) Baby, it's bad out there

Ms. DESCHANEL: (As Jovie, singing) Say, what's in this drink?

Mr. FERRELL: (As Buddy) No cabs to be had out there

Ms. DESCHANEL: (As Jovie, singing) I wish I knew how

Mr. FERRELL: (As Buddy, singing) Your eyes are like starlight now

Ms. DESCHANEL: (As Jovie, singing) To break the spell

Mr. FERRELL: (As Buddy, singing) I'll take your hat, your hair looks swell

Ms. DESCHANEL: (As Jovie, singing) I ought to say no, no, no, sir

Mr. FERRELL: (As Buddy, singing) Mind if I move in closer?

Ms. DESCHANEL: (As Jovie, singing) At least I'm gonna say that I tried

Mr. FERRELL: (As Buddy, singing) What's the sense of hurting my pride?

Ms. DESCHANEL: (As Jovie, singing) I really can't stay

Mr. FERRELL and Ms. DESCHANEL: (As Buddy and Jovie, singing in unison)
Ah, but it's cold outside!

(Soundbite of faucet being turned off)

(End of soundbite)

GROSS: And then you're--turned off the shower because you're pretty alarmed
knowing that he's in there. It's such a really delightful scene. Did the
movie have that singing part in it? Was singing so important when the film
was written, or did they do that after finding out how well you could sing?

Ms. DESCHANEL: There was a singing part in the script, but it changed a lot.
I think the writers and the director were working on it when it was being
cast, and then--I know that Jon Favreau, who directed it, wanted to cast
somebody who could do something well, and I think he was open to it being
singing or, you know, something else. But then when they cast me, they knew
that I had a cabaret act and that I'd been singing all my life, and so I think
they sort of then centered my character a little bit around that and made it
more prominent.

GROSS: You know, in "Elf," you say that singing is really private, like,
yeah, you can sing, but you don't sing in front of anybody.

Ms. DESCHANEL: Mm.

GROSS: And I got the impression that writing songs for you is really private
and so it was maybe a little difficult initially to sing the songs you wrote
in public. Was that more difficult than singing Rodgers and Hart in public?

Ms. DESCHANEL: Yeah, actually it was really--I was really, really shy about
it for a really long time. I mean, I've been writing music for years and
years, but I would just sort of make these home demos that--sort of elaborate,
I mean, elaborate for me would be like, you know, I mean I would spend a long
time and then I would just let them sort of sit around. And it got to the
point where I just had so many and they were starting to sort of drive me
crazy; I mean in the sense that I wanted so badly to do something with them,
but I felt crippled by shyness about them.

And it wasn't until I met Matt that I really felt like I had found, you know,
just the right person to work with on this stuff because it, you know...

GROSS: Did he get you to hear your own songs differently?

Ms. DESCHANEL: Definitely. Definitely. I mean, there were songs that I was
like, `Oh, this is just a little ditty,' and he's like, `No, it's not! We
have to make this into a, you know, a big production.' So it was really, it
was fun to see. I mean, and then there were some things that I had written
as, you know, bigger things and then he made them more spare. And then some
of them were exactly how I pictured. But he definitely gave me a new
perspective.

GROSS: Now, was "Sentimental Heart" one of the songs that he changed, in your
mind?

Ms. DESCHANEL: Well, actually that was interesting because it was the first
song we recorded, and I was really nervous. And we were recording in a studio
in Portland with this engineer named Mike Coykendall, who's really great and
he played a lot of the instruments on the record, too. And we recorded my
voice and piano at the same time first, and Mike had filtered it through an
echo effect where you record the echo on the voice, and it made it sound
really sort of lo-fi. And then at the end, we were all sort of just, I mean,
I can't remember exactly what happened, but the idea sort of came
spontaneously to make the ending hi-fi; like to have this song that sounds
very innocent and very modest and then have it sort of introduced into a new
world, where...

GROSS: The Beach Boys world.

Ms. DESCHANEL: Yeah, exactly. And actually, just the end of that, that's me
playing drums on it because since the sort of basic track, the first track
that we recorded was me playing piano and me singing, and normally you would
probably record, you know, if you're going to use drums, you'd have drums
before you start layering things on top of it. But since it was me playing
piano, like, it's, you know, it sort of speeds up and slows down a little bit.
So the only person who could manage to like figure out the wonky rhythm was
me, so that's me playing drums at the end, which I was proud of.

