'New Girl' Season 3 Spoilers: Taye Diggs to Guest Star, May Test Nick and Jess' Relationship

Nick and Jess' relationship on "New Girl" may be getting its first major test. 

Taye Diggs will play a handsome man who takes a shine to Jess (Zooey Deschanel), TVline reports. The "Private Practice" and "Rent" star will appear in the seventh episode of the new season, which is the same episode in which Damon Wayans Jr. returns to reprise his role of Coach. 

Diggs' character may be the first obstacle in Nick (Jake Johnson) and Jess' relationship. Nick and Jess have broken the cardinal TV relationship rule and got together after only two season of egregious flirting and sexual tension. "New Girl" star Zooey Deschanel spoke to The Hollywood Reporter about the couple's very new, and still very fragile, relationship. 

"It seems like a bad idea to me -- roommates dating," Deschanel said, "But that's part of the first episode, them realizing that they live together and they're dating. It's about them figuring out all of the things when you first start dating someone -- and, of course, Schmidt [Max Greenfield] is trying to break them up."

Schmidt will be doing everything in his power this season to break them up due to his aversion to living with a couple. Before Nick and Jess go home to start up their new romance, they first decide to go on a spontaneous road trip after Cece's (Hannah Simone) wedding. 

"Jess and Nick don't really know where to go because they don't really want to go home, so Jess just keeps driving to Mexico," Deschanel said.

Deschanel also reassured us that her character would be keeping her signature bangs this season, which is an oddly important issue for her fans. 

Deschanel pushed her bangs back when attending the Met Ball, which alarmed fans of her famous fringe. "Something similar happened when I went to the Vanity Fair party at the Oscars last year," she says. "I just pinned my hair to the side and it looked like I cut it. People are way more invested in my hair than I am. It grows back, you know."

More importantly, Deschanel is thrilled at fans' investment in the Nick/Jess coupling. She said it is a nice change from the negative feedback she continues to receive about her character breaking up with Joseph Gordon-Levitt in "(500) Days of Summer."

"People were fixated with those characters ... and that reaction didn't happen until later," she said. "That's some weird woman-hating thing honestly. You don't see that she wasn't happy because the narrator is a man and Joe is so lovely and charming -- but that was the story we were telling. It's shocking that girls get very down on that character."

Fans can rest assured that "New Girl" will probably never get that serious.

Whether feedback is positive or negative, Deschanel believes that fans' strong opinions reflects the show's success. 

"There's a lot projected on them [the characters] -- but there's nothing better than having fans invested in your storyline," she says. "That's the dream."

"New Girl" airs Tuesdays on Fox at 9 p.m. ET.