Editorial note: Light spoilers ahead for “Nobody Wants This.”
Season two of “Nobody Wants This,” aka Netflix’s smash-hit Hot Rabbi show, begins filming next week. And while the Hey Alma and Kveller editors have predicted numerous original plot lines for the new season — you’re welcome, “Nobody Wants This” writers — there’s one exciting update we now know for certain. Drum roll please… actress Leighton Meester will be guest starring alongside her husband, Jewish actor Adam Brody!
One of the most well-known and beloved interfaith couples working together on a show featuring one of TV’s most well-known and beloved interfaith couples? Dayenu!
Variety broke the news last week, sharing that Leighton will play Abby, “Joanne’s middle school nemesis who is now an Instagram mommy influencer.” They also shared the actor Miles Fowler, who recently starred in Emma Seligman‘s sophomore film “Bottoms,” will play Lenny, “Noah’s Matzah Ballers teammate who gets set up with Morgan (Justine Lupe).”
This casting news comes a few weeks after Adam Brody won the Critics Choice Award for his role in “Nobody Wants This” and gave a heartfelt tribute to Leighton. “My darling, darling, darling wife, Leighton. Thank you,” he said in his acceptance speech. “Thank you for sharing this life with me and this journey with me. Thank you for our family. I love you with all my heart. Thank you so much.”
Swoon.
But this isn’t the first time that Leighton Meester and Adam Brody have worked together. The pair met while filming the movie “The Oranges” in 2010, where Adam played Leighton’s potential love interest. They worked together again in 2019 on the sitcom “Single Parents” and this time Adam played the ex-boyfriend of Leighton’s character Angie. If this pattern of romantic entanglements between their characters holds, perhaps Leighton’s Abby will try to steal Rabbi Noah away from Joanne, providing another source of conflict to a season which promises to reveal the repercussions of Rabbi Noah’s decision to choose love over his job.
Though the couple keeps their private lives well, private, it seems that Adam and Leighton keep a generally secular household with some nods to Jewishness through food. In a 2024 interview with UK magazine The Stylist, Adam said that food was “a huge part” of Jewish culture to him, citing matzah brei and challah French toast as go-to breakfast meals he likes to make, and latkes and bagels as dishes with particular meaning to him. Adam also revealed a pretty questionable bagel order, but we won’t hold that against him; especially now that we get to see him, Leighton Meester and their palpable chemistry in “Nobody Wants This.”
