Zoey Francis Chaya Thompson Deutch ( DOYTCH; born November 10, 1994) is an American actress and producer. The younger daughter of director Howard Deutch and actress-director Lea Thompson, Deutch made her acting debut in television during the early 2010s, with roles on Disney Channel's The Suite Life on Deck (2010–2011) and CW's Ringer (2011–2012).
Deutch has since expanded to film, with leading roles in the independent films Everybody Wants Some!! (2016), Before I Fall (2017), Flower (2017), Set It Up (2018), and Buffaloed (2019). Her first major box office success came with the comedy horror Zombieland: Double Tap (2019), after which she took on roles in the thrillers The Outfit (2022) and Juror No. 2 (2024). Deutch concurrently headlined the streaming projects The Politician (2019–2020), Not Okay, and Something from Tiffany's (both 2022), and made her Broadway debut in a revival of the Thornton Wilder play Our Town (2024). For her performance as Jean Seberg in Richard Linklater's biographical film Nouvelle Vague (2025), she was nominated for the Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Performance.
Deutch was born on November 10, 1994, in Los Angeles, to actress Lea Thompson and director Howard Deutch. She has one sister, Madelyn Deutch, who is also an actress. Other close relatives of hers include her maternal grandmother, musician Barbara Barry Thompson, paternal grandfather, music executive Murray Deutch, and grand-uncle actor Robert Walden. Deutch's father, from New York, is of Jewish heritage, whereas her mother, from Minnesota, is of partial Irish ancestry. She attended Hebrew school at an early age, influenced in part by her mother's strong engagement with Jewish culture after marrying into the family. Deutch identifies as Jewish and had a bat mitzvah. Her surname is an Anglicized spelling variant of the word "Deutsch", which means "German" in German. Her ancestry is Russian, Polish, Irish, and Native American.
She started taking acting classes at the age of five. Deutch studied at Oakwood School, Los Angeles County High School for the Arts and at the Young Actors Space. She majored in theater at Los Angeles County High School for the Arts.
Deutch began her career in 2010, at the age of 15, with a role on the Disney Channel original series The Suite Life on Deck as Maya, Zack Martin's love interest during the third season. From 2011 to 2012, she played recurring role of Juliet Martin in The CW thriller drama Ringer. She debuted on the big screen in Mayor Cupcake (2011) alongside her mother and sister. Deutch booked a small scene in The Amazing Spider-Man but director Marc Webb cut the scene, although it is included on the DVD.
Her big screen breakthrough came in the supporting role of Emily Asher, alongside Emma Thompson, Thomas Mann and Alden Ehrenreich in the 2013 fantasy-romance-drama Beautiful Creatures based on a well-known young adult novel of the same name written by authors Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl and the first book in the Caster Chronicles series. Deutch also appeared on NCIS, Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior, ABC Family's Switched at Birth and in Marc Cherry's television pilot Hallelujah.
Deutch starred as Rosemarie Hathaway in Vampire Academy (2014), based on the first book of best-selling young adult six book series written by Richelle Mead. The film marked her first appearance as a lead. Jordan Hoffman of the New York Daily News termed her performance in the film as breakout lead performance. In January 2014, it was announced that she would star as lead opposite Tyson Ritter in Randall Miller's Midnight Rider, a biopic of Gregg Allman. Deutch then joined the teen coming-of-age comedy Good Kids, which was released on October 21, 2016, by Vertical Entertainment. She also landed the lead role in Julie Plec's and Sue Kramer's rom-com Cover Girl and starred in the official music video of the song "Opium" by The New Division with Avan Jogia.
