There’s no denying Adam Brody and Kristen Bell’s chemistry in Nobody Wants This, and there’s a good reason for that. The two go back way back, and even costarred in 2013’s Some Girl(s).
Long before Brody and Bell stole hearts as star (of David) crossed lovers in the recent Netflix series, they played exes in Some Girl(s), which fans can currently stream for free on Tubi, Prime Video and Freevee.
The film, helmed by Party Girl director Daisy von Scherler Mayer and based on Neil LaBute’s 2005 play, follows Brody’s character, a successful writer known simply as “Man,” as he sets out on a cross-country journey to make amends with his some of his ex-girlfriends before getting married. In addition to Bell, the film features Zoe Kazan, Mía Maestro, Jennifer Morrison and Emily Watson as Brody’s character’s former lovers.
But Man’s encounter with Bell’s Bobbi, a Los Angeles-based doctor, is his most significant and intense. Their fraught conversation reveals that Brody’s character essentially ghosted Bell’s after he moved to Chicago while they were still together. Sparks fly when Bobbi confronts Brody’s character with the pain their breakup caused her and takes him to task for the selfishness of his whole endeavor.
Brody and Bell’s emotional, extended scene together serves as the film’s climax, and their characters’ acrimony is a far cry from their charming dynamic in Nobody Wants This.
In a behind-the-scenes interview, Bell described her Some Girl(s) scenes with Brody as “the healing of a scar.”
“You know, with love comes vulnerability, and with vulnerability, I mean, really, anything goes,” she said.
In an interview during the 2013 SXSW festival, where Some Girl(s) had its premiere, Brody explained his interpretation of his character: “He’s doing some ‘soul searching,’ and it’s not quite going deep enough,” he said. “He’s trying to argue his case with the women and himself why he’s in the right.”
In that same interview, director Mayer noted that the film’s crew was particularly riveted during Brody and Bell’s sequence. “I have this flashback of turning and, like, I’ve never seen so many [crew members] and they’re all just like, ‘What’s she gonna say now? What’s he saying?’ ” she recalled. “It was almost like listening in to some couple breaking up next door.”
“The stakes are just human beings in their relationships, and it gets so powerful, and nobody dies and there’s no cars turning over, and yet it’s really powerful and really gripping,” Mayer added of the film.
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More than a decade later and despite their Netflix show’s title, Brody and Bell have flipped the script as a couple everyone seems to be rooting for in Nobody Wants This.
That includes Bell’s own husband, Dax Shepard. “Watching the first episode he was like, ‘Oh my God, I want you to kiss him so badly,’ ” Bell said of Shepard in a recent interview with E! News’ eTalk. “Whether or not people want to see you end up with someone is a crap shoot, and we just kind of got lightning in a bottle.”
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