Nobody Wants This is a popular new series loosely based on Erin Foster’s real-life experiences. It is produced by and stars the luminous Kristen Bell and focuses on the unlikely pairing of a pot-smoking rabbi (Adam Brody) and his new belle, an outspoken agnostic woman. After a rapturous response last fall, it has been renewed for another season. As the rabbi’s ex-fiancee, Emily Arlook (Grown-ish, Big Time Adolescence) took on the role gracefully and with compassion. Arlook recently spoke to Immersive via Zoom.
[This conversation has been edited for clarity and context.]
How did you get involved in this show?
I’m usually not great with timing, but I was having lunch with a friend one day. She had read the script, and she was like, “There’s this show I think you’d be right for.” I think it was like a year later or so when the audition came through, and then, however many months later, I was on set.
A lot of your scenes are with Adam Brody. Talk a little bit about working with him.
He’s the best. It’s refreshing working with him because he’s a very intentional actor. I felt safe in that way. He’s not gonna say anything or let the scene go in a direction that doesn’t feel authentic to the characters in the story. So, if something didn’t feel right for whatever reason, we got together before and ensured it felt good. That was the best, and everyone onboarded all the writers and Erin; it was a very creatively fruitful environment.
Excellent. That’s a nice segue way to talk about creator and showrunner Erin Foster…
She was great. She was so comforting to have on set. It’s obviously such a personal story, so having her as the compass at all times was the best. That’s not the norm. That experience and her voice come through so strongly and are the backbone of the show.
What sort of challenges were there in doing this role?
I think the biggest challenge, if you wanna call it that, was when we meet Adam’s character, Noah, the first time the audience is meeting kind of the hero, the protagonist. He’s breaking up with a woman he’s been with for years. So we can’t lose him. Like off the top, the audience has to be on his side. So threading that needle and making sure that Rebecca walks this tightrope of – she needed to be someone that we didn’t feel too bad that he broke up with her because we needed to be aligned with him. At the same time, she needed to be steady enough and make sufficient sense that we trust his judgment that she’s someone he was with for so many years and bought an engagement ring for.
The engagement ring is a big scene in the show. Talk a little bit about it.
It was fun and fun to do. We kind of decided because it was hard. It felt like a funny dance. So, how would this work? Is she forcing him to do it? It was in a drawer; let’s break this down… We figured out that she found the ring one day when he’s gone and likes to role-play being engaged around the house. It’s like the private thing that she likes to do. So she walked around the house wearing the ring that fateful day and forgot to take it off.
What sort of prep did you do for this role? Did you build a backstory, or was there any kind of backstory created for you?
We did need to clarify how long they had been together. And even that changed. At one point, it was six years, and then that felt too long. So maybe it was just three years, and they’re obviously living together. So, there were some factual granular things that we wanted to be on the same page about.
I think there’s a parallel. In the show, she’s this mysterious ex-girlfriend character that Joanne (Kristen Bell) wants to know more about. I think, in some ways, that was our experience. We couldn’t figure out who Rebecca was. Is she this type A person? Is she this pushy? Like, who is she? I really couldn’t figure it out for a while. Then, once we got on set and you said the words, it coalesced into something tangible in real-time.
What do you want people to take away from Rebecca’s place in this story?
We tend to pigeonhole people. For Joanne, Rebecca was the ex-girlfriend. Then, it was so clever of Erin to take this ex-girlfriend archetype, put her in a different context, and see her at the end when they finally meet face to face. It humanizes her. Like whoever the villain is in your life, they’re not a villain in their own life. There are so many facets of us, and it’s very easy to box people in. I hope that will be the takeaway.
Any favorite scenes that you all worked on?
I think the last episode was just for me. That was so much fun for so many reasons. I hadn’t filmed with Kristen yet. We had worked together a lot throughout, but more because she was a producer on set. So we had that dynamic, but it was our first time filming together. It was beneficial and cool that it had that energy as if we were finally meeting this way.
What has this experience been like overall? Netflix produces hundreds of shows and movies a year; occasionally, there is a breakout hit. What’s it like being part of something like that?
It’s unheard of. It just wasn’t on my bingo card. You know what I mean? There’s so much television now, and everyone’s so inundated that to break out in any way as a show is one in a million. So it’s not anything I expected. It’s been cool that people really love the show, and to be a part of something that people love is a really special experience. It’s not common.
Nobody Wants This is now streaming at Netflix.
