Even as a Zooey Deschanel enthusiast – that is, someone who not only owns her delightful album She & Him but also sat through her lame SciFi Channel miniseries Tin Man, in which she was kind of terrible – I’m having trouble working up any interest in seeing her in The Happening. But I’m happy to read any interviews with her on the subject, just in case she has any goofy observations about M. Night Shyamalan to offer.
Unfortunately, she doesn’t have much dirt to dish in this chat with Premiere. “I love his movies,” she says of the man called Night. “I think he's really, really talented… I think he just keeps it close, you know. And for good reason, because I think people are too curious sometimes, like they want to read the script before the movie comes out… I'm sure that feels like someone's trying to take something away from you when you're trying to entertain people and everyone's just trying to undermine the entertainment.”
As for accusations that her Happening character is ditzy – which, to be fair, is a word that comes to mind to describe more than one of her roles – Deschanel says, “If it came off that way, I think there was some subconscious way I was nudging the character, obviously, that brought it to that. I wouldn't describe her as ditzy; I think she is extremely neurotic, which maybe can come off [as ditzy] — you know, some people might describe it as ditzy, but she's neurotic and she's nervous and she's dealing with a situation that's beyond her understanding. Because even well-informed people wouldn't know how to respond to the situation.”
Of course, she has to be purposefully vague about what that situation is, as is the Shyamalan way. The Happening may be Deschanel’s first true blockbuster role, but don’t look for her to become an action hero any time soon. “It was tiring. It was a lot of running. I hurt my leg towards the end, which I didn't want to tell anybody about. I was sort of like, pretending like it didn't happen. But then the last day I was limping and Night was like, ‘What's wrong with you?!’ and I was like, ‘I can't walk!’ He was like, ‘Stop limping! What's wrong with you?’ I'm like, ‘I pulled a muscle!’ But yeah, it was a lot of running.”
Related:
And Now a Little Something for the Zooey Deschanel Enthusiasts
M. Night Shyamalan Straight Up, Hold the Twist
