Ep33 - Kumail Nanjiani / "The Big Sick"

an emotional romance that hit screens later this month. And here he is, the star of my favorite TV show. Come on, non Johnny, thank you for coming on the show. Thank you, And I mean that. It's my favorite show. That's awesome. It's it's the best thing on TV. I'm all caught up with the brand new season to like eight episodes into it, how many they've given us access to have watched them immediately when they're ready. I'm behind a couple episodes behind. I amn't been traveling to I

haven't gotten to see him. It's it's so far, so good man. Was the season four? Is this season four? You know? We just got picked up for season five. That's very, very exciting. It's just good too. It's hard to have a job, and then it's almost impossible to have a job on a show that you actually can be proud of and like and you'd watch even if you weren't on it. So it's really I feel very grateful. I'm gonna talk about that later. Um, but let's start

with the big sick. Obviously, I want to talk about confidence. Uh, you know, just talk to me about the confidence to put a very personal story into the world. The confidence to uh, you know, have the drive an initiative, initiative to make it happen, to to put together the team to do it. What is that journey of confidence been like on this particular project. Um, well, for me, since when it first started stand, I never felt I never felt like I was confident. Like part of my thing

is I don't I don't think too far ahead. So the bad thing is I don't plan. But the good thing is I don't really think of possible negative consequences. You know. So if if I want to like do something, I'll just kind of start doing it and not consider what if it doesn't happen. I'll just kind of do it until it does or doesn't. So with this movie, UM,

that's kind of how it was. I started, we started working on it, and I've never considered that we wouldn't get to make it, even though I understand it's it's so rare that anybody gets to make a movie, let alone starring someone who hasn't started a movie before. UM, So I didn't really think of the negative consequences. And also when you have you know, Judge working with you, he gives you a lot of confidence in just being like, I've never been the lead of a movie and actually

never done anything but comedic acting. I hadn't done any dramatic acting. And he was the one who was like, no, you can do it. It's going to be you. You write it, then you'll start and it you just have too. From the beginning, sort of the deal with Judd was if you can write a really good script, then I'll help you. I'll make this movie with you. Um, but it's kind of on you to work on it and

write a really good script. So it's one of those things where like we wrote the script for three years when finally Jed was like, all right, I think we can start moving on. And at that point it's sort of a ball rolling down the hill. You just um, just sort of working in in isolation for for a long time, and then suddenly the wheel start moving and you just kind of like swept up in the journey. You know, how driven mobilized were you to to do it?

If say, you weren't able to find the directors, like would you were you prepared to get behind the camera yourself and put this out there? Or I really didn't want to direct this movie. I would like to direct at some point. I just knew that being the lead of a movie that we had written that was about our lives was going to be so challenging that I really wanted to focus on my performance. Um. When it game time to shoot the movie, UM, Mike, the director,

Michael Showalter, was very, very very UM. He was very involved with us for the last year of prep, and he was very very collaborative. So I got to sort of learn a little bit of how directing works and how much work it is. It's a lot of work, um, And so for this movie, definitely wanted someone else to to directed so that I could I could focus on just the performance. Once he started rolling, What did Michael bring to the table that made you feel like he

was a guy he could do this. Well, you know, I don't Michael, because I had written for him for a show called Michael Michael Have Issues, which lasted six episodes. You know how some shows last six seasons. This last six episodes. He was the So he gave me this, He gave me that job. So I've known him for those two names. I've known him for like a few years at that point, and had a small part in his movie Hello, my Name is Doris, which I thought

was really fantastic. So what Michael brought to it was Michael has a great sense of story. Michael is really great at structure stuff. So he read the script, liked that, came in and pitched to us and Jet his take and then his his whole thing was, um, just how to focus the story, And he was like in the script, he was like this specific scene. All I know is that this scene comes right in the middle of the movie.

