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Fans of Netflix’s hit rom-com series “Nobody Wants This” swooned when Adam Brody lovingly cupped Kristen Bell’s face in his hands the first time their characters locked lips. But if Erin Foster, the show’s creator and showrunner, initially had her way, Brody’s character, Noah Roklov aka “Hot Rabbi,” would have been portrayed by comedian Nick Kroll. Foster opened up to The Hollywood Reporter about how “every Jewish man in Hollywood” auditioned for the part of witty Rabbi Noah, who strikes up an unlikely romance with Bell's equally quippy sex podcast host character, Joanne, a confirmed agnostic. Foster recalled approaching Kroll about the part. But Kroll turned it down. That felt like a setback to Foster, who based the show on her own real-life love story with her husband, music executive Simon Tikhman. “There was just something validating to me about a comedian (like Kroll) as the lead that felt like, ‘Oh, I’m making a real comedy,’” Foster told THR. “It was a lot of my own insecurities as a writer.” In a May chat with Bell’s husband Dax Shepard on the “Armchair Expert” podcast, Kroll said he didn’t take the role because, “Literally, it was dead in the middle of when we were having our baby. And so I just think, there were a lot of elements that went into it.” Entertainment News “Have I regretted it? Watching Adam absolutely just (star in) one of the biggest shows on Netflix? And people fall in love with him all over again? Yeah,” Kroll joked. Meanwhile, Bell urged Foster to consider her longtime pal Brody for the rabbi role, even going so far as to put together a reel highlighting her and Brody’s chemistry in the Showtime series “House of Lies” and the 2013 movie “Some Girls.” “I was like, ‘Guys, you’re going to need an ice pack while you watch these scenes,” Bell joked to THR. “I just kept saying, like, ‘Trust me, Adam knows how to stare dopily at someone and so do I, and that’s kind of all you need.’ I mean, I’d love to tell you it’s real. It’s not. We both just know how to do it.” Foster liked what she saw. She sent Brody a script. The two then hopped on a Zoom to discuss the possibilities. Though Foster wasn’t then able to answer some of Brody’s pressing questions about the direction of the show, Brody liked her. “I was like, ‘Well, f--- it,’” said Brody. “‘I really like her, I like this episode, and I love Kristen and it’s Netflix and there are a lot of reasons to just roll the dice.’" The cast filmed the first two episodes of Season 1 and then took a break so Foster and her team could study the footage. Brody and Bell were also able to peek at those early scenes. Brody told THR he was “blown away” by the “magic” he and Bell created onscreen. “There was an energy to it, a sort of sexiness that I wasn’t sure about as we were making it,” he recalled. “With some of the banter, as I was doing it, I’d be like, ‘Is this going to make me want to gag or is this charming?” Turns out, viewers wanted “Nobody Wants This.” The show debuted on Sept. 28, 2024 and landed on the streaming service’s Top 10 list in 89 countries around the world, according to THR. As for the series’ second season, which debuts Oct. 23, viewers can expect more zingy dialogue and steamy kisses from Bell and Brody and possibly a few other characters. “Erin said, ‘We’re going to give the people what they want,’ and I thought that was very cool,” said Bell. “She was like, ‘You don’t want it to turn into, like, a murder mystery — you just want the bubblegum flavor to last forever, and we’re going to do our best to do that.’” This story first appeared on TODAY.com. More from TODAY: