![]() ![]() I could see early on how hard he was working and how serious he was about it.” He was serious enough to write and perform an unsparing portrait of his younger self as a callow, self-centred nerd completely unprepared to deal with a life or death situation. ![]() “I know Kumail’s a good actor, but I also knew he was really serious about finding it in himself to give the performance in this movie. Michael Showalter harboured no doubts he was up to the task. There’s a sizeable gulf between the nerd-friendly cameos and supporting roles that make up the majority of Nanjiani’s previous filmography and the demands of an emotionally complex leading role. I remember playing this Mario game on DS with Emily before she got sick and then I couldn’t play it after that. I’d go to the grocery store to get something to eat and I’d be like, ‘How is everybody in this store not concerned with Emily?’ It almost felt vulgar that they get to live their lives and go to work when this crazy huge thing was happening. “When you’re going through it, it’s such a rough experience that it’s all-encompassing, it becomes your world. At the risk of sounding indelicate, I ask Nanjiani how long after Gordon’s recovery did they start considering their joint trauma as material. “I was just riveted by the story.”Īfter a month in hospital and successful lung surgery, the couple finally committed fully to each other, marrying in 2007 with the blessings of both sets of parents. “I was like, holy shit, I didn’t know this had happened,” says Michael Showalter, director of the movie Nanjiani and Gordon wrote about the experience (starring Nanjiani as himself and Zoe Kazan as Gordon). Huddled around Gordon’s bedside, it was the first time the couple’s families, his from Karachi, hers from North Carolina, became aware of each other’s existences. It turned out to be adult-onset Still’s, a disease that resulted in her being placed in a medically induced coma for 12 days. After eight months of not-quite committing to each other, Gordon got a cold she couldn’t shake. She regarded his keeping her a secret as a massive red flag. ![]() He hid the fact that he was dating a divorced, tatted, indie rock-loving white woman from his strict Muslim parents, who expected him to have an arranged marriage. She was an open book and he was an insular guy. He was a struggling standup and she was a heckler. Love at first sight was not a factor in the real-life relationship between Nanjiani and his then-girlfriend Emily V Gordon. At the recent CinemaCon event where studios preview their upcoming releases for American multiplex owners, Nanjiani described it as “the best movie by a Pakistani comedian and a girl in a coma coming out this year.” The Big Sick is the best movie by a Pakistani comedian and a girl in a coma coming out this year Kumail Nanjiani Variety hailed The Big Sick, the film he co-wrote and Judd Apatow produced, as “ a perfectly charming film that morphs into something completely riveting”. Instead, he has made the leap to leading man in a romantic comedy-drama that sold for $12m at this year’s Sundance festival. These are unimpeachable nerd credentials and it would be understandable if Nanjiani were content to coast on them. Nanjiani in Mulder & Scully Meet the Were-Monster. Since 2014, he has also been a series regular on Mike Judge’s Silicon Valley, now beginning its fourth season on Sky Atlantic, where he plays Dinesh, the deadpan computer programmer who is forever denied even the slightest sliver of happiness or success. He plays Dungeons & Dragons on Community creator Dan Harmon’s Harmontown podcast and had recurring roles on nerd-friendly TV shows such as Adventure Time and Portlandia. He has hosted a podcast about teenage video gaming ( The Indoor Kids) and another recapping each season of The X-Files ( The X-Files Files) that led to him being cast as an animal control officer on the revived series’ best-received episode, Mulder and Scully Meet the Were-Monster. Since embarking on a career in comedy – he relocated to the US with his family when he was 18 – he has largely catered to audiences that share his particular enthusiasms. The Pakistan-born comic, actor and writer spent his formative years huddled in his bedroom playing Golden Axe on his Sega Genesis, and becoming immersed to the point of obsession with The X-Files. I was kind of weird and I found solace in video games.” In a pop culture universe dominated by grown men who never quite outgrew their adolescent preoccupations, Nanjiani’s origin story is hardly unusual. “There was no reason for me to be marginalised. ‘I was not a cool kid,” admits Kumail Nanjiani. ![]()
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