Kumail Nanjiani is having a major moment.
Though many television watchers are more likely than not familiar with Kumail from his work as geeky computer programmer Dinesh on HBO’s comedy Silicon Valley, or if you happen to be a huge fan of the X-Files, from his podcast dedicated to the show. But that’s changing as rave reviews of his new movie “The Big Sick” rolls into theaters nationwide.
I did not expect myself to be in a position where I would potentially be speaking with someone like Kumail. I guess because I can honestly say to myself, I frankly had never envisioned a career such as the one Kumail is currently venturing on would be viable in the current market . But here we are, in July of 2017, in the first year of the Trump Presidency, and Kumail’s new film sits at a pretty 98% on Rotten Tomatoes, slowly on its way to being an objective smash hit. And that’s not me just me being hyperbolic, that’s statistics, as its first weekend in a limited release saw it rake in the highest per-average-theater is the highest since “La La Land”, not to mention, Amazon Studios reportedly spent almost $12 million to acquire after it screened at Sundance to both critical acclaim and enthusiastic viewers.
In the “The Big Sick”, co-written with his real wife, Emily Gordon, the couple brought to life and screens the story of their extremely unique courtship. In it, Nanjiani plays a nearly identical, though partially exaggerated version of himself—a Pakistani-American stand-up comedian slash Uber driver who falls for a white woman, played by Zoe Kazan. Though built on a relatively simple rom-com premise, the true originality comes from the unique perspective of the film, namely the cultural tension Kumail faces from his Conservative Muslim parents, who are in the process of trying to arrange a marriage for him, while Kumail simultaneously tries to keep the blossoming romance going, one he hides from his parents are wholly against it. The story follows Nanjiani as a life-changing moment comes as his two worlds collide, and just as his relationship begins to falter, Emily is placed in a medically induced coma, which yes, did in fact happen in real life, and leaves Kumail alongside Emily’s parents.
Not your typical rom-com story.
I had the chance to speak with Kumail over the phone, and over a hilarious and intelligent conversation, we reflected on the role of race in casting, his path towards stand-up comedy, his political honesty on Twitter, and just generally how he came to be one of the first Pakistani actors to break out in the industry in such a unique manner.
Kumail alongside the cast of The Big Sick.
Q: “On twitter, I saw you became far more vocal about politics following the passage of the first Muslim Ban here in America, did you take into account what a potential perceptive issue that might create? As a Pakistani guy who is breaking the mold in the industry, do you have to feel wary as to not touch on certain topics to avoid pigeon-holed yourself?”
“I didn’t talk about many of these things for the first many years of my career, and now the issue I have is that, I don’t know if what I say really does anything, because a lot of people will dismiss what I say because of course it’s a Muslim guy saying these things. I feel like Twitter is something I was always thinking about and putting jokes on, and then it just happened to be what I was thinking.”
Q: “Did you ever feel a responsibility to be a representation of the larger South-Asian community as you were beginning your career or now as your profile is increasing?”
“No I didn’t really do any ethnic material for the first many many years of my life and career. I stayed away from it more or less. I never felt any pressure to represent anyone but myself, and that was really how I felt. It wasn’t my responsibility to show any sides of any group of people but in the last couple of months, I’ve felt that responsibility a bit more. I’ve been more passive in the past and now I feel more active. I certainly feel now that I have to because to be honest its unavoidable.”
Q: “As someone who studied Philosophy and Computer science in school, when did you start feeling, growing up in Pakistan, watching a lot of film and television, based on that media environment, were there any specific types of shows, or what were you watching in Pakistan and how did your viewing habits change one you came to America. Was there any shift in your pop culture consumption once you came to the states?”
“I watched a lot of shows that came late like Knight Rider or the classic 80’s films in Ghostbusters and Gremlins. I mean I watched a lot of comedy but it was mostly shows that had an element of sci-fi or supernatural to them. It was always like horror and sci-fi. We also got shows that never got big here like Fences, which was huge in Pakistan but people here really don’t know. But then coming to America, I didn’t watch much tv, but when I did, I would watch Conan once or twice a week. But when you’re in college you’re so busy you don’t watch as much.”
Q: “So where in your mind did comedy enter in, or film and television, as a viable career path? Because coming from Pakistan, being in Iowa, studying computer science, you’re sort of slated along a specific pathway, alongside expectations. How did you start bridging that divide of this the normal day job existence that’s expected from me, to, I really love comedy and I want to do stand up. The bridge from who you were to who you were becoming.”
