{"id":475711,"date":"2026-05-09T02:34:22","date_gmt":"2026-05-09T02:34:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/475711\/"},"modified":"2026-05-09T02:34:22","modified_gmt":"2026-05-09T02:34:22","slug":"nobody-wants-this-justine-lupe-on-season-2-dr-andy-romance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/475711\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Nobody Wants This’: Justine Lupe on Season 2 Dr. Andy Romance"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

Justine Lupe<\/a> has made an art out of scene-stealing. And not in the usual way, not by being showy or pushy or big-footing her way into something. The actress simply makes every scene she\u2019s in \u2014 from \u201cSuccession\u201d (two SAG Ensemble wins) to \u201cMr. Mercedes\u201d to her current work on \u201cNobody Wants This<\/a>\u201d \u2014 better by way of her natural good humor, her ability to take the most outlandish bits and make them feel decidedly human. She delights in working with other actors. She is thoughtful about good writing. She wants to make everything better, and somehow, that seems like half the battle.<\/p>\n

She is also just \u2014 and this cannot be overstated \u2014 so easily funny. Well, at least it looks easy. Maybe that\u2019s why, when she unpacks the big emotional guns, it hits even harder.<\/p>\n

\"Tony<\/a> \"Amadeus\"<\/a> <\/p>\n

When we first met Lupe\u2019s Morgan Williams in Season 1<\/a> of creator Erin Foster\u2019s smash hit Netflix series \u201cNobody Wants This,\u201d<\/a> she made for an excellent foil and reliable ride-or-die for her big sister and podcast partner Joanne (Kristen Bell). Acerbic and funny and not at all afraid of calling out Joanne\u2019s shit, the sisters were based on Foster and her own sister, Sara. Lupe still recalls what grabbed her about those early scripts. <\/p>\n

\u201cErin somehow managed to find this fine line of very biting, kind of dry, a little dickish, bratty humor, while also having so much heart running through all of it,\u201d Lupe told IndieWire during a recent interview. \u201cIt was very clear that these sisters love each other and have this kind of rivalry and banter going on, and that comes out in all their dialogue. I liked that I could hear her voice and that it had these two tones that lived in equal measure. I hadn\u2019t really experienced that before. I could feel how familiar Morgan was to Erin.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lupe laughed. \u201cThen, immediately upon looking into who Erin Foster was<\/a>, I was like, \u2018Oh, yes. I was correct,\u2019\u201d she said. Lupe binged the Fosters\u2019 own podcast<\/a> and \u201ckind of dove into the archive of everything that they\u2019d put out there.\u201d Morgan felt real because she is or, at least, she is rooted in someone very real and very beloved by Erin.<\/p>\n

But Lupe was eager to make Morgan her own, pushing her take on the character to get \u201cway more messy\u201d and \u201ca bit more kooky.\u201d \u201cI kind of hijacked Sara and made her into my own, but I still reference her,\u201d she said. \u201cThat kind of forward-facing fun that Morgan and Joanne have with each other, a little bratty and bitchy, that\u2019s very much Sara and Erin\u2019s dynamic. I always turn back to that when we\u2019re doing the podcast scenes. But I\u2019m a little bit more sloppy and loose than Sara. Sara\u2019s this amazing specimen, and I\u2019m just, as Justine, a little bit more of a rat. Some of the poise and the chicness that she carries, I try and bring that, I just have a different vibe to me, I think I have to work hard to get into her posture.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Nobody\u2018Nobody Wants This\u2019HOPPER STONE\/NETFLIX<\/p>\n

In the series\u2019 second season<\/a>, Lupe dove more into Morgan\u2019s emotional state and what really makes her tick. She\u2019s not just a sidekick or second fiddle, and she\u2019s far more self-aware than she might have first seemed. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s definitely a mask that Morgan has, and I\u2019m not saying that Sara has a mask, but she feels very self-aware, she feels like she understands, she\u2019s grown up in a public-facing way,\u201d Lupe said. \u201cShe\u2019s been in the entertainment business for a while. She really understands her relationship with the public, and so I took that feeling to Morgan. I think Morgan\u2019s always aware of people watching her, how she\u2019s being perceived, and so there is a bit of a mask that she wears, and it comes down in moments of vulnerability. Especially in the last season, I tried to keep that, that she likes feeling curated as much as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the series\u2019 second season, Morgan gets a hell of a subplot. While so much of the rom-com series is built on the ups and downs of Joanne and Noah\u2019s (Adam Brody) seemingly mismatched romance, giving Morgan her own romantic upheaval seemed like a natural next step. Her sister is in love; why shouldn\u2019t she be?<\/p>\n

