WARNING: This Article May Contain Spoilers
I wasn’t too sure which had come first, Zooey’s acting or her association with She & Her, the band she formed with M. Ford. It turned that she actually started acting in 1999 and the band didn’t form until 2006. As she did not start singing in films until 2003, I wonder if her performances with the jazz cabaret act, If all the Stars were Pretty Babies, had some influence on this.
Yes Man
Those of us who have watched New Girl know that Zooey can sing because her character of Jess has a habit of breaking into song. For those who don’t know, Yes Man is about a guy who chooses to say yes to everything, almost like a social experiment and Allison, Zooey’s character in this film, becomes a key part of this from the moment Carl sees her singing with her band Munchausen by Proxy. Yeah her lyrics are really weird but her voice is wonderful even though it’s maybe not the typical singing style you would expect! Truthfully I was expecting us to hear her sing as part of her and Carl going on the karaoke date that she’d invited him too instead of being part of a band.
Elf
OK, you want to hear what Zooey’s voice really sounds like when she sings – watch this film! Even though her voice sounds great in Yes Man, it’s more ‘talk-singing’ (at least I think that’s the best way to describe it) but this is amazingly lyrical. So the first song she sings, I don’t even think stores or the radio are allowed to play anymore, is ‘Baby its Cold Outside’. Truthfully, at first I actually thought she was miming to the actual song because her voice sounded similar to Idina Menzel’s version of the song but you can tell that it’s Zooey singing. Especially when you hear “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” and “Auld Lang Syne” later in the film (the latter really doesn’t fit as it’s usually sung on New Year not Christmas). This was a film I never thought I would enjoy but I actually really loved it.
Rock the Kasbah
I have been trying and trying to watch this film for so long but can never seem to get hold of it! Zooey plays Richie Lanz’s, played by Bill Murray, receptionist at his dwindling record company. It seems she’s only working for him because he promised she would be able to start performing her own stuff but instead he has her performing cover versions. In comparison to her light tones in Elf – Zooey seems to adopt a more gritty tone to her singing voice. Richie chooses to take Ronnie on a tour of Afghanistan bases to entertain the American troops, rather against her will. At first, I was expecting this film to be a little like Begin Again which I will discuss later this year but once Ronnie bolts at the first opportunity she gets, I realised Zooey was actually going to be in this film very little – meaning the only time she sings is right at the beginning.
