A little over two years ago, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel graced the screen together in what became one of the best indie sleeper hits in years, (500) Days of Summer. The two were already rising stars at the time, and the brilliance of the film boosted their careers even further, with Gordon-Levitt going on to star in Inception, this year’s 50/50, and next year’s The Dark Knight Rises, and Deschanel starting up her own Golden Globe-nominated TV series, New Girl.
One of the many great things about (500) Days of Summer was its soundtrack, which included both of the two stars – Gordon-Levitt providing a drunken rendition of Here Comes Your Man, and Deschanel singing Sugar Town solo and Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want with her band, She & Him.
To celebrate the coming New Year, which is just a few hours away, the duo have reunited for a duet of Nancy Wilson’s What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve? and it’s lovely. If you enjoyed their terrific chemistry in (500) Days of Summer, you’re going to love this.
Random trivia: The film wasn’t in fact the first time they’d starred together. Rewind eight years and you might remember they were opposite each other as teenagers in Manic, a much darker film than (500) Days, but one that I’d highly recommend if you have a chance to see it. [For the record, I did see Manic before reading Deschanel’s following description for the new video. Random film trivia is always useful to have in your back pocket.]
“I have known Joe Gordon-Levitt for going on 12 years. We first met in the summer of 2000 while doing a tiny movie called Manic, where we bonded over a mutual appreciation for Harry Nilsson and Nina Simone and I have been lucky enough to call him one of my dearest friends ever since. When we did 500 Days of Summer 8 years later, we spent every lunch hour dancing to Marvin Gaye in the hair and make up trailer; we had loads of fun. I hope to do a thousand more movies with him because he’s simply the best. But in the meantime, we made a little New Year’s duet for all of you! The original by Nancy Wilson. ENJOY!
Don’t forget to check out Joe’s website http://hitrecord.org/
New Girl is back January 17 (my birthday) !”
As Deschanel notes, she’ll be returning with her TV series in the New Year. (I think I’m right in saying that it will be starting on Channel 4 here in the UKon Friday 6th January, at 8:30pm. But you can catch the first episode here on 4oD already.)
Gordon-Levitt is set to have a fantastic year next year, and we should be getting to see him no less than four times at the cinema. First up is of course The Dark Knight Rises on 20th July, followed by Premium Rush on 21st September. Then just a week later (September will be a great month for JGL fans) will come Looper, followed byLincoln, which is expected to be released in December next year. And if his schedule allows, we might even see him in Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained opposite his Inception co-star, Leonardo DiCaprio.
Before all that, of course, here’s the brilliant new song from the pair to enjoy, as well as a brilliant image of them together via HelloGiggles, who are hosting the video. They really do know how to sing; these harmonies are beautiful. Hopefully we can look forward to more duets in the coming year.
Thanks to THR for the tip-off.
[yframe url=’http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSq1cez_flQ’]