So everything else, you guys sort of build around that, like movie scenes around whatever you gotta do, But this is the middle of the movie. That's what I know. So he really brought that. And he's a really emotional guy, and he's really good at emotional stuff. Like a lot of comedy people sort of shy away from emotions. He really doesn't. Um, So he brought a lot of story, just skilllet telling a story, skillet plum plumbing the depths

of emotions. He's great with actors with that. And also he is just really funny, like he's just done a lot of comedy stuff, so um. He also just was like a really funny guy to have around and you know, pitch jokes and stuff while we were shooting. And this probably gets back to that idea of confidence. But what was it like just to share this super personal story. I mean, this is obviously a very private element of your life that is now forever public, that's forever immortalized.

And that's a unique perspective not all of us have, you know, So now you have this intensely private element of your life that's writ large. So what does that feel like? Well, you know, as a stand up, at some point I started taking personal stories and porton experiences and talking about them on stage. So I had a little bit of experience being personal and sort of giving of myself in little ways. This is sort of the deal. I was thinking about this earlier today or last night

when I couldn't sleep. You know, there is a little bit of you lose. A lot of people see your vulnerability, right, but a little bit I think that's sort of the deal with the devil you have to make to do. What I get to do, Like, what you get is you get to live your dreams and tell your stories and it's really exciting. But what the price of that a little bit is that you are giving a piece

of yourself for everyone to analyze and judge. Um. But I knew, like a few years after these the events of the movie had happened, I knew that I wanted to like do something with it, like either do a show about it or something, because it felt like this very specific emotional thing that had happened. And I knew that nobody else had this story, and that only Emily and I were the ones who would be able to tell this story, like kind of if we didn't tell

the story, this story would just not get told. Nobody else has this so um And And I really think for me, writing and I think the best writing is sort of you're trying to deal with your concerns and tackle stuff that's complicated and messy for you. And part of it's a little bit of like self therapy working on something like this. So I knew that this sort of story I wanted to tell Emily took a little

bit more convincing. I knew this was a story I wanted to tell because thinking about it would like paralyze me. And I knew that I had a lot of like stuff floating around inside this black box that I hadn't opened. And I knew that in in order to be able to move on from this kind of crazy event and have to write about it and really get into it and and and sort of figure out how I felt

about it, you know. And it's very easy to be like, well, that was a tough time when you actually opened the box and think about like what did I do this day? And then this happened, and this happened. That is how that made me feel. Like going through all the events piece by piece is it's very difficult, but I think it's also allowed us to get a handle on this big,

big part of our life. Did you get swept up in any kind of emotion, like in the moment in a scene that would obviously remind you of this very emotional moment in your life. There are some scenes that I cried when I wrote them, I cried when I rewrote them, I cried when I rehearsed them, and and then shooting them was the same thing. I was surprised at how much of it actually felt like going through

the real thing. Part of it is, I mean more of the hospital stuff, because when you were in a hospital. This wasn't a set we shot in a real hospital. The sense memory of being in a hospital, and I hadn't that, it had been about nine years since that stuff happened. Just the lighting, the smell of tape, the smell of medicine, the sterility, yeah, the weird beeps you hear, all that stuff, the sounds of wheels on um little

him or whatever it is. All that stuff took me back immediately, me and Emily, both of us like immediately. So it was actually more of a struggle to not uh go back into that really sad space. It was actually more of a star struggle to not do that than it was to like get into it, you know, like like waiting in the waiting room or all that stuff. I hadn't been in a hospital really since all that stuff happened to us, and going back into it and

shooting it there. It was very very It was very intense, and it was very intense for Emily. It's about ten years ago, right two seven. You said she took a little more convincing Emily did, So what do you think what did it take to get her there? I think so I met with Judd and I had spoken to him about doing this, and I sort of started writing it and I told her. I was like, Hey, I want to write about this event from from my perspective. And she was very understanding of that, and she was like,

of course, that's you're right. But as I was writing it, I just felt like it wasn't going to be good unless both perspectives were in there, so I just had to read. I think what happened was I wrote a very rough version of the script from my perspective. She read it and she understood a little bit how it was for me to go through it, and she knew that. I think that was a little bit exciting to her too,

was to see things through my eyes. And but she also knew, like, listen, if you're going to do the story, it's not going to be complete unless we have both these perspectives. So I think she jumped on one because, um, she realized the sort of there is a joy and even um telling a story about something that's very painful, there is a joint and I think, and there's an

