Is 'Nobody Wants This' A True Story? Creator Erin Foster Tells All

Sometimes, a TV love story seems too good to be true. On rarer occasions, it's so good it has to be true. Such is the case with the new Netflix rom-com "Nobody Wants This."

Staring Adam Brody and Kristen Bell, the 10-part series follows the story of Joanne, the agnostic host of a no-holds-barred sex podcast, who falls in love with Noah, a rabbi.

The Los Angeles-set series captures their stops and starts as they fall in love reluctantly, knowing the challenges that face them in the form of cultural differences and family expectations.

Creator Erin Foster didn't just create this show — she kind of lived it. "Nobody Wants This" was inspired by the Foster's real life love story with her husband, entertainment executive Simon Tikhman. Foster, a former reality star and actor turned entrepreneur, podcast host and producer, met Tikhman in her late 30s.

While Tikhman isn't a rabbi in real life, he does practice Judaism. Foster converted to Judaism, a decision Joanne weighs in "Nobody Wants This," before they married.

Speaking to TODAY.com, Foster speaks to the line between truth and fiction.

"It's not always like tangible things I can point to," she says. "The emotional journey, I would say, is very accurate in to my experience of meeting my husband."

While Joanne and Noah are pulled toward each other romantically, their family members, and their own fears and inhibitions, prevent them from leaning fully into their feelings.

Part of Foster's experience had to do with what she describes as being "set in her ways" when she met Tikhman in her 30s.

"'This is my worldview. No one's going to be able to change it. These are my habits. They are what they are,'" she says she remembered thinking. "And then you meet someone who totally turns that upside down, who makes you want to be a better version of yourself, and who makes you question all the things that you thought were true."

While Noah and Joanne''s future ends in uncertainty at the end of Season 1, Erin and Simon's has a much clearer result: Foster converted to Judaism, and the couple now shares a 4-month-old daughter, Noa Mimi.

According to Kristen Bell, Foster was extremely open to sharing her own story with her TV counterpart.

"Erin talked to us a lot about her experiences. She is such an open book and offered up all of her history of meeting and dating her husband, and her thought process about converting and about their differences and their similarities," Bell says.

Foster says Noah and Joanne's story is true to her life, but emphasizes most of the supporting characters are not based on their real-life counterparts.

"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 says. "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.'"

One character, however, is pulled directly from her life — and it's not her dad, musician David Foster.

"The mom character, really, really is based on my mom (Rebecca Dyer). I showed her the audition that Stephanie (Faracy) sent in and and my mom thought it was really funny," Foster says.

She added that she has a "great relationship" with her in-laws, unlike Joanne in the series. "She's nothing like the character," Foster says of her mother-in-law.

They have such a great relationship, in fact, that Foster gave Marina Tikhman a role in the show.

"She's actually in a scene in the opening temples. she is sitting next to Bina (Tovah Feldshuh), who plays her essentially, and so she's supportive because I gave her an acting career," she jokes, joking that her mother-in-law was a "huge diva on set. She wanted all the hair and makeup and all the attention."

The real-life parallels between Foster's life and "Nobody Wants This" are varied, she says the goal isn't to recreate her story.

"I really want to show a romantic comedy that has a male lead who treats women nicely, and not in a way that makes him feel like he's a pushover," she says.

She was motivated to show a "good guy (could) also be the 'crushable' guy that you want to end up with."

She also wants people to see people dating in their 30's on television.

"It's hard dating your 30s," Foster says. "I met my husband when I was just about to turn 36 and it's a really scary time. Like you think you're going to be alone forever, you think you missed the boat, or your time is up and you focused on your career. It can't all happen at the same time."

"So I do hope that people watch the show and feel like it's a rom com for not the 'youngins'."