Richard Shepard handles actors and dialogue well, especially when comedy meets crime. We like his adaptability, though Nobody Wants This is a reminder that convincing attraction cannot make up for everything the writing leaves unexplored.
Fi1m perspective
Kristen Bell and Adam Brody are convincing enough together in Nobody Wants This (2024) to make its romantic premise easy to accept. We enjoyed their company because the attraction feels believable, and the supporting cast gives us reasons to laugh beyond the central pairing. This is where Shepard’s interest in performance and the rhythm of dialogue finds an agreeable home. It is good romantic comedy, though the writing does too little with the religious differences between the leads.
His features often bring comedy into contact with crime or thriller material. After early work including The Linguini Incident (1991), The Matador (2005) brought his breakthrough with a black comedy starring Pierce Brosnan. Jude Law’s atypical lead role in Dom Hemingway (2013) continued that interest in finding less familiar uses for familiar actors. Shepard wrote and directed both films, making their emphasis on character and dialogue a useful guide to his preferences. His stated aim for Dom Hemingway was a crime film without crime: he plainly wanted room for people to talk.
Television became a substantial part of his work from the mid-2000s, including the pilot of Ugly Betty (2006). Establishing a programme’s tone is a particular skill of his; it requires decisions that other directors can carry forward. On Girls (2012), he worked with showrunners Lena Dunham and Jenni Konner and directed twelve episodes across six seasons. The horror-thriller The Perfection (2018) and autobiographical documentary Film Geek (2023) show that he has continued making features alongside that television work.
Shepard directed episodes of Nobody Wants This, so it would be excessive to credit him with everything that works in the series. The reservation is about the writing: the religious differences need more attention than they receive. Ease between the leads cannot supply that missing discussion, however much we enjoy watching them together. We wanted the series to ask harder questions about what keeping this couple together would involve. Start there for Bell, Brody and the supporting cast; keep expectations of the religious debate modest.
Biography
Richard Shepard is an American film and television director and screenwriter. Born in New York City in 1965, he attended New York University's film school.
He directed the pilot of Ugly Betty (2006), for which he won a Directors Guild of America Award and a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Directing for a Comedy Series in 2007. His feature films include The Matador (2005), Dom Hemingway (2013) and The Perfection (2018). Shepard has directed episodes of series including Criminal Minds, Girls, The Handmaid's Tale, Acapulco and Nobody Wants This (2024).
