If all is on schedule, the second season of “Nobody Wants This” starts filming this week and the casting news just keeps coming! Last week, Variety broke the news that actress Leighton Meester will be guest starring this season alongside her husband, Jewish actor and fictional hot rabbi Adam Brody. Now, Deadline is reporting that the second season is getting two more new cast members: Jewish actor Alex Karpovsky and non-Jewish, but still very talented actor Arian Moayed.
That’s right: Ray from “Girls” and Stewy from “Succession” are joining “Nobody Wants This”!
According to Deadline, Alex will play Big Noah, “an overly confident rabbi at Noah’s (Adam Brody) temple.” The character of Big Noah will add to the long list of Jewish roles on Alex Kaporvsky’s resume, though, ironically enough, Ray Ploshansky isn’t on that list. Real “Girls” fans will recall that Ray is actually Greek. “While it was emphasized multiple times in the series that Ray is not Jewish, he feels very Jewish-coded,” Rachel Rosenfield wrote of “Girls” for Hey Alma last year. “His neurotic energy and cynicism also plays into the trope of the neurotic Jew (very Larry David-esque). It’s almost like the multiple emphases of Ray not being Jewish is an acknowledgement that Ray’s character feels very Jewish to the viewers.”
Part of that feeling is also assuredly attributed to the fact that actor Alex Karpovsky has such an essentially Jewish quality about him, making him a perfect fit for “Nobody Wants This.” “I love how people always just assume I’m Jewish, they don’t even ask anymore,” Alex said in an interview with Jewcy in 2013. “People are like ‘So when did you go to Hebrew school?’ I’m like ‘Yeah I am Jewish, and I did go to Hebrew school for about a year or two.’”
Interestingly though, Alex has also said that Judaism doesn’t play a large role in the way he views or carries himself. “I act in a lot of my own movies and generally I play a character who is neurotic, guilt-ridden and full of anxiety. You can definitely make an argument that those are characteristics woven into our understanding of American Judaism, but that’s probably the extent of it,” he told Jewcy.
Meanwhile, Arian will have a major plot arc as Dr. Andy, “a charming, highly regarded (particularly by himself) psychotherapist who might just be the perfect match for Joanne’s sister Morgan.”
Are these characters completely different and separate from Ray and Stewy? Absolutely. Will I be able to differentiate them from Ray and Stewy? No, definitely not. (I also still refer to actor Timothy Simons, who plays Noah’s brother Sasha, as Jonah Ryan, his character from “Veep.” So, hey, at least I’m consistent.) But am I excited to see these talented actors join this extremely Jewish TV juggernaut? Once again, absolutely.