But, in true Morgan fashion, she zigged where everyone else might have zagged: by dating her own therapist, Dr. Andy (her \u201cSuccession\u201d co-star Arian Moayed). What seems right and good to Morgan? Well, it feels insane to everyone else.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought it was really fun and funny, but as we kept on going, and honestly, when I watched it, I realized how sad it is too. It snuck up on me,\u201d Lupe said of Morgan\u2019s Season 2 subplot. \u201cAt the time, I was like, \u2018Oh, this is such a fun storyline that she falls in love with her therapist, introduces him to the family!\u2019 and then the ending hits where she\u2019s like, \u2018OK, I\u2019ll go back on the apps. I didn\u2019t want to do that.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Nobody\u2018Nobody Wants This\u2019ERIN SIMKIN\/NETFLIX<\/p>\n

As the story unfolded, Lupe was struck by the very real (and very relatable) concerns that fueled Morgan\u2019s romantic choice. Some of it goes back to Joanne finding love, but most of it is Morgan finally allowing herself to realize that her life has changed in ways she didn\u2019t want it to. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou realize the reality is, this is a woman in her late 30s, who\u2019s feeling like she\u2019s behind, and is desperate to find something that feels like real intimacy with someone,\u201d the actress said. \u201cThe person that she turns to is her therapist, and she fast-tracks this ludicrous relationship, because she\u2019s scared that she\u2019s going to not find what her sister found, and she\u2019s going to be alone. It\u2019s weird that I didn\u2019t think about that [right away], how this is really relatable and kind of an intense thing that a lot of my girlfriends are going through. It started out as this very fun, goofy storyline, and then by the end of the whole process, I was like, \u2018Ugh, Morgan. Poor Morgan.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

So, in Lupe\u2019s mind, how much of Morgan\u2019s life, particularly her romantic one, is rooted in comparing herself to Joanne? To Dr. Andy? To Noah?<\/p>\n

\u201cThe way I find my way into it is my own feelings, that it\u2019s less an intellectual \u2018This plus this equals this,\u2019 it\u2019s more just a heartsickness when your girlfriends change,\u201d Lupe said. \u201cThey\u2019re evolving into a different place in their life. [Morgan is] still in the place where they were having slumber parties together, hanging out, going out. I know that feeling so well, because I have very codependent relationships with my girlfriends, and I\u2019ve been the person to [move on] and I\u2019ve also been the person that feels left behind by a friend moving into a next phase of their life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Morgan might not be willing to tell herself all that, but she\u2019s feeling it throughout Season 2, and that\u2019s where the Dr. Andy stuff came from. That\u2019s how Lupe sees it, and she\u2019s certainly on to something here. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s like a body feeling. It\u2019s a heartbreak of a kind,\u201d the actress said. \u201cYou\u2019re so excited for them, and at the same time, there\u2019s a visceral feeling of like, \u2018Oh, the change is happening, and that\u2019s hard.\u2019 You have to renegotiate who you turn to, how you turn to them, what level of support they can give, and what level of fun you guys can have. Morgan, there\u2019s a lot of intellectualizing in terms of them having these conversations, where she\u2019s kind of picking on Joanne or toying with Joanne. There\u2019s a little bit of the train running off the track and her spinning out, and this is the way that she handles it: \u2018I\u2019m going to start dating the guy that \u201cknows me\u201d and find some sort of an anchor. This is something to hold onto.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not.<\/p>\n

\"Nobody\u2018Nobody Wants This\u2019ERIN SIMKIN\/NETFLIX<\/p>\n

The season culminates with a big, splashy engagement party for Morgan and Dr. Andy at, of all places, the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures<\/a> (\u201cCrazy! One of the most expensive engagement parties known to man!,\u201d Lupe exclaimed). But it\u2019s not just a party, it\u2019s also the location of Morgan finally breaking up with Dr. Andy. What timing!<\/p>\n