excitement in it. And I think she she she sort of got that, and she just knew that it was going to be good for our relationship because I realized I didn't know. I didn't understand these events from her perspective, and she didn't understand them from my perspective. So she started writing, we started writing together. She assumed it was never going to get made, so for her it was I think, more system, get it out of your system, a little bit of therapy, let's get to know each other,

let's figure this out. She'd written a couple of things about it, but nothing really so so I think she jumped on being like this will never get made and will just be like a great thing that we get to do together for us and for each other. Was her potentially playing herself, I just out of the question from the beginning. Yeah, I mean, she's not an actress

and she didn't want to do that. From the very beginning, you know, the plan was always like I'll play me and we'll get a really hopefully a really great actress to play Emily, which we which we were able to. Um. Emily never wanted to play herself. She has all interest in performance or anything. She's a writer. She used to be. She wasn't practicing therapist, she's not anymore. But she's a writer, and you know that's what she definitely wanted to do

with it. She didn't she didn't want to act in the Yeah, I don't want to get in front of any cameras either. They're trying to get me to do it here all the time, though you were what like six months were moved from Sundance. Now, that must have been just a dream come true, right, Yeah, it's really crazy because you know, we were at that point very proud of the movie we've made, and we really liked it.

But the people who really have been working on it, it was a very small group of people that really had been working on it, and they're all the people who obviously had the highest stakes and it we were like, we're the least objective people. We think we did a

good job, but who knows, you know. Um, So, Emily and I when we were sitting at Sundance it's very you know, we were excited to get in and we we started watching it with the crowd, and there was acific point, like a few minutes into the movie where I could feel like, Oh, they they liked this movie now. Because there's always like, especially at Sundance, I think there's a little bit of like in the beginning, you're like, what is this Do I like it? I want to

be on board? Am I going to check out? You're evaluating it? But there was a specific point in the movie fairly early on where I just felt like, oh, they they want to see this movie now. Uh. And from then on it was just sort of Actually, the first screening was definitely a little bit deer in headlights from me. I could put the Ecles. It was at the The first screening was at the end. The first two screenings were at the Eccles. So for the first screening, it was just like I was like, Oh, here it

comes this. I hope this goes well. I hope this joke lines, Oh, I hope this works and uh, and I could tell it went really well and the reviews were really good. But it was the next morning. We had another screening at nine am. The next day. So we were lucky in that we had a screening at six thirty pm, and so we've got a lot of reviews from that, and then we had to meet a screening immediately afterwards so that people could would continue talking

about it. So we had another screening at nine am the next day, and that I watched and actually enjoyed watching it. Um Uh, it was I mean, you know, it kind of felt like Emith and I were saying, it kind of felt like it was our wedding or something. Because you walk around and everybody knows, even if people haven't seen the movie, they know you're the guys who wrote this movie that like sold for whatever to you know, because that becomes a big part of the story too.

So it was exciting. It was mostly just exciting to have so many people connect with it, um and come up to us and tell us what parts of the movie they really felt like, Um, just connected to you know, Gray romantic gets me the whole time. He's so amazing. Did you guys have like, obviously you're picturing yourselves when in the real people whenever you're writing the script, But did casting ideas pop into your head? Where did you say of someone like Holly Hunter or like great Maman.

And when you're writing the script, well, for for instance, for my dad character, I always wrote it. We always wrote it for that actor under don't care. He the Bollywood legends, so for him, from the very beginning, it was my dad's voice. It helps it my dad and the guy playing my dad look alike to um, so,

so with him certainly written in his voice. Um Holly was the first, the second person cast after Zoe, And what we did was we'd sort of written it with these characters in mind, and we sort of had Holly Hunter in mind writing for Emily's mom a few months before we started casting it. So we rewrote it for Holly Hunter hoping that she would do it. And that was the person we really wanted to get for Emily's mom, so so we did write it with her in mind.

