Adam Brody has entered his “Hot Rabbi” era

After Adam Brody signed on to play a rabbi in the TV series Nobody wants thathe studied. He brooded over it Art Spiegelman'S Mouse, I watched the documentary The USA and the Holocaust,_, Read Philip Roth's Operation Shylock, and listened to podcasts from Rabbi David Sacks. Then he watched Yentl And Violinist on the roof for the first time and went on a tour of the Jewish Quarter in Venice. “I had time because there were strikes between filming and my registration,” he recalls over Zoom. “I had my ear to the ground, my radar focused on the year that, if I were somewhere, I would try to be part of the Jewish experience.”

Frankly, Brody studied because he “didn’t trust my authority” when it came to Judaism. Although his family is Jewish, he didn't grow up around many other Jewish people. “I don’t think I’ve gone to a bar mitzvah other than my own,” laughs the 44-year-old actor. Most of what he learned about religion and Jewish culture came from his parents and friends he met in his twenties and beyond. That's why he trusted his colleagues' authority in his latest assignment. “We had a lot of other Jewish people writing or directing, or there were other Jews there helping us educate,” he says.

On paper, the Netflix rom-com series Nobody wants that, which premieres September 26, sounds like a millennial fever dream. Brody, who starred in the soapy teen drama The OK plays opposite Kristen Bell from Veronica Mars And gossip Girl Celebrity – The former as Noah, a funny but traditional basketball-playing rabbi, and the latter as Joanne, an agnostic podcaster who opens up about her chaotic dating life and sexcapades on air. Of course, the couple has to deal with their religious differences – as well as their respective chaotic family dynamics.

Although he and his co-star headlined two of the most popular teen soaps in the early 2010s, Brody has never watched Veronica Mars and Bell has never seen it The OK Still, one of the main reasons Brody chose the project was to work with Bell. “She is a wonderful talent, a wonderful person and creates a wonderful environment,” he says. “I have already worked with her (in CHIPS), I know that and I was flattered that she wanted me to do it.” He was also drawn to the script – he loves working on romantic comedies, which for me are “a very comfortable space, tonally.” . And the rabbi part? “It was its own fun challenge,” he laughs. “There was a lot to chew on.”

Since his breakthrough role as the nerdy Death Cab for the sweet heartthrob Seth Cohen The OK, Brody has tried to diversify his resume. He played Nikolai Wolf, the satanic frontman of Low Shoulder in the horror cult classic Jennifer's body; Nick Talman, a morally controversial financier who launders money to save a technology company in the crime drama start-up; Abe Applebaum, a once respected but now worn-out Nancy Drew type in noireesque crime fiction The Child Detective; Daniel Le Domas, the antihero brother of the groom in the wedding-themed horror comedy Ready or Not; the adult superhero version of Freddy Freeman in Shazam!; and Seth Morris, the smoldering finance brother and Toby's best friend in the midlife crisis satire Fleishman is in trouble.