\u201cI just had a conversation with someone who had an experience like this, where a friend of theirs had sex with one of the bartenders at their wedding, and then [she still] got married and they soon broke up. It\u2019s this kind of, oh, everything comes out in the wash, and if you\u2019re not ready to do it, shit happens,\u201d she said. \u201cWhen you\u2019re right up against the reality of what you\u2019re doing, if it\u2019s not aligned, things can get a little bit crazy. For me, it\u2019s totally unhinged, and it would be something that I would live with forever, but I\u2019m also shocked at how often I\u2019ve heard stories of this kind of thing happening.\u201d<\/p>\n

Joanne knows Morgan doesn\u2019t want to marry Dr. Andy, and when she tells the sisters\u2019 parents, it\u2019s their mother, Lynn (Stephanie Faracy), who steps up. She grabs a dazed Morgan, plies her with a big drink, and hits her with some pretty hard truths about her own ill-fated marriage. It works. Morgan snaps out of it and dumps Dr. Andy under a perilously large flower arch. I told Lupe that I felt, even as a viewer, very proud of Morgan in that moment.<\/p>\n

\u201cTotally, and I\u2019m proud of Lynn, I\u2019m proud of her mom for being like, \u2018Girl, wake up,\u2019 and having some real transparency about her relationship with her dad and how she wished she had done things differently,\u201d Lupe said. \u201cWe\u2019ve never really seen that. These are girls who have very codependent and interpersonal relationships with their parents, but there\u2019s not actually full transparency or real intimacy with them, so I feel like it was a real moment for Lynn to come out and be like, \u2018Hey. You deserve to feel this.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

The Dr. Andy subplot also gave Lupe the chance to feel Morgan out in a different kind of romantic relationship. In the first season, Morgan\u2019s bond with Noah\u2019s brother Sasha (Timothy Simons) was so delightful and sparky that many wondered if the leads\u2019 siblings were bound for their own relationship<\/a>. Lupe said her bond and chemistry with Simons was immediate, and the pair are now close friends even outside of the show.<\/p>\n

\"Nobody\u2018Nobody Wants This\u2019Courtesy of Netflix<\/p>\n

But the possibility of a Morgan and Sasha relationship was controversial in the fandom, mostly because Sasha is already married (his complicated romance with Esther, the also-delightful Jackie Tohn, got its own heady subplot this season<\/a>). It\u2019s also something the actors thought about a lot.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the question of it was, \u2018What is this chemistry? Is there a name to it, or is it just this kind of ambiguous, somewhere on the spectrum of friendships, romantic kind of attraction? Where does it lie?’\u201d she said. \u201cThat was something that we were always trying to track, and many times with no answer in sight, which I think makes it more interesting. But I had no trouble having chemistry with Tim; he could have chemistry with a sack of potatoes. He\u2019s just available, excited, curious, and just a very easy person to connect to.\u201d<\/p>\n

With the possibility of romance between Morgan and Sasha excised in Season 2, Lupe hailed the evolution of the pair\u2019s bond.<\/p>\n

\u201cI liked the way that it evolved into something with that same underlying companionship that was in the first season,\u201d she said. \u201cBut when the sexual tension was off the table, it became more of just us relating to each other and being vulnerable with each other in a way that neither of us really are with other people in our lives. It kind of carried the essence of what was there before and deepened it a little bit, it wasn\u2019t as naggy or as kind of flirty, and it felt a little bit more like direct connection and direct vulnerability.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trying to find other examples for that bond proved difficult, Lupe said. When I offered up Joey and Phoebe on \u201cFriends,\u201d Lupe answered with a confession. \u201cI haven\u2019t seen \u2018Friends,\u2019 believe it or not. I know! I know. It\u2019s terrible,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s one of those things where it just feels so insurmountable at this time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Funnily enough, this season of \u201cNobody Wants This\u201d felt closer to an ensemble series like \u201cFriends,\u201d with everyone getting their own juicy little subplots (again: Dr. Andy and Morgan, Esther and Sasha).<\/p>\n

