As Season 2 of Netflix’s smash hit rom-com Nobody Wants This lands, the actor reflects on the power of humor and hope after losing his home in the Palisades fire
Words by ROBERT HASKELL
Photography by JACK WATERLOT
Styling by ILARIA URBINATI
In the middle of the first season of Nobody Wants This, Noah Roklov, the dishy rabbi-next-door played by Adam Brody, explains to his almost-girlfriend Joanne (portrayed by Kristen Bell) why candles are lit on Shabbat. According to one interpretation of this tradition, he tells her, the candles represent the two temples that were destroyed in ancient Jerusalem. “We light them,” he says, “to remind us that buildings can crumble, but that doesn’t matter. What matters is gathering with people we care about. So Shabbat can happen anywhere.”
“Kind of like a pop-up,” Joanne replies.
In retrospect, this moment in the Netflix romantic comedy — one of many that underscore the culture chasm the couple must bridge to get to their happy ending — feels achingly prescient. When Adam Brody; his wife, the actor Leighton Meester; and their two children lost their home in the Palisades Fire, a sense of community provided an almost instant silver lining.
“It was a lot of things all at once and a lot of things that bubbled up after,” Brody says of the fire. “You realize that because the whole town burned, so many connections were severed. Infinite connections. We’re all these people scattered to the wind. And yet — it sounds perverse, and it sounds privileged — like COVID, there are parts of this time in my life that I’ll be nostalgic for. Our family has never been closer. I think about our sweet neighbor who knocked on my door to let us know there was fire. I think about the security guard at my daughter’s school: We’re evacuating, and it’s really bearing down on everyone, there are helicopters dropping water right over us, it’s turning into bedlam, and here is this security guard shepherding all these kids to their parents in the midst of the chaos. The school did not survive, but that connection with people in your tender moment, I’ll never forget it. When you’re raw, it feels so good.”
We’re having a late breakfast at Cora’s Coffee Shoppe on Ocean Avenue in Santa Monica. Brody’s surfboard is in the car. Promotion of the second season of Nobody Wants This is in full swing, but he’s not filming anything else at the moment, so there’s enough time to head to his favorite break in Malibu. Brody, 45, has been surfing since his childhood in San Diego, although the fate of his favorite pastime seemed in doubt for much of the last year.
Nothing feels better than evoking laughter. I think that’s something we all need more of.
ADAM BRODY
“For a while it was such an open question: What does L.A. mean to us now? Can we picture ourselves here?” he says. “But then things started coming back to life. We started coming back to life. The fact that I’m surfing Malibu again — after thinking this is so devastated and so toxic, and that part of my life is gone — it makes me feel, more than anything, hopeful,” he says, sipping his grapefruit juice.
There is little doubt that Nobody Wants This came at a moment when audiences needed the serotonergic spritz of a rom-com, faced as they were with a dystopian television and film landscape that has made little space recently for a once-cherished genre. Erin Foster’s show focuses on the love story of a basketball-playing, pot-smoking rabbi and an agnostic shiksa who recounts her sexual peccadilloes on a podcast. It’s about people from different traditions and the absurd and poignant ways in which they and their hilarious families navigate those differences. The show’s second season premieres next month.
“This is a beloved genre that hasn’t taken all that many swings as of late,” Brody says. “And this one clearly works as a funny romantic show with a central love story that you care about. More than anything, I think that’s it. The religious angle of it is, on one hand, a nice stand-in for any difference in a relationship, any obstacle. And at the same time, whatever the state of the world, it also shows that there’s a real love out there for Jewish culture. It’s a culture cherished by not just Jews. But it’s a romantic comedy first and foremost.”
