Kristen Bell’s husband, Dax Shepard, is enjoying the chemistry she shares with Adam Brody in Nobody Wants This.
“Even I can acknowledge watching it, like, ‘Whoa, that’s hot,’” Bell, 44, recently told eTalk of her on-screen rapport with Brody, 44, in the hit Netflix rom-com series. As for Shepard, 49, “My husband said the same thing. Like, watching the first episode he was like, ‘Oh my god, I want you to kiss him so badly.’”
Since Netflix released Nobody Wants This on September 26, the show has garnered major buzz for the sparks between Bell and Brody, from their characters’ playful banter to their sexy first kiss.
“I’m not trying to be reductive, but I think there’s a math to it,” Bell explained in her eTalk interview. “You have two actors that know how to stare dopily into each other’s eyes, and you have to have the confidence to expand that and really sit the anticipatory value before the kiss — which I think is really important.”
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She added: “Whether or not people want to see you end up with someone is a crapshoot, and we just kind of got lightning in a bottle.”
Nobody Wants This was created by Erin Foster and loosely inspired by the writer’s real-life meet-cute with husband Simon Tikhman. Brody plays the fictional L.A. Rabbi Noah Roklov, who meets outspoken sex and dating podcaster Joanne (Bell) at a dinner party. “You’re terrifying,” Noah tells her. “You’re an unfiltered, complicated, vulnerable, beautiful woman.”
That charged encounter leads to a serious relationship as Noah and Joanne navigate family awkwardness and figure out their future together. The cast also includes Justine Lupe, Timothy Simons, Tovah Feldshuh and Jackie Tohn.
“As a rom-com, and particularly this one that so often leans into just the eye contact and no dialogue, I know [Brody] has a mode where he can just stare deeply into somebody’s eyes for an uncomfortable amount of time,” Bell told The Los Angeles Times. “I also have that mode. It’s just a trick in the magician’s bag. Some actors can do it, and some actors can’t, in my opinion. I was like, ‘Well, I know I can do it. I know Adam can do it. We can fill all the space.’”
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As for her 10-year marriage to Shepard, an actor and podcaster, Bell told Real Simple in February 2023, “My husband keeps my mind and heart open and moving forward every single day, because he’s a challenger. We disagree about 99 percent of the things on earth, which is just fun and interesting.”
She opened up about how Shepard — known for his off-kilter humor, including his “swingers” jokes — has helped her learn how to stop chasing perfection in her own life.
“I had been taught to stay inside the lines,” she explained. “When I realized I could break a mold and disagree with certain ways of doing things, I felt freer and more like me. I felt more comfortable with who I was, and then I realized, ‘I don’t need to be better than anyone else. I just need to be better than the person I was yesterday.’”
