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Justine Lupe has revealed she was five months pregnant while filming Netflix’s hit show Nobody Wants This.
The 35-year-old actor, who plays the sister to Kristen Bell’s Joanne in the new romcom, has said online that during filming, she attempted to keep her pregnancy a secret from the cast and crew until her Gucci skirt ripped open on set.
“Nobody Wants This is out on @netflix today! This show carried me through my first 5+ months of pregnancy with so much warmth,” Lupe wrote online.
She shared the funny story of how her cast and crew discovered that she was expecting, writing: “And a cast and crew who supported me from the moment my Gucci skirt ripped open in both the front and backsides on set at 2am when they had no idea I was pregnant and thought I was just rapidly falling apart…”
She shared her thanks for “having a fully pregnant showrunner in @erinfoster, a relentless champion for motherhood in @kristenanniebell, a DP in @adrianpengcorreia who knows how to work the s*** out of camera to make me look, well, not pregnant.”
The newly-released romcom series follows an unlikely romance between Joanne (Kristen Bell), an agnostic serial dater and Noah (Adam Brody), a progressive rabbi who has just come out of a long-term relationship.
The pair spend months navigating how to balance their intense chemistry with their differing values, and Joanne must decide whether she wants to convert to Judaism to be with Noah.
Since its release, the show has been met with widespread praise but also criticism from people who believe the show “villainises” Jewish women.
The show’s creator Erin Foster based the series on her own marriage to her husband Simon Tikhman. Foster converted to Judaism before they married.
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In an article titled “Nobody Wants This Mean-Spirited Depiction of Jewish Women in Nobody Wants This”, TIME magazine’s Esther Zuckerman wrote that the series seems to ‘loathe Jewish women, who are portrayed as nags, harpies, and the ultimate villains of this story’”.
Zuckerman continued: “I wanted to be swept away by a rom-com. Instead, I was faced with the reality that maybe this show actually hates me.”
Zuckerman further writes that the non-Jewish woman, called a “shiksa”, has long been “idolised by Jewish men in popular culture”.
In a review of the show for Glamour magazine, Jessica Randolf wrote: “I can’t imagine any guy who watches this show who would then say, ‘I really want to date a Jewish girl!’”
“We come off as controlling, marriage-hungry women who want to plan dinner parties and alienate anyone who doesn’t share those same dreams.”
However, Foster told the LA Times in response: “I think we need positive Jewish stories right now.”
“I think it’s interesting when people focus on, ‘Oh, this is a stereotype of Jewish people,’ when you have a rabbi as the lead. A hot, cool, young rabbi who smokes weed.”
She continued: “That’s the antithesis of how people view a Jewish rabbi, right?”