In 2016, Deutch played Beverly in Richard Linklater's Everybody Wants Some!!, which premiered at SXSW Film Festival. Deutch was paired with freshman ballplayer Jake Bradford played by Blake Jenner. She starred alongside Robert De Niro and Zac Efron in Dirty Grandpa, as love interest to Efron's character and in Why Him? alongside James Franco, Bryan Cranston and Megan Mullally. She played a Stanford student, daughter to Cranston and Mullally's characters, who falls in love with a billionaire, Laird, played by Franco. Deutch's next role was in the crime drama Vincent-N-Roxxy, alongside Emory Cohen, Emile Hirsch and Zoë Kravitz which premiered at the 2016 Tribeca Film Festival. Deutch starred as Samantha "Sam" Kingston in Before I Fall, an adaptation of Lauren Oliver's best-selling young adult novel of the same name, also starring Jennifer Beals and Kian Lawley. Andrea Mandell of USA Today described Before I Fall as a milestone in Deutch's rising career. The scripts of Good Kids, Dirty Grandpa and Before I Fall were on the 2011 Black List. A second film featuring Deutch premiered at Sundance Film Festival in 2017, Danny Strong's Rebel in the Rye. The biopic of author J.D. Salinger saw Deutch as Oona O'Neill opposite Nicholas Hoult, Kevin Spacey, and Laura Dern.
Deutch starred in Flower directed by Max Winkler, with a script written by Alex McAulay. Flower was added to the 2012 Black List and premiered at the 2017 Tribeca Film Festival. Aubrey Page of Collider described her performance as an "electric lead performance" and David Ehrlich of IndieWire thought the film "confirms that Zoey Deutch is a genuine star in the making." Frank Scheck of The Hollywood Reporter concluded "Flower is redeemed only by Zoey Deutch's magnetic performance, which would be star-making if in the service of a better vehicle."
Deutch appeared in her mother Lea Thompson's directorial debut The Year Of Spectacular Men as Sabrina, with Avan Jogia, her sister Madelyn, Cameron Monaghan and Nicholas Braun. She also shares the production credit for the film. The film had its world premiere in June 2017 in Los Angeles Film Festival 2017 and was screened at various film festivals before theatrical release. Scott Menzel of We Live Entertainment described her role as Sabrina in this film as "without question her finest performance to date." Along with these, in the same year, was seen opposite Ed Sheeran in the official music video of his song "Perfect" from the album ÷. The video which was released on November 9, 2017, has garnered over 4 billion views and 22 million likes, as of August 2025. Also in 2017, she appeared in James Franco's The Disaster Artist, based on the book by Greg Sestero and Tom Bissell, which tells the behind-the-scenes story behind cult film The Room.
2018–present: established actress
Deutch starred opposite her Everybody Wants Some costar Glen Powell, in Netflix's 2018 romantic comedy Set It Up. The story follows two overworked assistants who try to get their horrible bosses out of their hair by setting them up together. She also landed a role in the drama-comedy The Professor alongside Johnny Depp. In May 2019, the makers of Set It Up announced that Deutch will be reuniting with Glen Powell for another rom-com tentatively titled Most Dangerous Game. In July 2018, it was announced that Deutch would be starring in Ryan Murphy's new web television comedy series on Netflix, The Politician alongside Ben Platt and Gwyneth Paltrow, which was released on Netflix on September 27, 2019.
In Tanya Wexler's crime comedy drama Buffaloed (2019), Deutch played the lead role of Peg Dahl, a con artist who, while on parole for her crimes and in a desperate attempt to escape her hometown of Buffalo, New York, becomes a debt collector. Co-produced by Deutch herself, and co-starring Judy Greer, Jermaine Fowler, Noah Reid and Jai Courtney, the film premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival to positive reviews from critics. Upon its limited theatrical release in February 2020, the film received further praise. In her review for The Los Angeles Times, Kimber Myers applauded Deutch's performance, saying she "immediately takes the audience hostage in the opening moments of Buffaloed [...] the actress owns this sharp comedy — and everyone watching — playing the type of character we still don’t see that often on screen." Sheila O'Malley of RogerEbert.com called the film, "a showcase for the mega-talented Deutch", saying Deutch "tosses herself into the role like a maniacal fidget-spinner, all flash and charm." Concluding her review of the film, O'Malley wrote, "Buffaloed is refreshing in how it challenges these norms, and in so doing, gives Deutch—who has already proven her comedic acting chops in Everybody Wants Some!!, Zombieland: Double Tap and the Netflix series The Politician—a chance to shine at the center of the narrative." TheWrap's Elizabeth Weitzman was more critical of the film, calling it "uneven", while The New York Times' Jeannette Catsoulis penned "Simultaneously rowdy and slick, Buffaloed is exuberantly paced and entirely dependent on Deutch’s moxie and pell-mell performance."