GROSS: And you're probably also singing all the harmonies with yourself?

Ms. DESCHANEL: Yeah. Yeah, I sang all the harmonies on the record, pretty
much except for when Matt comes in and sings some sweet harmonies on a couple
of the songs.

GROSS: So let's hear the latter part of the opening track of "She and Him."
This is "Sentimental Heart," written and sung by my guest Zooey Deschanel, who
is also featured on drums.

(Soundbite of "Sentimental Heart")

Ms. DESCHANEL: (Singing) Cried all night till there was nothing more
What use am I as a heap on the floor?
(Unintelligible)...devotion, but it's just no good
Taking it hard just like you knew I would

Old habits die hard
When you got, when you got a sentimental heart
Piece of the puzzle, I'm your missing part
Oh, what can you do with a sentimental heart?
Aw, what can you do with a sentimental heart?
What can you do with a sentimental heart?

Ahhhhhhhh

(End of soundbite)

GROSS: That's "Sentimental Heart" from the new CD "She and Him Volume 1,"
featuring Zooey Deschanel--vocals, piano and drums--and M. Ward, guitar.

Now, you got your first music role when you were still in high school.

Ms. DESCHANEL: Mm.

GROSS: And I think you left high school the last month of your senior year to
shoot the movie "Mumford."

Ms. DESCHANEL: Yeah. Mm-hmm.

GROSS: What did you like or not like about that experience? I mean,
obviously you decided to stay in that world as a movie actress?

Ms. DESCHANEL: Well, I had an amazing experience, and I was finishing
school. I just finished high school on set. And then I--it was sort of--I
didn't know that I would get into acting so early. I thought that it would be
something that I did after college. I was all set to go to Northwestern
University, and then I auditioned for that movie and I got it; and I went up
to Santa Rosa to shoot it, and had an amazing experience, a wonderful time
working with Lawrence Kasdan. The director was just--I mean, it was a perfect
first experience because every day we'd shoot--I mean, we'd shoot, you know,
14 or 16 hours and I'd be like, `I love this! I never want to go home!' I
would get sad when they would be like, `OK, you're done for the day.' And I
would be like, `Really? Already?' It was so much fun that I didn't want to go
home. So that was a great experience.

Then I went to Northwestern University for a year, and partway through the
year I auditioned for Cameron Crowe on my spring break, and they were casting
this movie, "Almost Famous," and somebody had fallen out of the--they had it
cast, but the lead actress decided not to do it. And then Kate Hudson was
supposed to play the part of the kid sister, and then he bumped her up to the
lead role. And then there was this empty role, and they were about to shoot,
and I auditioned for it. And I found out that I had, you know, booked the
job. I shipped all my stuff home from school on a just sort of an impulse.

GROSS: Well, you did good. Let's hear your first scene in "Almost Famous."
You're walking in the door. You're still living with your mother. You're 18.
Your mother's played by Francis McDormand. As you walk in, you're wearing
this like big coat and you're kind of holding it shut as if you're covering
something up. So you walk in, your mother greets you at the door; and your
little brother, who ends up growing up and writing for Rolling Stone, is
standing in the room also listening.

(Soundbite of "Almost Famous")

Ms. FRANCES McDORMAND: (As Elaine Miller) You've been kissing.

Ms. DESCHANEL: (As Anita Miller) No, I haven't.

Ms. McDORMAND: (As Elaine Miller) Yes, you have.

Ms. DESCHANEL: (As Anita Miller) No, I haven't.

Ms. McDORMAND: (As Elaine Miller) Yes, you have. I can tell.

Ms. DESCHANEL: (As Anita Miller) You can't tell.

Ms. McDORMAND: (As Elaine Miller) Not only can I tell, I know who it is.
It's Darryl. What's you got under your coat?

(Soundbite of ruffling)

Ms. DESCHANEL: (As Anita Miller) It's unfair that we can't listen to our
music.

Ms. McDORMAND: (As Elaine Miller) It's because it is about drugs and
promiscuous sex.

Ms. DESCHANEL: (As Anita Miller) Simon & Garfunkel is poetry.

Ms. McDORMAND: (As Elaine Miller) Yes, it's poetry. It is the poetry of
drugs and promiscuous sex. Honey, they're on pot.

