Nobody Wants This Creator Erin Foster Reveals Heartwarming True Story That Inspired the Netflix Series

Erin Foster is sharing a story that everybody wants.

The Nobody Wants This creator revealed the romantic comedy series—starring Kristen Bell and Adam Brody as a couple trying to converge their wildly different lives—was loosely inspired by her own real-life romance with husband Simon Tikhman.

“It's not always like tangible things I can point to,” Erin told Today.com in an interview published Sept. 30. “The emotional journey, I would say, is very accurate to my experience of meeting my husband.”

In the Netflix series, Kristen plays agnostic, sex-positive podcast host Joanne who falls for Jewish rabbi Noah, portrayed by Adam. Joanne weighs whether to convert to Judaism, which Erin did in real life ahead of her 2019 wedding.

But the screenwriter wasn’t always open to the idea of converting. When she met Simon, she recalled thinking, “‘This is my worldview. No one's going to be able to change it. These are my habits. They are what they are.’” 

“And then you meet someone who totally turns that upside down, who makes you want to be a better version of yourself,” Erin continued, “and who makes you question all the things that you thought were true.”

And while the 42-year-old—whose father is music producer David Foster—drew from her life to craft the story, she made a point to be less derivative with the characters’ specific personality traits.

“I had a lot of anxiety around that, and I intentionally made the characters really different than the people are in real life because I didn't want to get divorced,” she said. “My husband is, like, really private. Being married to someone like me is his personal hell. Literally today, he was like, ‘Have a great day. Good luck with the interviews. Please don’t talk about me.’”

Though viewers will have to watch the series to find out Joanne and Noah’s fate at the end of season one, things turned out pretty well for Erin and Simon, who welcomed daughter Noa Mimi Tikhman in May.

“Truly the most insane experience of my life, with the best ending,” the Barely Famous alum wrote on Instagram after giving birth. “Gave birth to her au naturale in our bed like a beast, but also would have taken heroine in the moment if someone offered.”