The Big Sick is just one of those movies that’s hard not to root for. The Sundance darling (written by Kumail Nanjiani and Emily V. Gordon, based on their real life experiences) isn’t the easiest sell – even though it should be. It’s one of the funniest films of the year and filled with characters you just find yourself wanting to hang out with. Well, I guess that is the sales line: It’s hilarious and you will like all the characters.
Which maybe is a little less complicated then, “A Muslim man, who is supposed to be involved in a prearranged marriage, falls in love with a white woman and then she (played by Zoe Kazan in the film) falls into a coma.” Okay, yes, that sounds a little more serious. And this is what actually happened between Nanjiani and Gordon. But, somehow, amidst all that, there’s one of the funniest, most human films of the year. (I know what you’re thinking, “I will get all that from Transformers, which has a similar plot. You just have to trust me that there are some subtle differences.)
On Tuesday, I met with Nanjiani in an almost comically large hotel conference room for just two people. It seemed apparent that it’s dawning on Nanjiani that after six months of film festival accolades, The Big Sick is just about to finally be available for actual human consumption.
Ahead, Nanjiani is trying his best to convince you that this movie is hilarious (he is correct) with characters you will love (he is correct) – and give us his theory that there’s a possibility we might all be living in Hell right now (he may be correct).
You’ve been on a six-month press tour for this movie.
Yeah, it’s been pretty intense. Well, right out of Sundance we finished up Silicon Valley, so I had like a month of Silicon Valley left. And then since then, this is the most intense it’s been, and we’re not even halfway through this chunk of it.
But it’s nice when it’s a movie that you’re deeply involved in like this, right?
It is. Oh my God. I won’t name anything else, but it’s nice to do it for something you can actually be passionate about, yeah.
Back at Sundance I heard a couple people say they thought the story was unrealistic, until they realized it was true.
Even if they didn’t know it was a true story – it’s so specific that I would like to think that people would be like, it’s such a strange story, it’s like who would come up with this? It feels like such a strange thing to concoct. And we talked a lot about if we were going to say “true story” in the beginning. And then, ultimately, the decisions weren’t up to us. But it was interesting talking about and it was interesting when we would test with the audiences: people who knew if it was a true story and people who didn’t know it was a true story.
Did they both like it equally?
Ultimately, they both did like it equally. But what was interesting was so many people would watch it and not know it was a true story until right at the end. And they were kind of shocked that it was a true story because we had the pictures at the end.
Did you like that way better?
I do. That’s my favorite —
It’s a fun twist.
I feel like now, it’s sort of so much part of the marketing that everyone will know, but I think that’s the ideal thing. Ideally, the best way to see it was Sundance, where nobody knew what the movie was, they knew it was Judd Apatow so they assumed it was a comedy. But I remember people being like, “I had no idea it would be this emotional.” It was great to be in a room of a thousand people, all slowly figuring out what the movie was. I love that.
I was at that premiere. It really was amazing.
Oh, were you? I watched Brigsby Bear like that. And I was like, What is this movie about? Same thing. It’s so great. It’s such an earnest, sincere movie, because that’s sort of not what Kyle Mooney’s comedy is.
At Sundance I spoke to Mark Hamill for that movie.
Was he cool? I bet he was great.
He was really great. Though The Last Jedi will be bittersweet because of Carrie Fisher…
Yeah, what a bummer.
There are few celebrity deaths that really get to me, and that was one.
For Emily, Prince was really, really tough.
I hate this timeline we’re in. I don’t know how I got in this one.
It’s the worst one. There’s no worse one.
I need to get back to the correct one. I don’t like being in this one.
I feel like maybe what happened is that the Ebola scare really happened and we all died, and now we’re in Hell. Because the timeline kind of works out.
If that’s true, I might feel better..
Yeah, because that would mean that there’s a structure.
Like if someone told me, “This is Hell.” I’m like, you know what? I didn’t expect Hell to have iced coffee.
For Hell, this isn’t so bad!
Right. This is the worst place and I can still find some joys here and there, even in Hell.
And it’s almost weird that our movie: it’s almost like they were like, all right, so we are going to reverse-engineer the entire world so that everything that your movie’s about is going to be real current. So there’s like even the healthcare debate – and obviously the Muslim stuff is big. It just is like weird because when we made it – obviously, you know, Islamophobia has always been an issue for me…
But at least this movie is here to do that.
I remember when all that stuff was happening and all my comedian friends were like, “What do we do? How am I going to do anything?” And I just felt very grateful that we already had this done. I was like, I don’t have to spin myself into knots to figure out what to do. I already have something that accidentally speaks to it – or contributes in a positive way, in some small way. So I just felt grateful that we already had this.
And it’s for sure something.
Yeah, it feels like something, and I don’t know if anybody’s going to see it – or if it’s going to mean anything to anybody or anything. But at least I feel like we did something that at least would, in a perfect world, I don’t know…
The problem is you’re up against Transformers, which tackles all the same issues…
Yeah, I know. I’ve heard this one is a real tearjerker.
Your movie is only in limited release, but you can beat it.
