If you’ve tuned in to season three of Physical, you may have done a double take when a biting but bubbly blonde first appeared onscreen. No, it’s certainly not Jessica Day: It’s Zooey Deschanel in the dual role of Kelly Kilmartin, rising celebrity exercise queen, and Kelly Kilmartin, vicious inner monologue of Sheila Rubin (Rose Byrne).

“I’m kind of good and bad—I’m like a frenemy. I’m fun, mean, sweet, all these different things at once,” Deschanel says of her series regular role over the phone from her home in Los Angeles, in an interview conducted before the SAG-AFTRA strike began. “It’s definitely a competitive relationship [between Sheila and Kelly].”

Deschanel’s role in the Apple TV+ series is notable for two reasons: It’s a departure from many of her previous roles as a quirky indie darling; it’s also her first return to scripted television since the beloved Fox comedy New Girl wrapped in 2018.

Deschanel had admittedly needed a break, and she wanted to spend time with her kids—eight-year-old Elsie Otter and six-year-old Charlie Wolf. So she took two years off, then said no to everything that came her way for the next few. After the rigorous experience of filming New Girl, which sometimes shot 25 episodes per season, she wasn’t exactly in the mindset to dive back in. “It was a huge undertaking,” she says. “I couldn’t picture myself getting back into the game like that, especially not right away.”

Deschanel was so burned out, she says, that she considered never returning to TV. “I thought maybe I would just do movies, or movies and music,” she says. “I needed to give myself the time to think about how much I could really take that on.”

The lull of the pandemic gave her plenty of time to do that. As she gradually began taking on movie roles again, an opportunity to star in Physical—a show she was already a fan of—was floated her way. “I only do stuff that I’m really excited about,” she says. And she was–—and is—excited about this one. “I love the show!” says Deschanel. “Annie [Weisman], who created the show, is just a super talent. I’m a big fan of Rose Byrne. The whole cast is just so great.”

She also couldn’t ignore the allure of playing two characters. “It’s the type of thing that when you’re in acting school, you’re like, I just hope somebody would be thoughtful enough to allow me to play something really unique that’s different from who I am as a person, allow me to really sink my teeth in something,” she says.

After 25 years in Hollywood, it felt good to be in this position. Deschanel had earned praise for her quirky yet deadpan roles in films like Almost Famous, The Good Girl, Our Idiot Brother, and Elf; she became the face of the manic-pixie-dream-girl trope after starring in the rom-com 500 Days of Summer. (She notes, however, that the term wasn’t originally coined for her: It was inspired by Kirsten Dunst’s character in Elizabethtown.)

“I would never use that label to describe myself as a human being,” she says. “It was a weird moniker that was clever, that got repurposed, and somehow I became the face of it in a lot of ways. But [it’s] absolutely not what I identify as.”

Deschanel thinks the epithet proves how 500 Days of Summer was misinterpreted when it was released in 2009. The film, she points out, is told entirely from the male lead’s perspective: “Summer isn’t really given even a chance to express who she is,” she says. “She’s very objectified, and that’s dehumanizing.” That’s another reason why she doesn’t identify with the manic-pixie-dream-girl label—it inherently objectifies the person it’s describing.

Deschanel is, however, thrilled to be the face of twee, especially considering how the aesthetic has made a resurgence on TikTok of late. “I love all the girlies doing twee,” she giggles. “I’m so here for it.”

Beyond acting, Deschanel has pursued a music career, performing with M. Ward in the indie-rock duo She & Him since 2006. She’s also a co-founder of the women’s media site HelloGiggles, and she’s become passionate about democratizing the food industry, something that spurred from her first pregnancy. “It wasn't something I was ever intending to make a career move, that’s for sure,” she says. “It really came from a curiosity about what is in our food and feeling disconnected from where food grows, food is prepared. Everything feels out of sight, out of mind in many ways.”

Deschanel wants to shift the “weird attitude that healthy food is this privilege for fancy people.” She’s now cofounded several companies that share that mission: The Farm Project, which empowers people to grow food themselves and connect with local farmers; Lettuce Grow, which sells home hydroponic systems that encourage people to grow their own food; and Merryfield, an app that lets users earn points toward gift cards when they buy clean label products. In 2017, she also began releasing a short-form YouTube video series called “Your Food’s Roots,” which in turn became a launching pad for her Max food education series What Am I Eating?.

As she returned to TV in August, Deschanel also returned to film for the first time in seven years with Dreamin’ Wild, Bill Pohlad’s biopic about singer-musician brothers Donnie (Casey Affleck) and Joe Emerson (Walton Goggins). “It was very inspiring, the story of a dream lost and found again. It just reminded me of the indie movies that I started out doing,” she says.

Deschanel feels lucky to have a “renewed passion” for acting, though she also says she enjoys having an eclectic career—one where she can concentrate more on fruitful creative collaborations and great working chemistry than specific goals.

Right now, she’s also enjoying being a mom, reveling in her engagement to Property Brothers star Jonathan Scott, and planning to write another She & Him album. “The next record we make, I want to be more original, so I need to be writing,” she says. “My goal for the next year is just writing.”