Zooey Deschanel

For a while I was like, “Oh my God, anyone that would release an album as an actor is the biggest fool ever”, but I happened to have sung all my life before I was an actor. Why are musicians allowed to become actors? No one ever gives them flack for that.

I love old music, old movies, screwball comedies, vintage clothes and basically I’m an old-fashioned gal.

I can do the Chipmunk voice and impressions of Judy Garland, Debbie Reynolds and Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music. I could probably do the whole Von Trapp family.

You have to keep reminding yourself it’s not about money, because there is a lot of money to be made in this business if you’re willing to do whatever. But that’s not what I’m thinking about. I continue only to take movies because I love the script and because I really want to do it.

It’s an addiction. I love clothes. I like to go down Melrose and look in all the windows and I go to different flea markets. I have lots of costumes. You never know when you’re going to have to dress up like a milkmaid from the 1600s.

I don’t really like to go out very much. I’m not scandalous. I’m not, like, in this to be famous. I also find it so embarrassing when you read about people and it’s like they were so trashed at Skybar and stumbling around. I don’t want to be that person. That’s just so embarrassing to have that written about you.

Latinos are here to stay. As citizen Raquel, I’m proud to be Latina.

[on Mae West] I do think she was a spectacular talent. There’s no question she was a comedic genius, but I did, in person, actually feel like she was some kind of a dockworker in drag.

The mall is my life.

The only reward for anything is food.

Fame always brings loneliness. Success is as ice cold and lonely as the North Pole.

I would say that one of your greatest accomplishments, Amy Poehler, is that you have so successfully used your art and comedy as a source of positivity in the world, by creating Smart Girls [an online community for girls, encouraging them to be their authentic selves], by making [Leslie in] Parks and Rec not only a positive feminist character but creating a good-hearted worldview within that program.

My mission is to let all women know you don’t have to be like Paris Hilton and shoot a sex tape and three weeks later you have a reality show. You don’t (have) to be like Kim and shoot a sex tape and do Playboy and become this so-called superstar from having a sex tape. Just focus on your talent, the positive things of life that you do!

I want to let my fans get to know a little about me. I’m very thankful for everything they’ve done for me so, of course, I’m going to let them into my world a bit. But I really am a very private person, and I love keeping my life to myself-that’s how I’ve always been.

I get most of my news from the Jon Stewart Daily Show. It’s the most level commentary you can find. You have to laugh, because it’s all so true. It’s the closest thing to a counterculture.

Starting a new studio was a thrilling challenge, but it was more stressful than fun. I never took a salary, a bonus or expenses. I learned never to do anything you’re not passionate about.

When I was a kid, I’d be there in the stands thinking: ‘Come on Wolves, do it for me!’….And here I am again: ‘Come on Wolves,’ pleading with a borrowed laptop!

Someone once said that to make a regular person laugh, you need to dress a guy up like an old lady and push him down the stairs. To make a comedy writer laugh, you have to push a real old lady down the stairs. I don’t know who that’s attributed to. I think it’s Aristophanes. Or Catherine the Great.

I thought coq au vin was love in a lorry.

It’s nice to be important, but it’s important to always be nice.

Yeah, it’s tough being smart and sexy, too. I have to say, I’m really not that attractive. Until I met my husband, I could not get a date. I promise you it’s true. My husband Jeff Richmond saw a diamond in the rough and took me in.