[Laughs.] Yeah, I don’t think that’s going to happen. Yeah, somehow, The Big Sick, in five theaters, grossed 80 million bucks.
Who knew? That would be great.
Oh my God, how great would that be? Yeah, it’s a tough time for a small movie to be coming out. Everyone says, you know, “counter programming,” all of that. And what’s been cool is that it feels like a lot of websites and critics have sort of taken it up to try and push the movie more than they really need to, which has been very gratifying and very rewarding.
I would argue that it’s not that they are doing more than they need to, I think people just really, really like it.
Oh, yeah. That’s good.
Because it’s hard to find movies that people like. And because you’re around people that you enjoy being around. And I think that’s why Wonder Woman‘s doing so well.
Yeah, I saw it. Yeah, and at least Wonder Woman also speaks to some kind of progress, right? It’s small but it’s a female superhero-led movie directed by a female director. We don’t see that very much. So it’s like engaging with some sort of societal issue, which is good – and it’s really just fun to watch, and it’s funny.
Normal people on the street will digest societal issues if the product is good. And The Big Sick is very good, Wonder Woman is very good…
Get Out is really good.
Get Out did extremely well because it’s a great product.
It’s a good movie.
You’ve got to combine the two things and then you get some magic.
Yeah, it’s got to be a bank shot. It can’t be like, “Here’s a movie that will teach you something.”
No one wants to know they’re going to learn a lesson.
Right.
They have to learn by accident while we’re being entertained.
Yeah, exactly. That’s why Get Out was great. You slowly figure out what the movie is about and you’re like, oh my god, this is so sharp.
We were speaking of test audiences, were you ever nervous about the 9/11 joke?
[Laughs.] Yeah.
And now you know that joke does very well with an audience.
We were all nervous. And I’m not throwing anyone under the bus, but Mike, the director, and Emily didn’t want it in the movie. They were like, “It’s too harsh, it’s too harsh.”
Really? Mike Showalter was like, “No”?
Showalter was like, “No.”
He’s not usually one to shy away from things?
He is strangely very sensitive about certain things. So he’s very sensitive about jokes that could be construed as sexist or racist or anything like that, so he’s very sensitive about that. But I was like, “It’s such a good joke! It’s like a really good joke.” So I think soon as Mike first saw the edited scene, he was like, “Okay, this is good. This will work.” So we just all thought it was very funny. And then when we first showed it, it was like, all right, we’ve got to leave this in the movie.
What do you think about the clip being out there now? Because it’s like, man, that was such a great surprise in the middle of the movie. Now people are kind of seeing that joke out of full context…
All the tension.
Right. The stuff you have to do with Ray Romano and Holly Hunter before, and then to get to that moment…
I feel so many ways about it, I don’t know. I think ultimately, the decision was we just have to somehow get people to see this movie. I don’t know. It’s such a small movie compared to all the other stuff that’s out and there’s so much noise. The hardest thing for us to communicate has been the synopsis does not convey a comedy. I think, from the beginning, the toughest thing has been, “It’s a Muslim guy who falls in love with a white woman who falls into a coma.” That sounds so serious, but it’s not.
When you put it that way, yes.
It’s very, very tough, and we had to talk a lot about that in the promotional materials and stuff – and the trailer and all that. And we were like, do we say “coma” in the trailer? And now we do, because we have to convey what the movie is. We can’t; people are going to be upset. I know people were upset at It Comes at Night, because they were like, hey, this movie is not the movie that the trailer told us it was.
That is actually true. People don’t like to be tricked. People hated Drive because the trailer sold it like an action movie.
Is that right?
Someone sued.
For what, 12 bucks?
Because they felt they were misled.
It’s a great movie.
But if you go back and watch the original trailer for that, it’s like just that chase scene in the middle.
And it looks like Baby Driver.
Did you see that?
Yeah, I saw an early version. But so that was the thing, right? We didn’t want to trick people with the coma thing.
Baby Driver and Wonder Woman would be so happy with us for this interview.
They’re great! We’re neighbors with Edgar Wright, so we see him all the time and he made us promise – because his was coming out in fucking August and then they moved it right around us. So he was like, “Hey, you know we both have movies coming out, but let’s promise to promote each other’s movies.” And he’s already been promoting our movie, and I’ll get to promoting his movie. His movie’s going to be a hit. It’s fine.
Oh, it’s so great.
It’s so great.
And people are going to like your movie a lot.
Yeah, I hope so. But, yeah, so that was always the struggle: it was like how do we convey that even with the subject matter, it is a comedy? Because as you said, people don’t want super dark stuff right now. But they also don’t want stuff that’s truly frivolous.
It’s true. You want a movie that makes you feel good but for the right reasons of feeling good.
Yeah. With a frivolous movie, why would we see this? Look at what’s happening. There’s bigger problems, you know?
Speaking of, when are you going to finally give us your opinion on Trump?
[Laughs.] Yeah, man. Keep guessing.
You’re such an enigma on Twitter with your political leanings. Every time, I just don’t know what side your coming from.
I’m hedging my bets. I’m going to see where this tips and then I’ll throw my weight behind it.
You can contact Mike Ryan directly on Twitter.