Ms. DESCHANEL: (As Anita Miller) First it was butter, then it was sugar and
white flour, bacon, eggs, bologna, rock 'n' roll, motorcycles. Then it was
celebrating Christmas on a day in September when you knew it wouldn't be
commercialized. What else you going to ban?

Ms. McDORMAND: (As Elaine Miller) Honey, you want to rebel against
knowledge? I'm trying to give you the Cliff Notes on how to live life in this
world.

Ms. DESCHANEL: (As Anita Miller) We're like nobody else I know.

Ms. McDORMAND: (As Elaine Miller) I am a college professor; why can't I
teach my own kids? Use me.

Ms. DESCHANEL: (As Anita Miller) Darryl says that you use knowledge to keep
me down. He says I'm a "yes" person and you are trying to raise us in a "no"
environment.

Ms. McDORMAND: (As Elaine Miller) Well, clearly no is a word Darryl doesn't
hear much.

Ms. DESCHANEL: (As Anita Miller) I can't live here! I hate you. Even
William hates you.

Mr. PATRICK FUGIT: (As William Miller) I don't hate her.

Ms. DESCHANEL: (As Anita Miller) You do hate her. You don't even know the
truth.

(Soundbite of silverware clattering)

Ms. McDORMAND: (As Elaine Miller) Sweetheart, don't be a drama queen.

Ms. DESCHANEL: (As Anita Miller) (Word censored by station)...you!

Ms. McDORMAND: (As Elaine Miller) Hey!

Ms. DESCHANEL: (As Anita Miller) This is a house of lies!

(Soundbite of door slamming)

(End of soundbite)

GROSS: That's Zooey Deschanel and Frances McDormand in a scene from "Almost
Famous," which was Zooey Deschanel's second movie.

So, you know, here's something odd that I read, you know, that you were
supposed to play Janis Joplin in a movie directed by Penelope Spheeris, who's
made a bunch of movies about punk rock. And I thought, wow, that seems so
wrong to me. You have such a kind of clear, pure voice, and she had so much
kind of growl in hers, and your body types are completely different. Like,
what were you thinking? What were they thinking?

Ms. DESCHANEL: I think that it was--they were looking for somebody who was
an actress who also could sing; and I was thinking that it would be, you know,
a really fun challenge to try to portray this person. I mean, our voices,
yes, are very different. And we were actually supposed to go, like a year and
a half ago, we were all set to make it, and it fell through due to a lot of
sort of like logistical things that I don't think I quite understand at this
point, but...

GROSS: Uh-huh.

Ms. DESCHANEL: It was a lot, a lot of work. I worked for like six months.
I mean, it's definitely very different from who I am, but I really found her
to be an interesting person once I sort of started looking into who she was.

GROSS: So I have to ask you about your name. You were named Zooey after
"Franny and Zooey," the famous J.D. Salinger story, which so many people have
read. How old were you when you read the story, and did you like it well
enough to feel good about being named after the character? Because probably
throughout your life people have been saying, `Oh, you're named after "Franny
and Zooey"?'

Ms. DESCHANEL: Yeah.

GROSS: So how old were you when you read the story, and do you like it?

Ms. DESCHANEL: I actually waited a really long time to read it because I
was--I had read all of J.D. Salinger's other works and I was sort of
terrified that I wouldn't like it and then I would be living with this, you
know, identity of a person who doesn't like their namesake. But fortunately,
I loved it when I read it; and I was 18 when I read it. I read it the summer
after I graduated from high school.

My older sister was named after Emily Dickinson and Emily Bronte, and they
wanted me to have a literary name, too; and I think they liked the name Zooey,
and they just decided to spell it that way as, you know, they loved J.D.
Salinger, and they loved that book. So that's why.

GROSS: Well, they certainly chose a different period and different form of
writing than your sister.

Ms. DESCHANEL: It's true.

GROSS: Well, Zooey Deschanel, thanks so much for talking with us, and, you
know, good luck with your new CD and...

Ms. DESCHANEL: Thank you.

GROSS: Yeah, thank you again.

Ms. DESCHANEL: It was really nice talking to you. Thank you.

GROSS: Zooey Deschanel's new CD with M. Ward is called "She and Him Volume
1." You can listen to three complete tracks from it at our Web site,
freshair.npr.org, where you can also download podcasts of our show.
Transcripts are created on a rush deadline, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of Fresh Air interviews and reviews are the audio recordings of each segment.