Adam Brody’s Hot Rabbi on ‘Nobody Wants This’ is the role he has ‘procrastinated a lifetime for’
Adam Brody is not totally sure, but he has an estimate of the number of times he’s heard “hot rabbi” since “Nobody Wants This” premiered on Netflix in late September. “Oh, more than I planned to, for sure,” he tells Gold Derby. “I haven’t counted but it’s, you know, in the triple digits, at least.” Watch the video interview above.
The rom-com, which is loosely based on creator Erin Foster‘s life, follows Brody’s “hot rabbi” Noah, who falls for Joanne (Kristen Bell), an agnostic podcaster. The two have to navigate numerous obstacles, religious and non-religious, in their relationship, but there was no speed bump in how quickly audiences fell head over heels for the show — and for Brody once again, 21 years after he made millennial teen girls swoon as another charming, lovable (half-)Jewish character, Seth Cohen, on “The O.C.” Netflix renewed “Nobody Wants This” two weeks after its premiere and filming is set to begin early next year.
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For Brody, the rapturous reception to the show has been “lovely, wonderful, very, very surprising, very gratifying.”
“I really can’t think of a negative,” he says. “Maybe it’ll come, but I don’t know. I’ve been doing this a long time, so it’s not like it’s surprising, but I feel acclimated to the business, the ebbs and flows. So it’s nothing that I don’t feel ready to handle, but it’s just really lovely. It’s really lovely to have people respond to your work, have people feel good because of your work. I mean, it’s hard to think of a more gratifying thing in this job.”
Brody is Jewish but isn’t religious himself and didn’t have Jewish friends until he moved to L.A. in his twenties and “started to recognize that part of myself more just behaviorally.” His own bar mitzvah was held six months late because “I didn’t know what I needed to learn yet.” He’s played a handful of Jewish characters, most recently another Seth on the FX limited series “Fleishman Is in Trouble,” but never one so faith-based like a rabbi. “It’s sort of the role that I’ve procrastinated a lifetime for,” he quips. To bone up on Judaism, the actor did a deep dive via podcasts, documentaries, and books, and attended a Shabbat service.
SEE Netflix renews ‘Nobody Wants This’ for Season 2 with new showrunners
“The fact that my two most sort of famous characters are very, in different ways, but very identifiably Jewish has come as quite a surprise to me,” Brody says. “And with this, I was worried that, am I the right person to represent this, you know? Am I the right person to represent a religion and a culture and a race? Not that this character is for sure representing that for everyone, but in the world of our TV show, it did feel like a responsibility and I didn’t take lightly. I don’t know, I mean, thus far it’s worked out. So I’m happy to say that if there was an audience I cared about for this more than anyone, I wanted Jewish people to feel happy about it. I wanted them to have a view in a positive light. That was important to me, and I think by and large that seems to be the case.”
Bell thought of Brody for the part of Noah as she was reading the script. They are are friends in real life, having first met years ago when his agent drove them to an afterparty in a two-seater with Bell crammed into the space behind the seats. “She doesn’t remember but feels that tracks,” Brody says. They’ve worked together before, playing exes in the 2013 film “Some Girl(s)” and love interests when he guested on her Showtime series “House of Lies.” But playing the romantic leads of a TV series that will hopefully run for years was a whole new ballgame that would rely on their spark and chemistry. Luckily, they had that in excess. Brody didn’t realize how great their chemistry was until he saw a cut. In fact, he was feeling the opposite when they were shooting the scene of Noah walking Joanne to her car in the pilot.
“We’ve just met and now we’re really having a conversation and in my own head — not all take every take — but part of me was like, ‘Oh, how obnoxious? Are you just so obnoxious ?’ to myself,” he recalls. “I’m thinking, ‘You know, God, are you being revolting right now? Is this how obnoxious are you being in your charm? How am I gonna gag?’ But then I saw it and I was very pleasantly surprised to love it.”
Bell has noted Brody’s ability to “stare dopily” into someone’s eyes — a vital element, she believes, in manufacturing onscreen chemistry. “I think what she means by that is like someone who feels confident enough or vain enough in their physical appeal, I guess, to kind of stand naked in front of someone figuratively speaking or literally,” Brody says. “I don’t know the key to a good stare. Beats me. I’ll tell you this. You make a lot more, in my experience, a lot more eye contact acting than you do in real life. I mean, even when people are driving in a movie they’re not even looking at the road, they’re just staring at each other. It’s very intimate. I always thought it was a kick to work with like actors who are — I’ve worked with a few, like, revered older actors, and in real life, I’m very different. I almost almost have my head down when I’m talking to them. I don’t wanna bother them. But when we call ‘action,’ like I get to stare at you, I get to stare in your soul. And it’s it’s an access to someone that you don’t normally have.”
In the Season 1 finale, as Noah is on the cusp of a promotion to head rabbi of his synagogue, Joanne initially decides to convert to Judaism. But after a conversation with his ex-girlfriend Rebecca (Emily Arlook) about the pressures that come with being the significant other of a rabbi, she backtracks, telling Noah he can’t have both and not to come after her. He does, of course. “Well, you were right. I can’t have both,” he says before kissing her.
Brody “blissfully” knows very little about Season 2, which is what he prefers. “If I really know, then I’m gonna have to start thinking creatively or I’m gonna have to start worrying about stuff I’m not sure about.” But he can’t wait to see how Noah and Joanne try to move forward with conversion off the table — for now at least.
“The man chooses love, which I concur with, but of course, that’s not the end of the question.” Brody says. “There’s much to grapple with in terms of not just his career but his life choice. And with anyone, you can have differences, but when are the differences so great that it’s not compatible? Or when are the differences lovely and complimentary? Or when do you merge and you come to sort of have some of the same beliefs and habits or life choices as your partner?”
And if the spirit of merging and compromise, Brody was responsible for introducing — or at least popularizing — Chrismukkah into the pop culture vernacular on “The O.C.” So what would Noah think of Chrismukkah?
“I think he would think it’s lovely for other people and it’s a lovely way for mixed households, even if he would prefer mixed households to do them separately, so you don’t bastardize either one regardless,” Brody muses. “I think he would find it a positive, but in his own life, I can’t imagine he would do it even if there’s a world in which he also would have a Christmas tree and happily do Christmas and happily even attend a church once in a while. I just don’t think he would mash up Hanukkah in that way because he takes too seriously the ritual of it on its own.”
Perhaps this could be a Season 2 storyline he’s blissfully unaware of. “Yes, the war over Chrismukkah.”
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