“I just started watching a lot of stand up over one of my breaks. I would go to my uncle’s house in Florida and just watch hours and hours of stand up and I just became obsessed with it. So it was just really a lot of watching that and these late night tv show hosts, and then as I was trying to graduate, where I had studied philosophy, I knew I loved philosophy, but I didn’t really want to be a professor, and with computer science, I just didn’t, I wasn’t really good at it and I didn’t really love it. So I watched this comedy show on campus, this open mic night, and it was pretty fun, and I thought oh I should try this and see how it goes. I went ahead and did a half hour of material and it went like really really well, and I really loved it, so after college I knew, I have to give this a shot. So I moved to Chicago where I had a day job from my computer science degree and at night I would do stand up. And that’s kind of how it happened. There was no major grand plan, it was just a day at a time.”
Q: “Did you ever have a fear of not seeing someone like yourself in the industry you were going into? I can imagine very many people advised you against the move. I guess since you were doing a day job you slowly morphed it into a career rather than just bucking the trend and jumping in?”
“Yeah I didn’t really jump into it. It was all little steps. I did stand up for many years in Chicago, which I believe was six years during which I had a day job and wasn’t making any money from it nor was I making any television shows. That’s when I saw that I could be really good at this, so that’s when I quit my day job and moved to NY. Even in NY it was just doing shows. It was slow.”
Q: Why NY over LA? Was it the stand-up circuit you were trying to break into or entertainment as a whole?
“No it was stand-up. Because I had been to NY and LA for stand up and NY was just a better for stand up and there were more shows and events where you could do your work. And comedians in NY were just interested in stand-up whereas in LA people were trying to get a TV show. I just wanted to do stand-up and I thought New York was a cooler city. So that’s what I did. I was only in NY for two years and all I did was write stand up all the time and try it the next day. Following day re-writing it and trying it again that night. Steeping myself in it.”
Q: What’d you do after two years in NY?
“Well after two years I moved to Los Angeles because I got a job acting on this show “Franklin and Bash” on TNT.”
Q: Then moving into comedy over there, how did you avoid again the stereotype casting with 99.9% of material that was offered to you. Or was it more diverse.
“You know in the beginning you do go out and you see a lot of parts that are those stereotypical and you decide whether that’s something you want to do or not want to do. Initially I had auditioned for some and then I just decided I can’t do this and I wasn’t going to do that Apu audition for people. It sort of limited me of course, but what helped me a lot was being on Portlandia. It was just this cool show that was so funny and from there it just opened a different door where I didn’t have to go after those types of parts anymore because that comedy world was so unique and different and avoided those types of roles.”
Q: Moving on however, early on you had to worry about stereotypes, but now do you feel like your race to a degree works to your advantage? A movie like The Big Sick allows you to explore this territory that I believe is very familiar for a lot of people here in America, but whom simply haven’t had the opportunity to see such a story in the industry.
“I don’t really think my race helps me at the end of the day. With this, it wasn’t like Judd was like “I need a story with a brown guy,” he just wanted a good story. The fact is, my race still limits things to a degree. If I’m playing the role of a guy in a movie with kids, if they cast me, then they have to find little Pakistani or Indian kids which complicates things or like in the big sick, to find someone to play my parents, now they have to cast from a small pool of actors. And I still feel like theres not a lot of movie or television shows with people who are brown in a genuine way. You never have more than two brown characters on a show unless they’re related to each other. I mean Silicon Valley is extremely rare in that realm where theres multiple South-Asian characters that aren’t related.”
Having been much like Kumail, a fan of romantic comedies for most of my life, and as someone who never saw himself reflected in any of the hopelessly romantic stories that I so loved, it was a truly incredible experience to see a fellow Pakistani-American in a film, one who is a brown leading man playing the role of a romantic hero in a film that was produced by one the most important individuals in Hollywood (Judd Apatow), alongside one of the great directors in Hollywood (Michael Showalter) mine the life and inner workings of a Muslim family.
It’s an experience all too familiar to too many Pakistani and the South-Asian community who are beginning to see their life and its highs and lows reflected back at them in an honest and incredible way. I highly doubt the Kumail and his wife Emily set out to write The Big Sick, a story simply based on their life experience of a cross-cultural romance, with the intent of breaking new ground for both rom-coms and a new generation of actors and storytellers, but it has been and will continue be one of its consequences. Which is a beautiful thing.
Simply put, there’s few individuals in the entertainment industry currently riding as hot a hand as Kumail, and I’m extremely excited to see the next chapter of his career come into full bloom.
Be sure to check out the movie as it expands nationally this weekend, or, when it has its full nation-wide release later this summer on July 13.