Zooey Deschanel Just Got Way More Busy

Zooey Deschanel is best-known at this very moment for playing the frequently polka-dot-sporting Jessica Day on New Girl, but girl's got a life behind the scenes, too: She's already billed as a producer on New Girl, as well as as one of the founding editors over at Hello Giggles. Now, those two are combining, because Zooey Deschanel and Hello Giggles partner Rivka Sophia Rossi have just sold two comedy shows to the television gods.

Rossi and Deschanel have a first look deal with 20th Century Fox, which has led to them selling two shows — one to Fox, on which New Girl airs, and one to NBC. “We’ve known Zooey as an actress through New Girl, and as we got to know her as a producer through the script she developed, we quickly realized that there is so much more to her,” Gary Newman, chairman of 20th TV said back when Deschanel and Rossi first signed the initial deal. “Zooey and Sophia have their finger on the pulse of young people and particularly young women, and we really responded to that.” This confidence has produced Freelancers for Fox, written by Mickey Rapkin, the GQ senior editor who wrote the non-fiction version of Pitch Perfect that went on to be turned into the movie. This is the synopsis, according to Deadline:

It centers a on a disgraced and newly-single lawyer who, after getting fired from his corporate job, has to start over at age 30. He sets up shop at one of those modern, shared office spaces that are suddenly everywhere, where he’s forced to interact with a diverse group of oddball freelancers.

The other Deschanel-produced property is NBC's And Lies I Tell My Daughter, based off of Julia Obst's Hello Giggles column and written by Girls writer Deb Schoeneman. The synopsis:

It centers on an unconventional mom finds that honesty is not always the best policy when it comes to her new family.

It sounds like Hello Giggles is certainly doing well for itself. Deschanel is certainly on a role — New Girl has never been so beloved as when they got the Nick and Jess plot-line rolling — so it'll be interesting to see where these new shows go.