A few days after Christmas 2011, the American actress Zooey Deschanel uploaded a music clip collabing with her A-List co-star to her YouTube channel, HelloGiggles. Over 10 years on, this old school, webcam recorded video clip is still going viral on the site; a super-sweet rendition of jazz track, “What Are You Doing New Year’s Eve?” and the ultimate throwback to YouTube’s golden age.
In this lo-fi, unedited clip, Zooey sits alongside Joseph Gordon-Levitt (later the lead star of 2016’s “Snowden”) holding her ukulele, with a black-tie dressed Joseph ready with his guitar. A snappy intro preludes the duo’s unexpectedly amazing acoustic track, sung live in one simple take from a bedroom.
While Zooey’s styling, ukulele and cluttered, homey backdrop and struggle to hit the stop button at the end scream everything old-school YouTube, their song choice is absolutely timeless – Ella Fitzgerald’s 1960 Christmas swing hit, composed in 1947 by Frank Loesser, the New Yorker who also composed, “Baby, It’s Cold Outside.”
Despite starring in two movies together (2001’s “Manic” and the 2009 rom com “500 Days of Summer”), Music Man readers might be shocked to find the pair just as brilliant together in song, crafting their tones around classic jazz while keeping their cover super cute. It’s always awesome to see actors show off their other skills, but the persisting friendship between these two makes it unsurprising that the clip’s gone viral, amassing over 23 million views to date.
Zoeey shared the oddly charming story behind this particular collab and the duo’s love for vintage jazz in her video description, revealing, “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!”
But while the pair’s evident chemistry and comments section flooded with comments adoring the could-be couple, the pair never actually dated; Zooey, now 44, is engaged to Canadian TV host Jonathan Scott and Joseph tied the knot back in 2014.