Zooey Deschanel has been pretty busy lately. Last year, she and her producer husband Jacob Pechenik got married and welcomed their daughter Elsie Otter into the world. Besides all that, she’s also starring in the new animated film “Trolls,” which she apparently had to learn to rap for–and continues to star in the TV show “New Girl.”
Deschanel opened up about juggling it all in Cosmopolitan, namely revealing why she took a break from social media, stating:
“A lot of very strange, tragic, sad, unfathomable things have happened … to the point where you’re like, no amount of thoughts and prayers can make this better. It makes me more reflective. I took a social-media break because everyone feels the need to comment on everything immediately. Sometimes, we need to be thoughtful about what we say.
When I was growing up, I always thought the world would get less bigoted, less racist, and people would be more open-minded. For a while, I thought that was happening, but it’s been very scary the last few years. I really, truly believe that people are basically good in nature, and in the end, that prevails.”
What she said resonates with me a lot, because I do think the media world suffers from “call out” culture–and namely, people forget that there are actual real-live humans behind a screen, not just an avatar. We could all remember this when we post comments and read articles–because thinking about something for an extra few minutes could not only save some hurt feelings, but actually allow us to examine situations as deeply as we should.
Deschanel also got pretty honest–about maternity leave–and how it basically sucks. It is embarrassing that the United States ranks as one of the worst first world countries to give paid maternity leave, according to Forbes. While she acknowledges that she’s lucky to have an employer who grants her paid maternity leave, not every mom (or parent) has this:
“We live in a country that doesn’t give paid maternity leave. I felt very lucky to have an employer who was understanding and let me have, like, four months with my baby before I had to go back to work.”
That being said, she’s been having some fun with her work with “Trolls,” namely recording a rap verse for a remix of Diana Ross’s “I’m Coming Out” for the film with Justin Timberlake:
“They were like, are you ready to rap? I was like, uhhh… Justin Timberlake was producing it. He was there, and obviously, I have great admiration for the man. I didn’t want to screw it up, but the one thing I can’t do is that. It was really scary, but Justin was a great coach.”
Get it, girl.
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