It took a while to get to the ball, though.
We knew that we could make this funny, but we didnt want to kill the reality of it.
What they created was the years most entertaining underdog love story.
Matthias Clamer for EW
The movie is about people trying to connect and the things that get in the way, he explains.
Theyre just winging it like everybody else.
To me, that is the theme of the movie.
Were trying to do the best we can, but nobodys ever done winging it.
Nanjiani may have been winging it, but this year, he also soared.
Here, the man who became one of EWs Entertainers of the Year reflects on hisBigaccomplishment.
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: How do you sum up the ride that was 2017 for you?
No matter what happens, we will rememberthisspecific year for the rest of our lives.
It truly has been its been great, you know?
A lot of people are like, 2017 sucks!
and Im like, Its great!
No, it does suck, also.
This is your first feature that you wrote, and your first starring role in a movie.
Also starring Holly Hunter.
And produced by Judd Apatow.
You do know its not supposed to happen like this, right?Yeah.
Everyone tells me, Dont get used to this!
Itll never be like this again!
Which I thought was very good advice.
Make an effort to enjoy it.
You hear of films with a lot of hype selling at Sundance and then they fizzle out.
This one went on to box office success, making $55 million.
What did that mean to you?
That would ruin my pie.
Thats the first one I thought of… And as its coming out, youre like, I need everyone to like this!
I dont know, it was very special.
It was a great feeling.
Im glad obviously that so many people seemed to connect to it.
Ive seen the good ones, Ive seen the bad ones.
And it really had to make sense.
So you dont have as much time.
You really have to be efficient with that.
The first draft was almost exactly as it happened.
It was pretty accurate and factual.
And then we were like, Lets just venture to make a realy good movie.
Did you think that the subject matter was too personal to write about?
I learned nothing from it.
Its all the same.
Neither of us knows exactly how we feel about it.
Lets venture to write something and also venture to figure out how we feel about it.
Islamaphobia is not a new thing in America.
Its been an issue forever.
Youre always experiencing the world as a brown guy and people are always seeing you as that.
Youve said that there was a lot of back and forthover the 9/11 joke.
I mean, we lost 19 of our best guys.]
My character meets Emilys [Zoe Kazans] parents.
Lets shoot it and try it and see how it feels.
And it was a debate even when we were editing the movie.
Then the first time we showed it to a crowd, we were like, Oh, okay.
This will be good.
But even that was fun.
We knew that we could make this funny, but we didnt want to kill the reality of it.
This is our story, you know?
I think some people expected this movie to really capture their experience, and it didnt.
And it captured alotof peoples experiences.
But for some people, it wasnt their experience, and I understand that.
People want to see them.
That was not something that we wanted to do.
We wanted to portray everyone as realistically as we could, and give everyone a point of view.
So thats why that scene was in there.
That said… the issue is that there arent enough stories from South Asian perspectives.
So we just need more stories.
Id love to see more stories from the perspective of South Asian women or South Asian gay people.
And I think the only way to handle this is just to have more stories from these perspectives.
Now thatThe Big Sickis done and a big hit, do you now have time to focus onGhost Witch?
Could this be your next big project?Oh, yeah.
Ive got a whole franchise in theGhost Witchshared universe.
Theyre all going to cost about $300 million each because theyre all set on Mars, too.
I dont want to give too much away.
