Erin and Sara Foster have completely opposite recollections.
“We had different childhoods, apparently. Sara remembers us growing up religious,” Erin says.
“Our parents were Christian,” Sara responds defiantly.
“I mean, I don’t know what to tell you, but I don’t remember growing up religious at all,” Erin says. “We were just, like, a Christmas family and Easter, and now you’re a big Easter family.”
The two quip back and forth in their familiar and genuine Foster sister way and land on agreeing to disagree. It’s this endearing and often hilarious dynamic that’s made the duo beloved by so many, whether fans of their Netflix show, “Nobody Wants This,” podcast, fashion line, or cult TV series, “Barely Famous.”
In the parody reality show that aired from 2015 to 2016, the sisters portrayed heightened versions of themselves as Hollywood strivers. They poked fun at their peripheral relationship to stardom before the term “nepo babies” had even entered the lexicon. (Their parents are record producer David Foster, who is now married to Katharine McPhee, and model Rebecca Dyer.) Now, with a nearly billion-dollar fashion company, Favorite Daughter, and certified hit rom-com, the Fosters have no doubt made it.
But do they ever get competitive with each other?
“No, I mean, listen, I think we I say it all the time. I think what’s good for her is good for me is good for us. What’s good for me is good for her is good for us. It’s like, it all fits into the same ecosystem,” Sara, who produced “Nobody Wants This,” tells TODAY.com.
Erin agrees and adds that “it’s very balanced.” But she has been getting more attention recently since writing the Netflix show, starring Kristen Bell and Adam Brody, that’s loosely based on her own real-life romance with husband Simon Tikhman. While Kristen Bell’s character, Joanne, isn’t sure if converting to Judaism for her “hot rabbi” boyfriend is the right decision, Erin did covert before marrying the music executive and having a baby together.
Celebrating Christmas together
“The truth is, no, we didn’t grow up religious. Being Jewish, it’s a very seamless transition,” Erin says. “Because, you know, the biggest thing that’s hard for converts is missing Christmas, but a lot of Jewish people celebrate and have Christmas trees. All my Jewish friends have Christmas trees.
“I’m not allowed,” she continues. “(My husband) feels like it’s a slippery slope; you give them a Christmas tree, and the next thing you know, we’re dressed in green and red and we’ve got stockings on the fireplace.”
Does she miss it? Sure, but at least she can go to Sara’s for the holiday and her daughter, Noa, can celebrate with her cousins, Sara’s kids, Valentina and Josephine.
At this point, Sara wants to confirm with Erin: Can she can still buy her niece Christmas presents? Yes. And give her a stocking on the fireplace? Also, yes.
Erin hasn’t thought too much yet about how she’ll handle the “Santa question” for Noa, who is less than a year old, but as someone who didn’t grow up in the religion, she is amazed that “Jewish kids don’t ruin it for the Christian kids.”
“I mean, nothing makes Jewish people look better than the fact that they all kept the secret that Santa is fake as kids,” she says.
Having tough conversations
In the show, Adam Brody’s character, Noah, is careful and methodical about how he brings up “the big C” of conversion with his new girlfriend. But in Erin’s story, Simon was upfront from the beginning
“He told me he needed to marry a Jewish girl before we were even dating. I just always knew that about him, and I was 35 and single and, you know, beggars can’t be choosers. So I was like, ‘Whatever I need to do to lock this in, I’ll do it.’”
That doesn’t mean she took the decision lightly. Just as Kristen Bell’s character expressed by the end of the show’s first season, Erin wanted to be sure conversion was right for her. Time will tell if Joanne decides to take the same plunge in the recently renewed second season.
“When I embarked on the classes, we both understood that I would only convert if I really connected to what I was learning, because I didn’t want to fake it or phone it in. And so I took the classes very seriously, and I asked a lot of questions, and I argued things and pushed back on things because I really wanted to feel like, if I was going to get there in the end, that I asked everything I needed to ask and I felt good about it,” she says.
Erin also had to be upfront about an intimate topic early on in their relationship. After only about six months of dating (“Wow, time really wasn’t on my side”), she revealed to Simon that she had started egg retrievals as part of the IVF process and that she had a low egg count, aka a low ovarian reserve.
“I mean, when you’re dating, when you meet a woman who’s turning 36, it’s, like, the cat’s out of the bag. You kind of have to be honest about it,” she says. “There was a moment where Simon was a little freaked out at kind of how far along I already was, because, typically in a relationship, you don’t start talking about that for a while, but I quickly said to him, ‘This is the situation. It is what it is. So if it scares you, I can’t do anything about it.’ And he was like, ‘Fine, I’ll do it with you.’”
Seeing each other as moms
It was a long journey to motherhood for Erin, now 42, who went through 20 egg retrievals and five embryo transfers before becoming pregnant. Her advice to those who are struggling with fertility treatments is be honest with loved ones about what you need.
“I would say to really let the people around you know the best way to support you, because it’s really hard having other people give you advice that is unwanted or look at you with this sad face all the time, and just communicate what you need to the people around you, because they don’t know how to support you in the right way.”
After seeing her sister go through six years of fertility treatments and finally welcome a baby, Sara shares that Erin is exactly the mom she thought she’d be. “She waited a long time to be a mom so now it’s, like, over her dead body is she going to be distracted from it. She’s very present,” she says.
“Sara is a very good mom,” Erin says. “It’s a full-time thing. Sara has done something right because her 13-year-old is friends with Sara and wants her advice.”
When it comes to motherhood, Erin has one word to describe it: “obsessed.”
“I can’t even find anything to be mad about. It shocks me at 5 a.m. when she wakes up and I’m not pissed at her. I want to be but then I’m, like, ‘Oh, you’re too cute.’ And then I see her face.”
She hopes that Noa will one day watch the show and see “her parents’ love story.” And what does she hope her daughter will take away from it?
