Teenage angst often results in bad poetry and confessional journal entries. Did you pour all of your angst into songwriting instead?
Zooey Deschanel: We traveled a lot when I was really young. I had no friends, but I had a tiny keyboard.
M. Ward: Your friend was the keyboard. I learned how to play guitar by going through the Beatles’ anthologies. Once I learned all those chords, I basically had the ammunition to destroy the competition. [Laughs.] Those are the building blocks of every great song. Whether it’s old music or new music, I hear the Beatles. Maybe I’m crazy.
ZD: I don’t think you’re crazy! I couldn’t play more than one note at a time, so that was frustrating. I later learned about chords in school, and when I got home, I started teaching myself how to play piano. Before that, I had no way of writing down the music or recording the ideas.

Does either of you recall a moment when you first felt proud enough of your music to share it?
ZD: I got a karaoke machine in high school. I used it to experiment, in a very primitive way, with multi-track recording. I remember playing those songs for my parents.
MW: You should definitely try to dig those tapes out.
ZD: I used to have so many things that have since disappeared. It was about six years ago that I started feeling comfortable enough to play my songs for a friend. I felt super-shy when I first started, but I got comfortable fast. The music is so organic, and such a true representation of myself, that it didn’t take long for me to feel really at ease.

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Why you have to be careful about acting with your sister.
“I think that both of us like to let each other have our space. The one thing that I fear about working with a family member is not getting along. You always want to make sure you don’t have any silly bickering or anything like that on the set. I mean, we don’t really do that so much anymore, but you always worry that little family things might come up.”

She needn’t have worried.
“I was hesitant. I just wanted to make sure that everything was right. But, it ended up being really fun. I was glad I did it. We had a really good time and we definitely cracked up a lot. Unfortunately, sometimes it was on camera.”

Emily was in charge though.
“She was essentially my boss for a couple days because she’s one of the producers of the show. But we’ve never really competed because we’re so different and we’re attracted to different things. I know that if we were up for the same thing, I would be happy if they chose her and she’d probably feel the same way about me.”

Why she’d never make it as a Bones regular.
“I don’t really like gory stuff. It makes me uncomfortable. I don’t like fake blood; it gives me the creeps. I haven’t really done any movies with a lot of fake blood or anything like that. Emily seems fine with it, which is good because every week she’s around gross things.”

Growing up it was easy to tell them apart.
“Emily was sort of moody and cool, very kind of aloof. I was very boisterous and always on. I was the energetic one and kind of crazy to the point where I was sometimes a little bit out of my mind. Whatever I thought came out of my mouth. Now, I just am completely different. I can’t explain it, but my personality changed quite a bit just with age.”

Married life is good.
“I think we both were always pretty romantic, but it’s just that now it feels like everything is better. I think being married is great. I make him breakfast and he cleans up. I think I’m going to keep him.”

The story that won’t go away.
“When I was like two or three years old I was stomping around our hotel room and yelling because I had an ear infection. I was so mad and my parents kept saying, Shhhhh.’ I said, ‘Don’t you shush me.’ My mother loves to tell that about me. I used to try to stop her, but I’ve finally given up. It does make me sound like a little brat.”

Having parents in the biz [dad Caleb is an Oscar-winning cinematographer and mom Mary Jo starred in Twin Peaks]
“Both of them were able to follow their own dreams. I don’t think they felt like, since show business has been good to them, it would be to me and Emily. They were just like, ‘Whatever makes you happy.’ They’ve always been very understanding and supportive.”

Advice from her mother.
“She was like, ‘Wear blush. Always wear blush.’ That was one. She said ‘Wear lipstick’ too, but I don’t always follow that one.”

Why has it taken you this long to appear on screen together?
Zooey: “We have different career paths and it seems weird, but it’s difficult to schedule. I’d talked about doing a Bones episode for a couple of years but it never ended up working out because with films you get a job and sometimes have to leave the next week. I think we both like having our own space and the one thing I would fear about working with a family member is you want to make sure you don’t bring any silly bickering or family things to set, although we don’t really do that anymore. I just wanted to make sure everything was right and it was really fun – Emily was extremely welcoming and accomodating and very sweet. I’m glad I did it.”