At some point we were like, once we um got a director, we were like, Holly Hunter will be the best for this. Let's let's just try and write it to her with Ray Romano. That was Judd's idea. Judd was like, I think Holly Hunter and Ray Romano would make a good pairing and they don't make sense in the same way that the central couple kind of doesn't make sense. Like when you see these two people together,

it's like interesting. They're not people that you would imagine being together, like me and Zoe together, Like we just look so different, it's interesting. And then Ray and Holly look so different. It's interesting, and they have such different energies in the New York and North Carolina vibe exactly, you know, the exactly where Holly's from actually, but just the southern She's from North Carolina in thee in the movie she's from North Carolina, but I think she's actually

from West Virginia. Okay, um so yes, exactly. So we wanted to mirror that relationship with our relationship a little bit. And that was you know, Judd was friends with Ray and had worked with them on Funny People, and Ray has a quick, funny, very funny scene and he was like, he's such a great actor and people haven't really seen that yet. Um so I was you know, I've been I've been a big fan of Race for a long time,

from like stand up to his show. So we were like, I knew he was going to be really good because even when he did everybody loves Raymond, which was like sort of a broad multiicam sitcom. His performance is always so grounded. This I've always found this like a melancholy to him, no matter what he does, even when he's doing stand when he's really funny, there's like a really appealing, like sad sadness to him that I think. I think that like sadness and comedy go really well together, which

is what a lot of our movie is. I think they can really deepen each other. I think really funny stuff can really set up sad stuff really well, and I think really emotional stuff stuff sets up funny stuff really well. So so we were like already we had no doubt. We did not dish him or anything obviously, we were just like we just asked him if he if he wanted to do it, and just knew that he was going to be fantastic. Yeah. Um, speaking in North Carolina, Emily grew up in or did she grew

up in Weston Salem? Yes? You did. I went to college in Weston Salem. No you did? Yeah, Oh my god, I mean I grew up in North Carolina, grew up in Salisbury. Really, She's from Kaye, Vegas in Cornersville they called it. Yeah, I know it well actually, uh and she she went to school in Greensboro too, right, Yeah, you don't see Greensboro. She won't go down there often. I go down there all the time. You think in North Carolina, you know, in the beginning, I didn't. I

was like, because I'm a city guy. I grew up in city. So at the beginning when I would go back, I would be like, it was so alien to me. I've never really been in the South that much. But but I really have grown to love it. I think the people are so nice and it's sort of tough to reconcile that, you know. I had the eMate this image of the South in my head before I went, and when I was going there, I was like putting that like filter on top of everything. But I really

love it. I think it's really gorgeous. I think the people are really Yes, I think for the most most part, they're really genuine. And it's also like the people who are cool. I found like so like if you're in New York, right, the hipsters, there's like the tattoo hipsters, there's like the hat hipsters. There's like the punk hipsters are all different. In North Carolina, there's so few of

them that they're all the types s mushed together. So you have a person who's like the tattoo hipster and the punk hipster and the like the rockabilly hipster, all smushed into one. And I think Emily had this experience growing up where she was like all the weird kids

had to hang out together. So it was like, because Emily was like a goth and the goth kids hung out with, the gay kids hung out with like the black kids, you know, so like whoever was sort of an outsider, they all hung out together, so like the Hispanic kids, you know. And so it's really neat when I go back and go to where she used to go and hang out with their friends. It's like a very diverse group of people because they all had to sort of find solace and each other's otherness, you know. Yeah,

do you go? Is it once in Salem that you go to whenever? Yeah, we go to with his Salem. Some good bars. They're on Art for art Sake Boulevard that name is not trying too hard. Yeah, it's funny. Are you talking about like Single Brothers and Silver Moon Saloon, Silverman Salon, And what's that place from the corner of warehouse or garage? What's the garage? The garage a place called the garage, I think. And then there's like First Street draft House, and if you ever make it over

to uh, what's called Opera House? Shared in operase not shared in that's until you're right, there's a place called the Opera House. It's like another bar, but lots of lots of good bars in Western Salem. Is a new one called the Black Lodge. Have you been to that, like Twin Peaks that really have that kind of a vibe or something? Well, I think the best off that it's not like licensed selling little toys. Yeah, I'm not a big Is it called the Black Lodge? I don't

want to messin that. I'm not a huge Twin Peaks guy, Emily is. I think it's called the I literally am watching the show now and I can't remember it is the Something Lodge. And I'm sure a lot of listeners are yelling at us right now. It's called this, Yeah you can, but anyway, but yeah, So we've hit up all those all those places, and I know, like you know, we go to like the small restaurants that they love that are one of us, and I think it's a lot. Do you like North Carolina? I do. I go back.

