Nobody Wants This’ Timothy Simons & Jackie Tohn on the secret to the hit Netflix show’s success
When Nobody Wants This dropped in September last year, it skyrocketed to the top of the Netflix charts.
Fans fell in love with the series’ quick witty dialogue, the lovable yet flawed characters and, of course, the perfectly imperfect love story between spicy podcast host, Joanne and sexy young Rabbi, Noah.
And, let’s be honest, who doesn’t love a rom-com series featuring ’90s heartthrobs Kristen Bell and Adam Brody?
Nobody Wants This stars Adam Brody as Noah, Timothy Simons as Sasha, Kristen Bell as Joanne and Jackie Tohn as Esther. (Image: Netflix)
Despite having all the winning ingredients, Timothy Simons and Jackie Tohn — who play Noah’s brother Sasha and his wife Esther — admit that the huge success of the series was a surprise to them.
“I feel like I always assumed it would do okay,” Timothy admits.
“A joke that I’ve made a lot is that you have Adam Brody and Kristen Bell and they kiss. That’s huge so I assumed that people would be into it but honestly just for anything to break through these days is incredibly hard. Nothing you can plan for.”
“It’s nuts and when you plan for it it can be very embarrassing and heartbreaking,” Jackie adds, noting that even a full cast of A-listers and an unlimited budget doesn’t guarantee a success.
“When you think it’s going to be a smash based on who’s in it and how much money it took to make, based on everything, how much anticipation there is in studios and then nobody cares. Then, there’s some tiny little indie that every single person sees and gets added to all these streamers so you never really have any idea. You just can’t anticipate any of these things.”
Thankfully, the show was a pretty big success from the moment it landed on Netflix. However, Timothy didn’t clock it until he was making his way through security in an airport.
“I was going through TSA from Canada back to the States and I got stopped seven or eight times, including by the canadian TSA when I handed them my ticket,” the Veep star recounts.
“The woman looked at me and shouted to her co-worker, ‘it a guy from the show I was just telling you about’. There was that real world aspect of like, wow, a lot of people have seen this.”
Bless these two. (Image: Netflix)
A big part of Nobody Wants This‘ success comes down to the zeitgeist’s craving for good romantic comedies.
During the pandemic, the internet was rife with claims that rom-coms were well and truly in the grave. While there certainly had been a lull in new quality rom-com series and films, Nobody Wants This seemed to scratch that itch entirely.
If you ask Jackie, it comes down to relatability.
“It’s how relatable it is,” the GLOW star reflects.
“I think our show runners and writers took the romantic comedy and turned it on its head where it isn’t just ‘Oh my god, i spilled wine on you and now it’s a meet cute’. It’s real. This stuff is happening. It’s trials and tribulations because nobody wants to be on the dating apps. And for people who are in longer term relationships, what do those problems look like?
“I think we’re really looking at flawed characters living their lives authentically and that has to be refreshing.”
Sasha, Esther and Morgan have a weird dynamic to figure out in season two. (Image: Netflix)
This “realness” is especially true for Timothy and Jackie’s characters.
At the end of season one, Esther discovers that Sasha had developed a friendship with Joanne’s sister Morgan (Justine Lupe). While no lines had been crossed in a physical sense, there was an attraction between them and Sasha wasn’t upfront about his friendship with Morgan.
When we kick off season two, Sasha and Esther are working out how to deal with this ambiguous yet difficult grey area within their relationship. Although Sasha and Esther are married when we meet them in season one, there were a huge chunk of fans who were hoping to see Sasha and Morgan get together in season two.
Sasha and Morgan have a romantically ambiguous friendship going on. (Image: Netflix)
While Timothy and Jackie can definitely see where the audience is coming from, they don’t entirely believe a cheating plotline would do the show any good.
“The way we’ve always seen it is there is room for all of it. I love all of it. I love that some people are Team Esther and some people are Team Sasha and Morgan,” Jackie admits.
“It really speaks to the reality of the show where it’s like, what is that complicated realationship? What are they doing? Is it a bad thing or not okay? All of those questions are real and portrayed in our real lives so seeing it played out on screen is cool.”
“Everybody can be on whatever team they want but I think it’s important to recognise that this is a big thing that does come up in their real lives,” Timothy adds.
“If you’ve been in a long term relationship and your boyfriend, girlfriend partner or whatever is all of a sudden really close friends to someone who is cool and hot and you’re like wait a minute why am i not occupying that space?
“I think some people respond to that just because its a really common thing.”
You can watch season one and two of Nobody Wants This on Netflix.
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