Tovah Feldshuh Talks 'Nobody Wants This' & More

If anyone is living the dream, it would be actress Tovah Feldshuh, who is one of the stars of Nobody Wants This, on Netflix. A hit by any standard, the second season of the romantic comedy series drops Oct. 23. Feldshuh plays Bina Roklov, the Russian Jewish mother to “Hot Rabbi” Noah Roklov, played by Adam Brody. Noah falls in love with Kristen Bell, a shiksa (a/k/a a non-Jewish woman).

“When I was growing up, it was a compliment to be told you were ‘beautiful like a shiksa,’” Feldshuh says with a laugh, explaining the role of co-star Kristen Bell. “I’m often the oldest on the set these days, but I am treated with such love and care, all I can say is – the world should only be thus.”

“My ‘son’, Adam Brody, is particularly protective of me. His arm is always at the ready to escort me down any staircase. I say to him, ‘You’re lucky I don’t slide down the banister.’

Feldshuh recently completed the movie Tuner opposite Dustin Hoffman, coming out in the fall, and before that, she was on Broadway opposite Lea Michele as Rosie Brice, Fanny Brice’s mother in Funny Girl, where she tapped dance eight times a week for over a year – and endlessly practiced, coached by her best friend in the company, the extraordinary Jared Grimes.

After all was said and done “I was an adequate tap dancer,” she says modestly – “ but I was all heart!”

Feldshuh initially had planned to be a lawyer but ended up waitlisted at Harvard Law. At the same time, she was awarded the McKnight Fellowship in Acting to the Tyrone Guthrie Theater from 1971-73. That pivot from law to theater changed the trajectory of her life’s work.

“I was lucky,” Feldshuh says. “After two seasons of carrying spears and understudying the size seven leading ladies, in early 1973, I was cast as the Foodseller in the musical of Cyrano starring Christopher Plummer. The production was mounted at the Guthrie, moved to The Royal Alex in Toronto, then The Colonial Theatre in Boston and at last sailed into Broadway at the historic Palace Theatre in April 1973. By June, despite the show’s brief run, Christopher Plummer had won the Tony for Best Actor in a Musical.

Feldshuh loved the craft of acting and still does. Her mother, however? “She was wonderful to me, but seemingly not supportive of my acting aspirations. Actually, my mother was worried that I would be ‘knocking around’ trying to earn a living,” Feldshuh remembers. “It was clear, if I were going to make it, I had to do so on my own. I love my work and somehow I always found work and never had to resort to an auxiliary job to support myself. Due to a fortunate synchronicity of events, I went from being a journeyman McKnight Fellow to coming to Broadway at the Palace Theater. Eighteen months later I was given the title role in Yentl at the Brooklyn Academy of Music – and then Yentl transferred from Brooklyn to Broadway and I was on the marquis!”

“The love of the craft was the rocket fuel of what became my career. However, Michael Langham at the Guthrie and Uta Hagen, my first New York acting teacher, set a standard of excellence I would never forget and have reached for throughout my career,” Feldshuh says. “I also had wonderful parents who were dedicated to giving my older brother, David (PHD, MD, and Pulitzer finalist for Miss Evers’ Boys), and myself a rich and deep education. My parents’ dedication and discipline with their own work and their devotion and unconditional love for my brother and me enabled us to ‘never give up.’ “My mantra has always been ‘I will give this day my best.’ I want to leave this world better for having lived in it.

“I’m extremely grateful that having stayed the course of over 50 years on Broadway, television, and film, that the work I am being offered is varied, and often wondrous,” Feldshuh says. “I owe a lot of thanks to The Stewart Talent Agency (Jay Schachter, Jordan Parente, Tim Marshall, and Don Henry Birge) and my marvelous manager Michael Adler for the plentitude of the offers. I keep asking them [jokingly] if everybody else is dead?”

Feldshuh will happily perform in charity gigs, and with or without a fee, but one thing she always needs is “The Magic 6.” Feldshuh says, “At the very least, so that I can show up at my best, looking my best. I gently ask for: car, driver, manicure, pedicure, hair and make-up. It’s a win-win for everyone.

Recently I have joined another TV family in a series called M.I.A. It’s a one-hour drama dealing with survival in the drug world of Miami ….Very different from Nobody Wants This.

When asked, Feldshuh, says that there are both similarities and differences between playing for the theater and playing for the camera.

“I was originally trained in classical repertoire,” Feldshuh says. “You ask me how I prepare?” “The first thing I do is read and re-read the entire script to understand the context of the material to which I am contributing. Then I explore how I can contribute to it. I’ve always thought of theater as the marathon of our art and a movie/TV shoot as the sprint. In film, one must be ready at breakneck speed to let the emotional floodgates open – on cue and for what’s best for the biggest star: the camera!”

“Before every performance, I say to myself right before I go on stage: “This is somebody’s first Broadway show and this is somebody’s last. Do it for them,” she says.

“In a movie, with each different take, the actor can create a different interpretation, so you give your director and your editor choices, choices that can slant the character and slant the story one way or another. In the theater you excavate and excavate the role nightly to deepen the part until you are swimming in that river of common human experience.”

“Finally, what has helped my journey as an actor?” says Feldshuh, “I have been blessed with a fantastic life’s partner with whom I have shared almost 49 years of marriage. You know, I only made the waitlist at Harvard Law. My husband, Andrew Harris Levy, swept into Harvard Law after four years at Harvard College. Home run!! He and I are looking forward to grabbing some vacation time this summer, and I hope to be in Quogue as much as possible with the three generations of our family.”

Another of her passions after acting, her husband and family, is to fight for the survival of the Jewish people. Her voice quivers when she speaks of what is going on in the world: the anger, war, and global antisemitism ignited by the pursuit of global jihad by Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis.

“Oct. 7 was devastating, but the antisemitic conflagration that erupted from that slaughter defies language. Israel is fighting not only for its life, but for the survival of western civilization.”

“I am honored to be given the opportunities to portray the Jewish heroine in all her forms: Golda, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Ruth Westheimer to name a few. Each one is distinct and different from the other, and I honor their time on this earth. They are my way to speak out and, through art, say ‘I am here and my life is valuable and I will speak out for the good and not hide.’ I will defend the beauty of Jewish values, particularly the principle of Tikkun Olam that states each of us is put on this planet for the purpose of healing the world.’”

Bravo for Feldshuh, and may not just her third, but her fourth act of life be a long one!

Todd Shapiro is an award-winning publicist and associate publisher of Dan’s Papers.