\"Nobody\u2018Nobody Wants This\u2019ERIN SIMKIN\/NETFLIX<\/p>\n

\u201cWith the rom-com structure, there is a beginning and an end, and in order to sustain it over multiple seasons, you kind of have to expand out into the ensemble in order to keep it alive,\u201d Lupe said. \u201cThere wasn\u2019t a specific conversation that we had with the team, where they were like, \u2018We\u2019re going to give you more real estate,\u2019 but it was exciting to see that they were playing around with our characters a little bit more. I\u2019ve done a lot of these kinds of supporting parts, and I\u2019ve just never been given this amount of real estate. This is a different thing, and it felt really exciting.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, at the core of the series is Morgan\u2019s relationship with Joanne. That\u2019s the big love story of her life, at least for now. Asked about her relationship with Bell off-screen, Lupe beamed.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe is someone who\u2019s like, she\u2019s on set, and then she\u2019s deeply entrenched in her family. I\u2019m a similar person,\u201d Lupe said. \u201cI feel really comfortable with her. I feel really familiar with her. I feel like I can be completely transparent with her about anything that I\u2019m dealing with. There have been, truly, times where I\u2019ve literally thought, \u2018What would Kristen do in this moment?\u2019 because she\u2019s just so patient, fun, and thoughtful about the way that she parents and is also just a real team leader on set.\u201d<\/p>\n

She added, \u201cThere\u2019s a relationship there that\u2019s a substantial one, but it\u2019s not like the kind of thing where we\u2019re hanging out all the time in the way that Tim and I and our spouses all hang out, but it\u2019s very familiar and I think that that translates.\u201d <\/p>\n

Bell also goes to bat for Lupe the way a real sister might, and the actress pointed to an experience she had with her co-star right before shooting on Season 2 kicked off. <\/p>\n

\u201cI had a movie that happened right before we did the second season, and it was basically overlapping with the season,\u201d Lupe said. \u201cAnd Kristen went above and beyond, and called everyone on set to push production a week, and was like, \u2018We need to do whatever we can to make this possible for Justine\u2019 because it was the first time that I\u2019d ever had a leading role as a female in a movie. That\u2019s something she didn\u2019t have to do, and it was incredibly moving to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Coming up in Season 3, a new co-star: Erin Foster herself, who is playing a currently undisclosed role in the series she created (loosely about her own life!). <\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s clearly very excited about it, and she picked a part that\u2019s really appropriate for her to be doing,\u201d Lupe said. \u201cThe thing that I was most moved by was just how high the stakes were for her. She was really concerned about doing a good job and really wanted to memorize the crap out of it and make sure that she was super-prepared, asking for tips, and asking for coaching from Kristen. I didn\u2019t get to see it, but I did hear that she was really great and really fun, so I\u2019m really excited to see it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Is there anything else we might get out of her? Another romance for Morgan, maybe?<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t tell you anything,\u201d Lupe said with a laugh, before literally closing her lips, a natural bit of physical comedy from the actress. \u201cI\u2019m telling you! No, I can\u2019t say anything. I want you to be totally surprised. I was kind of shocked that Erin even said that she was going to be on the show. So, I\u2019ll stay tight-lipped about it, but what I can tell you is \u2014 and [the showrunners] have been very open about it \u2014 they wanted the feeling of this season to be champagne. They want it to be fun and lively, and so that\u2019s the only kind of clue that I can give, is champagne.\u201d<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s to more Morgan.<\/p>\n

Season 1 and Season 2 of \u201cNobody Wants This\u201d are now streaming on Netflix. Season 3 will be released later this year. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Justine Lupe has made an art out of scene-stealing. And not in the usual way, not by being…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":475712,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[265],"tags":[4648,208390,18,7612,117,19,2810,17,83484,56336,128],"class_list":{"0":"post-475711","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-awards","9":"tag-consider-this","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-emmys","12":"tag-entertainment","13":"tag-ie","14":"tag-interviews","15":"tag-ireland","16":"tag-justine-lupe","17":"tag-nobody-wants-this","18":"tag-tv"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116542286791066983","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/475711","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=475711"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/475711\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/475712"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=475711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=475711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=475711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}