Maybe I'll run into you there one day. Yeah, yeah, we go back, like Thanksgiving and Christmas. I used to do a show there every New Year, Christmas Eve Eve. We didn't do one last year, but I used to do a show at like the UH Local The Cat's Cradle Do you know that? Yes, Yeah, that's in uh isn't that in Chappel Hill? That's in Chappel Hill? And then also the local four one on what's it called the three something? Yeah, some of these venues, there's so many, um,

but yeah, that's cool. You know, we obviously have a lunatic legislature in North Carolina right now, but you know with all of the what have you, Yeah, there's a lot of what have you happening right now? Yeah? What do you think about this kind of boom lately? And maybe it's a boom, maybe it's not, but stand up centric projects, I mean there's elements of it in your film. Obviously, there's the Showtime show I'm Dying up here, there's h Pete Home Show Crashing. What do you think about that?

I mean, it's it's obviously fertile territory to to mine and play with. But yeah, and does Maron and Louie and I mean, I think at its most basic, it comes out of people who are comedians wanting to write about what they know, right, I mean, Louis Marin Pete, all that is pretty It sort of makes sense on its sound. I was honestly a little worried that our movie. I just didn't want our movie to be like, oh,

it's one of the stand up things. Like Babilia has done great stuff about comedy, you know, he did Uh Don't Think Twice and Sleepwalk with Me, which is about stand up. So I was I was honestly a little concerned where I was like, there's so many things that are about the world of comedy. Um, I hope people don't think that this is another one that's really about that, because that the stand up aspect of our movie really

is pretty pretty small. And this was interesting. So the movie has kind of like five storylines, right, So it's me and Emily, Emily sickness, me and my parents, me and Emily's parents, and then the stand up. And we realized in editing that the first four stories intertwined and bump against each other and enrich each other and complicate each other and sort of like have a ripple effect. The stand up storyline end of it is on its own, doesn't really it's only way to illustrate what's going on

in the other four storylines. It doesn't really complicate anything in there. So we ended up actually cutting out a lot of the stand up storyline. There were a lot more stand up scenes, Like David Allen Greer had a bigger part in the movie, and he was fantastic, Like

doing scenes with him was awesome. But unfortunately, just you're watching it and you realize, like, okay, so it's the stakes are this woman could die, or these intergenerational conflicts or these intercultural conflicts, and then whether I'm going to get into the Montreal Comedy Festival. It just seems the

stakes seems so much lower than all the others. We also realized making this movie, like so we built in a lot of stand up stuff as sort of a pressure valve, so like if the main storyline got got really intense, we could always go and get some laughs. But in seeing the movie and showing it to people, we realize people don't want to leave the main storyline people want to watch, Like, if you're not dealing with those four things, people are like, go back to that.

Who who gives a shit about your your audition? You know? Um, So we ended up cutting back on it a lot. I think I think the stand up world is an interesting place to show sort of people trying to you know, it's sort of a David versus Goliath thing, right, like when you're like Pizza Show, for instance, what it does so well is it's it's open mic, and there's this big machine, and there's all these people caught up in this, in this machine trying to make it, and so few

people make it. And I think that's very compelling to see, like sort of the ins and outs of a subculture that a lot of people, a lot of people know the service of the culture of the subculture, but people don't know what the politics of it are. So I think it's an interesting way to show like the rat race and the rigamarole of trying to become a successful stand up I think that's sort of the fun of it. I think that's sort of the fun of Pizza. I haven't seen him dying up here yet. But I know

it's based on like the seventies comedy store scene. It's pretty pretty good. I've seen a couple of episodes. Um, what are some of your who are some of your comedy inspirations? Well, when I was starting, you know, I loved when I was just sort of before I started stand up, I was, I got obsessed with stand up and I loved, um, Jerry Seinfeld. I really loved Woody Allen's or at least stand up from like the sixties. Um.

