ZOOEY

Zooey Deschanel has gotten her share of shade for not blending in. But that's exactly the quality you need to thrive, she says-and she credits it with powering her as a comedic actress, singer, and cofounder of multiple companies.

- LIZ BRODY

I wonder if there's something about me that makes people not want to cast me," muses Zooey Deschanel. She's never been good at auditions-or pitching investors, for that matter. What's driven her success as both an actress and entrepreneur is much harder to quantify or replicate, which is why David Mayer nervously got on a Zoom with her a year and a half ago.

Mayer had been building Merryfield, a platform that incentivizes and rewards people for buying clean, "better for you" products. The business he envisioned would not only give more shoppers access but also help health and wellness brands reach an entirely new customer base. The question now was how to get Merryfield in front of that wider market to deliver on his promise. The more he looked for the right solution, the more he zeroed in on Deschanel as a cofounder.

Her popularity as an actress was huge not to mention she starred in his kids' favorite holiday movie, Elf. But she'd also co-founded a media company called HelloGiggles, which sold to Time Inc. for a reported $30 million, as well as Lettuce Grow, a fresh-food startup that's now doing a healthy business. Perhaps, even more, Deschanel is known for the kind of relatable, non-judgy credibility he desperately wanted for Merryfield.

It turned out to be a good fit. "Obviously there's a series of moments where certain things clicked, but you know, again, I started HelloGiggles with two of my friends-" Deschanel says today, and then she's off, skating into a tangent, which is the way she often operates. Business, body love, food, and privilege-she covers it all, axeling and landing before circling back to the topic that's been obsessing her for years now, which is making good things accessible. And then you realize: It's not a tangent at all, but rather the sum of what drives her as an entrepreneur.