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"  Less a love story and more a meditation on love and how to go about surviving it, (500) Days of Summer tells the story of the romance between Tom and Summer, played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel. Tom, a hopelessly romantic greeting-card writer, falls for wide-eyed Summer, the new girl in the office who happens to love his favorite Smiths&amp;#039; songs.  Music is a big part of this charming little comedy. The film&amp;#039;s director, Marc Webb, directed an impressive collection of music videos before making the leap to the big screen. And the film&amp;#039;s soundtrack offers an eclectic mix of current indie acts like Black Lips and Doves, along with pop standards from the likes of Hall &amp;amp;amp; Oates and Simon &amp;amp;amp; Garfunkel.  Deschanel&amp;#039;s band, She &amp;amp;amp; Him, a collaboration with singer/songwriter M. Ward, covers a Smiths&amp;#039; track, too. We sat down to talk with her about (500) Days of Summer and how she balances her two careers.  ESQUIRE: How did you get started recording music with M. Ward?   ZOOEY DESCHANEL: Well, he had done music for a film that I was in [The Go-Getter]. The director wanted us to do a duet for the soundtrack for the end of the film. So we got together and recorded it, and we had such a great time, and we had a little extra recording time, and we recorded another song. He kept asking to hear my songs that I had written, because I had been writing songs for a long time and kind of hiding them away. Finally I sent him maybe like six songs to see what he thought, and he e-mailed me back and was like, &amp;quot;I love &amp;#039;em, let&amp;#039;s make a record.&amp;quot;  ESQ: When you&amp;#039;re on stage, is it a similar experience to performing in front of the camera?  ZD: No, not at all, because I write music. I don&amp;#039;t just write the lyrics, I write all the music. It&amp;#039;s very much a piece of myself when I write a song. I don&amp;#039;t mean to say it&amp;#039;s very personal, like the lyrics mean something personal to me. When I write a song, that&amp;#039;s my taste in music \u2014 my taste in chord progressions and melodies. And when I&amp;#039;m in the studio, I&amp;#039;m collaborating with Matt \u2014 it&amp;#039;s really only a couple of people I&amp;#039;m collaborating with.  In a film, you have writers and a director and a lot of people in the crew, a lot of other actors \u2014 you&amp;#039;re collaborating with a hundred people. And there&amp;#039;s already a story before I get there. I get there and do my job, but the spectrum of creativity that I display in a film is a lot narrower. The music&amp;#039;s just a lot more like an actual piece of me. ESQ: What instruments do you play?  ZD: Piano and guitar. I can kind of play a little bit of ukulele and pedal steel guitar. ESQ: Do you prefer one over the other when you&amp;#039;re writing songs?  ZD: Well, I mainly write on the piano, because most of my music theory knowledge is based on piano. But I write on guitar a lot, too. I&amp;#039;m not a great guitar player by any means. I&amp;#039;m not a great instrumentalist. I play piano on stage. I don&amp;#039;t play guitar on stage, but I use it to write quite a lot. ESQ: But which is your favorite?  ZD: Well, my piano&amp;#039;s really beautiful. I actually have two pianos. I have a Yamaha upright from the &amp;#039;60s that&amp;#039;s blond, wood, and black, and I also have one from the &amp;#039;20s from Chicago \u2014 not a well-known brand or anything. I have a banjo ukulele from the &amp;#039;20s that&amp;#039;s beautiful. And then I have a 1952 Martin guitar, acoustic. I have some really awesome things. ESQ: Do you have like a favorite song that you perform?  ZD: I like performing them all for different reasons, but it&amp;#039;s always fun to perform the more up-tempo songs because audiences really respond to it.  ESQ: In (500) Days of Summer, did the director ever tell you during the filming, &amp;quot;This is a song that&amp;#039;s going to play in the background right now?&amp;quot;  ZD: He did. We pretty much knew what was going to be playing, which was helpful, because you don&amp;#039;t always know that. Sometimes music is so specific that it can definitely change how you&amp;#039;re going to play something. ESQ: Were you singing live during the karaoke scenes?  ZD: No, it was prerecorded. Prerecording&amp;#039;s weird, just because \u2014 it&amp;#039;s weird, but you have to do it because otherwise it&amp;#039;s really difficult to cut together. I understand, but I&amp;#039;ve done it so many times it&amp;#039;s totally fine. ESQ: Do you have any tricks of the trade to be a convincing lip-syncer?  ZD: I&amp;#039;m really not sure that I&amp;#039;m that good at it \u2014 at lip-synching. I don&amp;#039;t think I am. ESQ: What bands are you excited about currently?  ZD: Do you know the band Lavender Diamond? They&amp;#039;re great. They sound like... they&amp;#039;re sort of like folk-pop, kind of. Really great. But it&amp;#039;s also poppy. It&amp;#039;s not just like folk. It was one of my favorite records that came out last year. ESQ: Aside from the Smiths song that you covered for the soundtrack, is there one song that makes you think, &amp;quot;Damn, I wish I wrote that song?&amp;quot;  ZD: Oh my god, there are so many songs I wish I had written. &amp;quot;Waters of March,&amp;quot; I wish I had written &amp;quot;My Baby Just Cares for Me,&amp;quot; I wish I had written &amp;quot;This Will Be Our Year,&amp;quot; I mean, there&amp;#039;s millions of them. &amp;quot;Wouldn&amp;#039;t It Be Nice?&amp;quot; RELATED LINKS:  MOVIE REVIEW: (500) Days of Summer Is a Romantic Comedy for Men  STYLE PORTFOLIO: Joseph Gordon-Levitt in Summer Suits &amp;amp;amp; Sportswear  EARLIER: Why Zooey Deschanel Is an Underutilized Actress  GALLERIES: Dozens of Women We Love   "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/entertainment/interviews/a6111/zooey-deschanel-gallery-071709/>