What’s Happening with Zooey Deschanel? The alternative darling—who rose to fame in Almost Famous—stars in M. Night Shyamalan’s new summer creep-fest and has just made her first record. Visibly shy, frightened of stages, she’s nonetheless hopping on the roller coaster.

It is a warm early spring day in Los Angeles and the rest of the city is already in flip-flops and too-short Abercrombie minis. But 28-year-old Zooey Deschanel arrives for tea dressed in stylish, high-waisted jeans, a pretty white blouse, and a soft, tweedy jacket. She wears pinkish socks with her sandals and no makeup. The effect is that of a student at the Sorbonne rather than of an actress who is on the verge of her major breakthrough, an image that is only reinforced when she begins to speak.