Zooey Deschanel has revealed that she would "cry every day" after being tormented by bullies.

The New Girl actress opened up in the February issue of Allure magazine about the terror she felt while attending high school.

And although Zooey's quirkiness has propelled her to be the latest It Girl in Hollywood, her unique attributes were not always appreciated.

"Girls spit in my face," the brunette beauty revealed. "People were so mean to me. I'd cry every day."

Zooey attended the same high school as Jake Gyllenhaal and Kate Hudson but says that even when she went to college things did not get much better.

"I went to Northwestern because I had gone to a really nontraditional high school," she recalled.

"I was like, It'd be cool to have a traditional college experience.' Then I was like, Oh, but none of these people understand what's cool about me. My specialness is not appreciated in this place.'"

Zooey, 32, eventually dropped out of college to pursue her ambition to become an actress and although she's starred in lots of independent roles, she has also appeared in bigger budget movies like Elf and Almost Famous.

"I've always straddled a weird line," she confessed. "There's a lot of mainstream stuff that I love. At the same time, I still feel like an outsider. I'm the outsider who's on the inside."

Zooey added that she finds it odd that she is constantly labelled as Hollywood's "It Girl."

"'It Girl' is supposed to be something that only lasts a certain amount of time," she deduced. "They keep calling me an It Girl,' and at this point it makes me laugh, because I've done that so many times: You're it,' You're not it.' What is it?'"