Erin Foster Reveals the Real-Life Easter Egg Included in Nobody Wants This

When it comes to in-laws, it’s always best to stay on their good side.

So when it came to Erin Foster’s new show Nobody Wants This—which is in part based off her own, real-life relationship with husband Simon Tikhman, for whom she converted to Judaism—Erin knew including a nod to her in-laws could only be a win-win scenario.

“My mother-in-law, I put a little Easter egg of her,” the 42-year-old shared on the Oct. 8 episode of The LadyGang podcast, hosted by Keltie Knight, Becca Tobin and Jac Vanek. "She's in the opening Temple scene sitting next to the woman that's playing her. She was really excited.”

But while Erin noted her in-laws are a big fan of her in real life—as she noted, “I converted to Judaism, it’s like the ultimate way to get your in-laws to love you”—she shared that the truth had to be dramatized for the screen.

Which is partly she made protagonist Joanne’s love interest Noah, played by Kristen Bell and Adam Brody respectively, a rabbi. 

"Listen the truth is there,” The O.C. alum added. “Obviously, for TV you always have to just create built-in conflict and so the parents have to hate Joanne.”

Which is a far cry from her real experience with her in-laws, of whom she added, “They're excited. They're having a viewing party with all their friends, which is really cute.”

Yet while the stakes of Noah and Joanne’s romance are made all the higher with Noah’s job as a rabbi, whereas Erin’s husband Simon is an entertainment executive, Erin has noted the ways in which her story and the one she wrote for the screen align.

“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.”

And, much like Joanne considers in the show, Erin did reach a point in which she had to consider converting to Judaism for Simon. But unlike Joanne in season one of the series, Erin did ultimately opt to convert—though not without serious thought.

As she noted, by the time she met Simon—with whom she tied the knot in 2019 and now shares 4-month-old daughter Noa—in her 30s, her way of life was pretty set in stone.

"'This is my worldview,’” she remembered thinking. “‘No one's going to be able to change it. These are my habits. They are what they are.'"

She continued, “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."

 (E! and Today are part of the NBCUniversal family.)