For Brody, acting was “a shot in the dark.” He had never even been in a play growing up. But at age 19, without any clear academic or professional direction, he decided to move to Los Angeles on a whim and with the tepid blessing of his parents. He worked at a couple of clothing stores on the Promenade in Santa Monica and parked cars at the Beverly Hills Hotel. He remembers those early days as lonely and anxious, but he was one of the lucky ones: After about a year, he was able to support himself as an actor. Then, at age 23, he landed a breakout role as Seth Cohen on The O.C. The soapy teen drama was a smash, and Brody became the definitive hot nerd as well as television’s most famous half-Jewish kid, introducing American audiences to the hybrid holiday of Chrismukkah. It ran for only four seasons, but The O.C. has found a new audience in Gen Z, which Brody attributes to a broader nostalgia for the aughts.
The fact that I’m surfing Malibu after thinking this is so devastated makes me feel hopeful.
ADAM BRODY
“It’s the last of the pre-cellphone eras. It was a more innocent time, war on terror and all,” he says. “Even though 9/11 took away our innocence, I still think the current generation has faced so much more of a loss of innocence and probably feels so much more threatened. I know I do. I’m not going to list all the horrors, but there’s just so much coming at us: fires and floods, geopolitical intensity, authoritarianism/fascism, technology, AI, social media. And by the way, I think Nobody Wants This offers something similar to The O.C. It isn’t about the threat of AI. It’s about people falling in love and navigating very relatable but ultimately surmountable problems. We want them to have a happy ending, and I think they will. That’s what the show is designed to do, and that’s what the show’s in service of.”
That Brody now regularly sees his character described as a “hot rabbi” provides an amusing redux 20 years after Seth Cohen, all the more so because Judaism played such a small part in his own upbringing. “Even though I was bar mitzvah-ed, I barely knew what Shabbat was myself,” he says. “True story. I didn’t really grow up around other Jewish people. My idols were all surfers, and before that your typical Michael Jordan, Hulk Hogan kind of thing. It wasn’t until much later that I was like — oh, Lou Reed. Philip Roth. When I was cast in Nobody Wants This, initially I thought, Noah’s very religious, and I don’t identify with that. And then very quickly I thought, That’s what makes this a great part for me. That’s what gives me something to do. I still feel that way. Actually, the sermons are some of the stuff I enjoy most. They allow me to try to inhabit someone with a very different language and worldview.”
Although he spends some of his free time developing scripts with friends or noodling on drums and guitar, he has his hands full with a 10-year-old daughter and a 5-year-old son. Brody loves to take his kids to the Santa Monica Pier after school and hit the roller coaster and the arcade. On weekends, the family may take the bike path from Will Rogers Beach all the way to Hermosa. Santa Monica remains a focal point: He and Meester recently made a date night out of Nashville at the Aero Theater, and the whole family joined a rally against immigration raids in Palisades Park.
The whole town burned. But, like COVID, there are parts of this time I’ll be nostalgic for. Our family has never been closer.
ADAM BRODY
Brody is a die-hard West Sider, even if he has some regret about never having had an Eagle Rock moment in his 20s. The ocean beckons too powerfully. “You’re in this dense metropolis, and then suddenly it breaks off into this infinite wilderness,” he says. “That dichotomy I’ve always loved so much. There’s a beautiful, desolate side to the sea that I’ve always found very calming on a foggy morning. People complain about the marine layer. I think that’s insane. It’s sunny 300 days of the year here. You don’t want 65 days of a nice, cool fog?”
There are certainly worse fates than being Hollywood’s most heart-throbbing reader of the Torah. But a track record that includes the cult horror flick Jennifer’s Body and the TV crime drama StartUp suggests Brody is not keen to be typecast. He is always on the lookout for sharp, interesting stories with a point of view and a personality, in any genre.
“At the same time, nothing feels better to me than the pleasure of evoking laughter,” he says. “Right now I think that’s something we all need more of.”
Grooming by KIM VERBECK at The Wall Group.
Feature image: CANALI coat, $4,095, and pants, $750. BRUNELLO CUCINELLI shirt, $400. STUART WEITZMAN shoes, $825. VAN CLEEF & ARPELS watch, $37,101. CARTIER rings, $2,680 each. LE SPECS sunglasses, $95.
This story originally appeared in the Men’s Fall 2025 issue of C Magazine.
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