When Erin Foster found the right guy and converted to Judaism, she wrote a fresh, original romantic comedy

In the new Netflix series “Nobody Wants This,” there is a scene where you meet your parents Adam Brody’s Noah arrives at the house of his girlfriend Joanne (played by Kristen Bell), wearing a jacket and holding an oversized bouquet of sunflowers. Joanne is so appalled by his efforts that she decides they must break up.

Before she can break up, Noah confronts Joanne and says he won’t apologize for wanting to leave a good impression on her parents.

“You can sabotage yourself all you want, but honestly I think you should get over it,” Noah tells a shocked Joanne.

Erin Foster, the show’s creator and showrunner, says that when she met her husband Simon Tikhman in 2018, she realized that “finding the right person can be difficult.”

“If you’re with the wrong person, it’s all their fault,” Foster said. “You pick someone to cheat on you, lie to you, and disrespect you, and then it’s like you’re perfect. When someone comes along who is healthy and responsible, you realize that everything you do in a relationship is bad.”

In “Nobody Wants This,” Joanne is a single woman who co-hosts a podcast with her sister (Justine Lupe). Her goal is to talk openly about her dating and breakup stories. Even a bad date is a good topic of discussion for the sisters.

When Joanne meets Noah, sparks immediately fly between the two. Noah’s goal in life is to be appointed chief rabbi of his synagogue. He realizes that getting serious with Joanne would be a big problem, but ignores it for now. Meanwhile, Joanne identifies as non-religious and their religious differences don’t seem like a big deal.

As time goes on, as Noah’s family and the synagogue begin pressuring him about his relationship, he asks Joanne if she would be willing to convert.

“Erin Foster has created a dynamic where these characters – the world doesn’t want them together. And what does that mean if they want to be together,” said Bell, who doesn’t practice any religion. “In my opinion, there is an endless story about the interpersonal relationship between two people who probably shouldn’t be together if the world were in charge.”

Foster argues that sometimes when a couple meets while they are more settled in their own lives, both of them have to adjust. “I don’t think it’s responsible to show women in 2024, ‘All you have to do to find your perfect person is change everything about yourself.’ That’s not the message I want to send. But I also want you to realize that sometimes it’s okay to change some things about yourself to fit in with a person who will also change things about themselves.”

To write accurately about Judaism, Foster enlisted the help of her own rabbi, who “read every script,” she said. “Look… I’m sure some Reddit forum could find things we did wrong if they wanted to. You have to give up a few little things because it’s about television.”

Brody, who was raised Jewish but describes himself as agnostic, says it was “interesting and fun” to get to know someone who is different from himself and deeply committed to his religion.

“Noah is a spiritual person who has spent most of his life studying this issue. That’s him. That actually excited me,” he said.

Foster remembers Brody saying, “When I play a rabbi, it’s important to me that he’s not like me.” He has to give it his all. He is a believer. He’s not the type of guy to have one foot in and one foot out…” When he said that, I thought that was a great trait because it’s cool to say that to a girl you’re flirting with and stuff like that is “I don’t believe in God. ‘Yeah, maybe I do, maybe I don’t.’ But he doesn’t do that. He says, ‘No. It’s me.'”

Production on the series began on October 7th, when Hamas militants launched a massive deadly attack on Israel. Foster said it was a conscious decision not to include it in the show.

“After October 7, there were questions like, ‘Are we going to bring this up?’ Will we acknowledge it?’ And the truth is, I’ve always been very confident that this isn’t the show that’s trying to solve any problems that are happening in the world. I’m not the right person to tell this story because I don’t live in Israel and I wasn’t raised Jewish. It’s not my responsibility to pretend I know what that experience would be like.” Instead, she likes to tell a positive Jewish story, especially at a time when people feel overlooked and unseen.

Bell, who is also an executive producer, added: “I didn’t think we needed to put it on the show because the theme could be replaced with any label of people who shouldn’t be together.” The meaning wasn’t necessarily there in their individual labels, but in the fact that their labels were contradictory.”