- - Zooey Deschanel Remembers Friend Rob Reiner as 'Fatherly to All of Us': 'He Gave Great Advice' (Exclusive)

Liz McNeilDecember 19, 2025 at 2:54 PM

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Rob Reiner and Zooey Deschanel on "New Girl" -

Zooey Deschanel remembers her friend and New Girl costar Rob Reiner: "He was so kind"

She and Reiner developed a warm rapport off screen: "He was fatherly to all of us," she says

Deschanel last saw him at the Spinal Tap II premiere in September: "It felt like he's just gonna keep making more amazing movies"

Working with Rob Reiner was an honor Zooey Deschanel will always remember.

"He was just one of those people where you think, 'I cannot believe I get to work with this person,' " says Deschanel, who costarred with the actor/director on the series New Girl for six years, when he played her onscreen dad. "He was so kind. He was fatherly to all of us."

"Everybody in the New Girl community loved him,” adds Deschanel. “Actors from the show— everyone from the show is devastated."

The beloved director, 78, was found dead alongside his wife Michele, 70, inside their Los Angeles home on Sunday, Dec. 14. The couple's son Nick, 32, has since been charged with two counts of first-degree murder in connection with their deaths.

Deschanel paid tribute to the actor in an Instagram post on Monday, Dec. 15, writing: "My heart is broken. Rob Reiner was the absolute warmest, funniest, most generous of spirits."

Zooey Deschanel/Instagram

Zooey Deschanel and Rob Reiner

They met when the show launched in 2011. “He actually went to college with my mom," says Deschanel of her mother, Mary Jo Deschanel, and Reiner, who both attended UCLA in the '60s.

“When [the show] was first on, they were talking about the possibility of him playing my dad or directing an episode and he came over and said hello," she recalls. "He had his sweet daughter [Romy] with him and I was so excited. Not only was it such an honor to get to work with him but also Spinal Tap was such a huge part of my life.”

The two bonded over a shared love of singing, storytelling and Spinal Tap, his 1984 mockumentary, which Deschanel discovered at an early age.

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Rob Reiner, Zooey Deschanel and Jamie Lee Curtis on "New Girl"

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“I was 7 years old and we were living In the Seychelles, off the east coast of Africa on the smallest of the inhabited islands, and there was no TV," she recalls. (At the time, her cinematographer father, Caleb Deschanel, was making a film there.)

"There was a tiny store that was the size of a small room, and they had a video club, and it had two videos. Half of Gandhi and This Is Spinal Tap. I think I saw that movie a hundred times,” she adds with a laugh. “I just fell in love with that humor. There's nothing else like it.”

Once she began working with Reiner, she fell in love with his one-of-a-kind stories as well — "a million incredible stories," as she says.

“One day, we spent the whole day eating ice cream, and he would just tell stories about all his movies, his family, his dad (Carl Reiner). He told stories about growing up in the Bronx. All these people who ended up becoming famous grew up on the same block. Penny Marshall, Carl Reiner.... a community of people making comedy at a particular moment.”

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Rob Reiner on March 22, 2025

Playing her father on the TV show, translated into their warm relationship off camera.

“He wanted everyone to do their best," she says. "He was playful and up for anything. His character had a barbershop quartet on the show and we sang some Christmas carols with them. He had a really good voice. He was just like, 'Yeah, let's do it.' ”

“He gave great advice," she adds. "He had this thing about him where he really wanted everyone to succeed. He was very encouraging, always interested in what I was doing, and I remember, happy to hear about my kids.” (Deschanel is mom to Elsie, 10, and Jacob, 8, her children from her second marriage to Jacob Pechenik.)

His movies made a large impact on her as well. “I can't believe he had the run that he had," she says. "He was a true storyteller. Broad comedy and serious dramas and everything in between. If he had just done one of them, it would've been career-making, and he didn't have an ego about it. He wasn't full of himself in any way.”

The last time she saw him was in September at the Spinal Tap II premiere. “He was so happy to see us and so excited to hear about everything that's going on," she says. "You were just enveloped by warmth when you were around him."

"The sequel was so great and funny, and it was like, oh God, he did it again!" she continues. "He made something else that was so great and it felt like he's just gonna keep making more amazing movies."

"He had so many things that he cared about, beyond being an artist,” she adds. “He was working on Prop 8 [to legalize same-sex marriage] when we were doing New Girl. He was very committed to making sure gay people could get married just like everybody else and very committed to that early childhood education. A really great person.”

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Source: “AOL Entertainment”