The Nobody Wants This producers discuss their new series and the power of a healthy relationship.
For years, Erin Foster thought that her tumultuous dating life was keeping her career afloat. If nothing else, there is a lot of comedy to be wrung from a relationship gone wrong. But, as she tells Krista Smith on Netflix’s Skip Intro podcast, once she found a true partner in life, she had to rethink her approach to writing. Enter: Nobody Wants This.
Inspired by Foster’s real-life love story with her now-husband, the series stars Kristen Bell as Joanne, an agnostic Los Angeles dating and relationship podcaster, and Adam Brody as Noah, a dreamboat rabbi, who fall in love despite the forces working against their union. Joanne and past Erin had a lot in common.
“For a decade I had been writing from whatever was happening in my life. And every project had a real cynicism to it, because I felt cynical about relationships and myself and love,” she says. “It wasn’t very hopeful because that’s just the place that I was in. It was always about a woman sabotaging herself and self-destructing in some way and choosing the wrong things. And that was totally working for me in my career. So in some ways it was like art was imitating life and I was on this rinse and repeat situation in my life. And if I was on a bad date, I would think, ‘Oh, this is going to be really good to write about.’ I wouldn’t even care that my life was crumbling. I was excited to use it. And so when I met Simon, who is my husband now, honestly, I thought he was kind of killing my vibe.”
Adam Rose/Netflix
Quips Sara Foster, Erin’s sister/producing partner/business partner: “He was not good for our career.”
Ultimately, though, Erin realized there could be something “interesting and funny and compelling” about a healthy relationship. Healthy doesn’t necessarily equal boring, of course, because it can actually be incredibly fun to watch “two people falling for each other who should be together.”
It was easy to write about her relationship failures in the past because “being with the wrong person is actually really easy,” she says. “You can blame them for everything. When someone’s cheating, lying, betraying you, not holding up their end –– everything is their fault and you’re perfect. And then you get together with someone who is healthy and loving and emotionally present, and you realize that you are not perfect and that you can’t storm out of a room in an argument. You can’t say nasty shit to them when you’re fighting. You have to be a real person and it’s way harder. And I was like, ‘OK, that’s interesting to write about.’ ”
Adam Rose/Netflix
It’s certainly hard — and terrifying — to write so openly about your own life, but there’s also something hard about doing it with your sister that the Fosters have finally figured out.
“It’s hard to not show up to work without having the foundation of 40 years together,” Sara says. “There’s a lot. And we’ve realized later in life that we had different childhoods.”
They might have grown up in the same house with the same loving parents, but they both coped with the tumult of their childhoods in different ways. Says Erin, “We had a complicated childhood. There was a lot of marriages, a lot of divorces, a lot of stepsiblings, a lot of half-siblings, a lot of people coming in and out. And it was complicated. Sara and I dealt with it in really different ways. She was the oldest in our household. I was the middle. Those two roles have very different paths.”
She continues, “Sara really went inward and she self-protected. Like, ‘I’m going to isolate myself and I’m going to put blinders on and I’m not going to deal with what’s happening in my house.’ I felt really abandoned by that because [she] was my big sister, so then I leaned on our little sister and I became her second mom. I loved being needed by someone and getting attention from her and teaching her things. It gave me purpose. I really loved it.”
Those complicated dynamics are reflected in the show — but so is the love. And ultimately, that’s at the core of Nobody Wants This and the Fosters’ other work. Says Sara, “It’s nice because we live in this hustle culture where everybody is just so thirsty. By the way, myself included. It’s like, nothing is enough. ‘I have to have a podcast. I have to have a brand. I have to have a this, I have to do a that or I’m failing.’ And I look at Erin and Erin’s not thirsty at all. … She deep down wants to cook for her husband, take care of her baby, and if the career works out, it works out. And I think that’s why it’s all working out.”
Listen to more of Sara and Erin Foster’s conversation with Krista Smith in their Skip Intro episode. Nobody Wants This is streaming now.
News
Who is Luke Newton Dating? FINALLY Nicola Coughlan’s Secret Relationship Revealed
Luke Newton has been all over the globe promoting season three of Bridgerton, with many fans of the show believing that he and his on-screen co-star Nicola Coughlan are dating in real life after seeing their chemistry. However, Polin shippers…
Jenna Ortega Teases Season 2 Location as She Returns as Wednesday Addams in New Video with Thing
Jenna Ortega appears alongside Thing in a new video for Wednesday season 2. Ortega plays the titular Wednesday Addams in the Netflix series, whose first season became an instant hit upon its release in 2022. Wednesday season 2 is in development and is set for release…
‘I think there’s some trust there, there’s some…’: ‘Nobody Wants This’ Adam Brody reveals what it was REALLY like to kiss Kristen Bell after lusty fans called it ‘best’ romcom moment of the decade
More than two decades after his breakthrough role in Fox’s The O.C., Adam Brody is finding a new legion of fans with Netflix‘s Nobody Wants This. The 44-year-old actor plays a newly-single rabbi, who finds himself in an inexplicable relationship with an agnostic…
What Is Adam Brody Really Like? Fans Share Their Unexpected Encounters with the Nobody Wants This Star
Fans of Adam Brody have taken to social media to reveal what they really think of the US actor. More than two decades since his breakthrough role as Seth Cohen on The OC, the 44-year-old star is finding a new legion of…
Nobody Wants This: Netflix fans go wild for swoon-worthy scene in the best rom-com series ever made! What’s That?
It’s the popular Netflix rom-com that has everyone’s tongues wagging. And it appears there is one particularly swoon-worthy clip in Nobody Wants This that fans can’t seem to get enough of. The streaming giant shared a poll to X, formerly known as Twitter,…
Madelyn Cline of Outer Banks Opens Up About Her Battle with Eating Disorders and the Power of Self-Love: ‘I Was Harming and Starving Myself’
Actress Madelyn Cline is getting candid about past struggles with body dysmorphia and eating disorders. The 22-year-old star of Netflix’s Outer Banks appeared in a ‘Body Scan’ video for Women’s Health on Thursday, during which she talked about her experience. Madelyn said her issues began…
End of content
No more pages to load