I really loved Zach Alfanakis. I thought was a really really really funny stand up doing a lot of like North Carolina, North Carolina, right of course, Um, a lot of North Carolina people. Emily always knows everybody who's like, oh North Carolina, North Carolina. Like she knows like, oh bred Gelman and John Daily went to you and c Are Um, Um you know Jodie Hell and Danny McBride and everybody Tom Holtz from Um. Yeah, I went to my Uh, I went to North Carolina school the arts

and went to Salem. So he was in the art school or the acting school there. Really. Yeah, yes, everybody from North Carolina knows all the people from North Carolina who are in the industry doesn't. Emily has a lot of North Carolina pride um. But so I really liked those guys. I thought I thought they were super funny.

And I'm Conan and Andy honestly, like I watched their show all the time before I ever started doing stand up, and I just like, I've never seen that kind of weird, off the wall, strange comedy like masturbating Bear and stuff. I missed that so much. I wish that the whole thing with the Tonight show hadn't happened. And he just I mean, I know it was his dream. It's every comic stream, I guess, but like, I'm miss him at twelve thirty. I missed him in that spot. There was

such a unique show. You know, Yeah, it's still He's still. It's still a very funny show. I always miss always forget it's on TBS and he's still He's still. Him and Andy are still so funny, and and I do that show and like I always have to be like, don't freak out that you're doing code and don't freak out um, and then the TV shows like, ah, I really really, it's also amazing that you know, I get to work with Mike Judge because Beavis and butt Head

and Office Space or like my favorite favorite comedies. Yeah, I wanted to talk a little bit about Silicon Valley. First of all, what is Mike Judge like? Because I love that guy so much. I love his voice, as you say, Bevis and Budded, King of the Hill, Office Space. I mean, this is like stuff I grew up loving, you know. And uh, and like I said that, the new show is my favorite show. So just what's Mike like. He's great, He's a really he's from Texas, so he's

really kind of like a dude. He's he's sort of like a beer and steak kind of guy. You know. He's like, uh, he's fun. He's super super nice and super super grounded, like he gets how ridiculous Hollywood can be and stuff. Um, he's just like a really normal nice Like if you met him, if you didn't know what he looked like, you'd be shocked. If someone was like, oh, that's comedic genius Mike Judge, You're like, oh my god,

He's just like a nice, normal dude. But I think Mike's big thing is Mike really really has an affinity for people. But he really thinks that sort of structures are really funny, Like he sees the ridiculousness of big machines. That's what office space is about. And I really think he loves like people that don't fit into those machines. So I can Silicon Valley all of our Ultimately, the tension of that show is Silicon Valleys. This big machine.

That's the way certain things are done. There's a way success is achieved. And all our characters don't fit into that. We don't work in that machine. Even though we're smart, even though we we want to succeed, we have the drive, we just don't fit into that machine. And us not fitting into that machine highlights the absurdity of the machine,

which is sort of what office spaces. You know. It's a guy who's a coggan a machine, who has the hypnot hypnotized thing happened to him and he realized like, oh, I don't fit in and you just see the absurdity of it. That's that's exactly what idiocracy is. A guy who doesn't an outsider coming into that world and and be with and butt Head is just about two guys who are complete, complete outcasts. Of society who do not

fit into the world, you know. So I think that's Mike's like real true genius um And it's not like I think he thinks organizations are so stupid. I think he thinks it's so funny and he just you know, that's the stuff he sees and is able to articulate. What are those sets like, Like, do you guys crack each other up? Is it? You know? I mean, just what's it like a normal day when you're shooting Silicon Valley.

I think shooting Silicon Valley is always barely, barely controlled chaos because all of us are comedians and all of us are fairly high energy people. So sometimes it all aligns and we're all high energy together and it's chaos in good way. And then sometimes the two people are high energy and other people are low energy. So it's like it's like pretty different every day. It's always fun.