What was it like working together?
Emily: “It was great, especially on the first day because it wasn’t that hectic. We had a scene that was just Ryan O’Neal and the two of us, which was really nice. We’ve never worked together before except our own plays we’ve done together!”
Zooey: “It was really fun to watch Emily work and I enjoyed it and I’m excited to see the episode.”

How involved were you both with helping devise Zooey’s character?
Emily: “Hart [Hanson] came to me with the idea of a Christmas episode. He told me some things about it and that she would be my relative.”
Zooey: “I was nervous because I’ve never signed on to anything without reading or knowing what the character is first, so it was a little scary for me! Obviously I knew all the writers on the show are really good and they weren’t going to hang me out to dry, but it was a leap of faith which I’m not used to. They were very receptive and let me give some of my ideas and we were able to come up with a cool character.”

Is there any chance of Zooey returning to the show in the future?
Zooey: “It’s Emily’s set, so…”
Emily: “We’d love to have you back any time! I think it is open-ended and it’s open-ended for a reason. It took us five seasons to figure out when Zooey could come on the show so it may take another five seasons for her to come back!”
Zooey: “Season ten!”
Emily: “We’re so happy it worked out. It was something we have been trying to do from the beginning, it’s just scheduling that is hard.”

Read the rest of the interview at Digital Spy.

The new album was recorded in Portland and Los Angeles over the past year-and-a-half, and will feature all-new original material penned by actress/chanteuse Zooey Deschanel and produced by M. Ward. “I think that the dark shades that were on the last record are maybe a little bit darker on the new record, and the brighter shades on the last record are a little bit brighter on the new record,” Ward tells Paste. “I think that people are going to hear more contrasts, which is always something that I shoot for in the studio.”

Volume One was essentially recorded in a vacuum free of outside pressure and expectations, an atmosphere that the duo tried to recreate for Volume Two. “I think we approached the second record organically, the same as we did for the first record,” Deschanel tells Paste. “But the songs are different so the record is different. We had a bit more time and resources so we were able to work a little deeper.”

After almost two years of balancing She & Him recording sessions and nationwide touring with their other endeavors (like Ward’s solo work and side-projects including Monsters of Folk, and Deschanel’s recent roles in movies including 500 Days of Summer) the two are still finding new reasons to be excited about their once-seemingly-unlikely musical partnership.

“Zooey writes pretty often and she doesn’t need any sort of encouragement,” Ward says. “What I wanted to do was to show more dimensions to Zooey’s writing, and I’m excited for people to hear the record because I think it’s going to continue to show the strength of her writing.”

Read the rest of the interview here.

HQ stills of Zooey’s appearance on Bones have been added to the gallery, thanks to Britt!

MTV: You guys are here for a special reason today. We’re taking a look back at the things we’re thankful for this year, and thanks to your work individually and in “(500) Days of Summer,” you are two of the people we are most thankful for. Do you have a speech prepared?
Joseph Gordon-Levitt: Uh, no. Should I?
Zooey Deschanel: I knew to have a speech! No, I didn’t. I’m excited though.

MTV: This isn’t the first blush with success for either of you, but does 2009 feel like a particularly special year?
Gordon-Levitt: I think so. 2009 started at Sundance for me. “(500) Days of Summer” premiered there, and that was the first time everybody saw it. And a short film I made called “Sparks” played at Sundance, and then Barack Obama became president, which was one of the more cathartic, emotionally reinforcing, positive experiences I’ve really ever had. It feels like a special year.
Deschanel: It’s a very special year. It’s the end of the aughts, which is sad.
Gordon-Levitt: The end of the aughts! Thank you, I’ve been looking for the name of this decade, and I haven’t known what it was.

MTV: So, for you especially, Zooey, the aughts were essentially the decade when you came of age as an actress, when you essentially got started. Is it bittersweet to see your first decade as an actress come to an end?
Deschanel: It’s exciting. I have to say, Sundance 2001, Joe and I had to be there with “Manic.” I’ve been so lucky to work with Joe twice. Book-ending the aughts. And hopefully, it will be more frequent.
Gordon-Levitt: Into the teens. And the ’20s.
Deschanel: And the ’20s and the ’30s and ’40s and the ’50s. And we’ll live to a million by that point, because they’ll have all kinds of drugs to keep us alive.
Gordon-Levitt: Of course, because we’ll be cyborgs.

Read the interview in full here.