Adam Brody and Kristen Bell's kiss in 'Nobody Wants This' has the internet giddy. Why the stars were 'startled' reading the script.
The key to pulling off "the world's greatest kiss"? Brody and Bell's friendship. "There was a comfort to it," she tells Yahoo.
Adam Brody and Kristen Bell have given the people what they want: a good old-fashioned rom-com with a really good kiss.
Netflix's new series Nobody Wants This skyrocketed to the top of the streaming charts after its Sept. 26 release, and everyone is talking about one scene in particular. The show, which is inspired by creator Erin Foster's life, is about an agnostic L.A. podcast host (Bell) who falls for a hot, unconventional rabbi (Brody). The actors talked to Yahoo Entertainment about their off-the-charts chemistry and the pressure of pulling off such a satisfying onscreen kiss.
"We were both, I think, a little startled reading [the] script where we had to kiss, where it said it was going to be the 'world's greatest kiss,'" Bell admitted. She and Brody have worked together before (CHiPs, Scream 4, House of Lies) and they say their friendship helped their chemistry, rather than make those scenes "weird" like some might think.
"I wouldn't say it was weird," Bell told Yahoo about kissing her friend.
"I wouldn't say it was weird either," Brody agreed.
"There was a comfort to it for sure because ... we'd worked together before as love interests. We have enough mutual friends and know each other's spouses," Bell explained, referring to her and Brody's partners Dax Shepard and Leighton Meester. "There's ... a comfort level, right? Because I can say anything to Adam. I know he can say something to me. There's no weird energy in between us."
"Also, after you kind of do the first one or do it a few times, then you're in the zone," Brody concluded. "We didn't make sex scenes; that's another kettle of fish."
It didn't take long for the kiss to dominate all corners of the internet. "Kristen Bell & Adam Brody’s New Rom-Com Has One of the Greatest Kiss Scenes I’ve Ever Seen," read one headline.
Foster was inspired by Matt Damon's and Minnie Driver's characters in Good Will Hunting when writing about the world's greatest kiss. (Nobody Wants This is loosely based on her conversion to Judaism for husband Simon Tikhman.)
"When they go on their first date and they're having hamburgers and french fries and they have food on their face, and they're like, 'Let's do the first kiss. Let's just do it now and get it out of the way.' I found it to be such a different kind of first kiss, and it was still so romantic but conversational and realistic and fun and flirty," Foster told Entertainment Weekly. "I really wanted to just create a moment that gave you those kinds of anticipatory, exciting feelings."
Judging from social media, mission accomplished, as X seems delighted by the kiss.
Apparently, the kiss lived up to its hype in real life too. Bell told TVLine it's the best onscreen kiss she has ever had.