What helps is because we're all sort of comedians. If you have a long day, like a fourteen hour day, towards the end of the day, there is someone who has energy who makes sure that everybody starts spinning too, you know. So it's a really really fun set because everybody on that show is I'm really good friends with everyone, Like we're all super close. We hang out all the time.

I just thought Thomas yesterday, you know. I mean it's kind of its kind of grows how much we like hang out and we're just really fans of each other and we think each other as I think, we all think the other person is so funny. So it's a very generous set too, because we we improvise, but we want to give room to the other people just because we want to see what they're gonna say. You know,

nobody's like trying to hog the limelight. It's it's it truly is beginning to end talk to bottom a dream job. It's kind of it's amazing we're you guys film that and then the last thing just want to bring it back to the big sick. You know, we're in this uh, this place where the importance of representation is resonating for people.

I mean, it's it's the idea that people are beginning to understand that underserved voices, UH, seeing their their their voices on screen, their stories on screen, is very vital. It's something that makes Moonlight's best picture when so wonderful so you know, you've made this film about a guy who questions his faith, who is struggling with having you know, I guess, for lack of a better word, being Americanized in a family who is holding onto custom And I

have no doubt. I mean, growing up, my best friend was an Indian boy and and I saw him struggle with some of these things as well. So I have no doubt that there will be some kid out there who sees his story in this and really moved by that. So how important is that aspect of this film for you? Well? For me, I certainly. The people connect to the story

many different ways. And my favorite is when it's exactly like your friend, When people are like, I have the same story, um like second generation and I feel disconnected from my parents and and it's the first time I've seen something that really speaks to my experience. So that's

my favorite reaction. You know, whenever we do a screening, will do a Q and and there will always be somebody who says like, I feel like I feel like I saw myself on screen, which is very very it's very exciting, and it's a really pretty great side effect of us doing our story. You know, We didn't do our story because we were like, this would be a good social point to raise, so this will be a

good political statement or anything. Really not at all. We just wanted to tell our story, which is a love story. But because it's a love story between a Pakistani man and a woman from North Carolina, it's inherently politicized, right, Like people see it. People see our love as being a statement um, which is just a side effect. It's not what we intend, but it's also unaffordable. I will say two things about representation that I've thought about quite

a lot recently. I was watching I watched Rogue one, and I seeing Riz on screen being an action star. I had this like really intense emotional experience to it because I hadn't since I was I hadn't really seen in Hollywood my people being action stars. Right, you don't You don't see that. You still don't see that. So so to me, representation is important because of two things. One, it's important, I think for people and children to see themselves on the screen. I think that's very very important.

The other thing is what you said is not just not just seeing representation on screen, but seeing different voices represented in the stories is important. Um, you mentioned Moonlight, that's a great example. I think get Out is another fantastic example of that, and Wonder Woman too. We don't see many female lead superhero movies directed by a female director. I could say, any I think this is the first one, right,

isn't it? So, So what I'm saying is everything is important for people to see themselves, and I think that's good for society. But also I think people actually want to see these stories to all from different perspectives. So so you're not making these movies to make any because because it's good for society. You're making these movies because there's there's money in it. Get Out is tremendously successful,

Wonder Woman is huge. People want to see stories told from different points of view, So I guess that's that's the exciting thing, is that it's actually financially a good thing to have different voices tell their stories. Um. I think that's the most I think that's the most exciting thing, and people are catching on. It's like, you know, in Hollywood there has been sort of this thing where like people don't want to see protagonists of certain ethnicities or whatever.

I think people do. I think people just I think it's novel. Like our movie is sort of a romantic comedy, but because it's told from a different perspective, it's inherently novel, you know. Um, And I mean, I don't know how many people are going to see our movie, but get Out Wonder Woman, Moonlight. People want to see stories from from perspective. Well, I was just gonna say, everybody helped

continue to break that mold and go see the Big Sick. Uh. It opens limited release the twenty three of June, right, and then I guess it goes wider a week or two later. It sort of goes wide for four weeks in July fourteen. That's when it goes everywhere. Everybody will be able to see it on July fourteen to check it out. Come hel thank you for coming on the show. I really appreciate it. Thanks for having me and fun Fair