Leighton Meester, right, appears in the second season of "Nobody Wants This" alongside her real-life husband Adam Brody and his onscreen love Kristen Bell.
Nobody Wants This. Leighton Meester as Abby in episode 205 of Nobody Wants This. Cr. Erin Simkin/Netflix © 2025

Ask Adam Brody how actress Leighton Meester came to appear on his popular Netflix rom-com series “Nobody Wants This,” and he’ll say she pleaded. Incessantly.

“She's been begging me and begging me, and I say, no, and eventually I gave in,” Brody jokes. The couple have been married for 11 years and share two children. “She won't stop thanking me now," he says. "It's so great. It's so great to have that power over her.”

Brody’s onscreen love interest Kristen Bell is quick to kibosh this notion, explaining Meester was simply perfect for the role of over-the-top influencer Abby introduced in Episode 5 of Season 2 (now streaming). Abby asks Rabbi Noah (Brody) to preside over her baby naming ceremony for her newborn, Afternoon; she's also the childhood nemesis of Joanne (Bell). “I’m obsessed with how much I hate her,” Joanne says in the episode. In middle school, Abby cut Joanne’s American Girl doll’s hair at a sleepover and was never to be forgiven.

Bell herself doesn’t have any similar nemeses. “Hating people, it's not my style, and I just find it to be a waste of time,” she says. But Brody admits he has a list of crummy costars. “I've collected a handful of my least favorite actors I've worked with over my career, and I kind of cherish it,” he says chuckling. “I like the few s---y stories I have of a few people … I'd be willing to forgive and forget if they were cool.”

Meester will never make such a list. “When this character was written,” Bell says, “I think everyone in the writers’ room started biting their nails and thinking the same thought. You needed a frenemy who could threaten Joanne, but she could also be inspired by and obsessed with. And the idea of Leighton, I believe, collectively came to everyone at the same moment. And we just thought, ‘Will she have time? Will she do it? We wonder.’ And thankfully, she was game for everything and was an absolute delight to add.”

That’s right, a delight. Brody and Bell say there wasn’t any awkwardness on set while they pretended to be in love in front of Meester.

“I wouldn't call it awkward, but it was peculiar,” Brody says. “This was kind of the first time, I think, where it was like, (my wife's) on set, but I'm with (Bell). And it wasn't awkward, but it was different and just peculiar and a little silly.”

“I don't find it awkward,” Bell agrees. “If anything, we barely lose ourselves in anything. There's been many a time where they cut from some sort of a kissing scene and then I'm like, ‘What did you and Leighton do for dinner last night?’ Like, ‘How was Dax's motorcycle trip?’ It really just feels part of the job.”

And if the job had a spot for Bell’s husband, Dax Shepard, actor and host of the Armchair Expert podcast, Bell would welcome it.

“There's room for Dax everywhere that he wants to be,” Bell says. “I don't think he's interested in acting at the moment. He loves podcasting. He's very happy where he is.”

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Leighton Meester has 'been begging' for 'Nobody Wants This' cameo, Adam Brody jokes

Reporting by Erin Jensen, USA TODAY / USA TODAY

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