Zooey Deschanel is sharing some behind-the-scenes facts about her New Girl character, Jessica “Jess” Day’s iconic first kiss with Nick Miller (Jake Johnson).
During a July 2026 interview on the Zach Sang Show, Deschanel, who starred on New Girl throughout its seven-season run until its 2018 finale, was asked if she agreed with some fans who believe Nick and Jess’s “first kiss scene [is] the greatest kiss scene in TV history.”
“I can’t say. I haven’t seen like every episode of television. It was a pretty good one though,” said Deschanel.
Deschanel then shared that the Season 2, Episode 15 (“Cooler”) scene was expertly choreographed.
“We were like, ‘Let’s block it.’ I mean it’s, again, it’s like music, it’s dynamics,” said the actress during the interview.
She then explained that she, Johnson, the writers, and directors wanted there to be tension in the scene. They decided that the best course of action was to have Jess start walking back to her bedroom before Nick pulled her in.
“It was almost like scientific because the writers and then Jake and me and we’re like trying to figure out like the best way was to have her start to walk away and him grab her. There’s many ways kisses happen on screen and you know, creating a dynamic moment is a little bit more challenging because kissing is not that exciting, right? Even if you’ve been like waiting for this kiss forever,” explained the She & Him singer.
During the interview, Deschanel shared that the scene “was a really big moment” on set. According to Deschanel, “ton of writers,” the show’s creator Liz Meriwether, and the comedy’s co-showrunners, Brett Baer and Dave Finkel, were watching her and Johnson film the romantic moment.
“I think we had like three-quarters of the writing staff on set for that because it was such an important moment,” recalled Deschanel.
Zooey Deschanel and Jake Johnson Discussed Their Characters’ First Kiss During a 2014 Panel
In a 2014 panel at the Paley Center for Media, Deschanel and Johnson discussed filming the season 2 kissing scene. According to Deschanel, the episode’s original script didn’t end with Jess and Nick’s kiss. She also noted that most of “Cooler” involves Nick refusing to give Jess a kiss during the group’s drinking game, True American.
“It was interesting because we did the table read and the whole episode, the kiss wasn’t in it. And the whole episode was like, Jess is so annoying. So, I was like, ‘Great, I feel very unattractive,'” quipped Deschanel during the 2014 panel. “And then they throw this little nugget in, which was pitched to us like on a Tuesday, I think, we shot on a Friday night or something. And I thought it was actually so great in an episode about how annoying Jess is. It really was surprising.”
Johnson also said he was pleased that Nick got to have a successful kiss with Jess.
“It was something that I wanted for Nick. And so, I was really glad that Nick didn’t screw that up because he could have very easily. He did for the first half of that episode,” said Johnson.