Kumail Nanjiani And Emily V. Gordon's Totally Doable Tips For Being Heard When No One's Listening

Kumail Nanjiani and Emily V. Gordon have been getting a lot of buzz soon after their film, The Big Sick, hit theaters to rave reviews from critics and fans alike. The based-on-real-life love story has since earned them a Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay, and no doubt helped them land a development deal with Apple for their newest project, a half-hour anthology series called Little America.


The whirlwind experience has left the husband-and-wife team feeling "overwhelmed with happiness and excitement, nevertheless also with exhaustion," Gordon told MTV News at the Makers Conference in Los Angeles earlier this month. However it's very good," Nanjiani added.


"We’re in a good category with this very select sort. It’s very satisfying," he continued, as Gordon chimed in, "I’ve worn more dresses than I’ve ever worn in my life in the past few months. It's fantastic! I love it!"


Their ability to successfully work with each other bolstered by their quippy back-and-forth might simply be proof that these two make a good pair, however it's also evidence that they've figured out how to help each other thrive in an industry that so often suffers from underrepresentation (of both the female and minority varieties).





Gordon and Nanjiani discussed about this and more while in their discussion at the Makers Conference, and then gave MTV News even more hints on how we can all help ourselves — and each other — be heard.


MTV News: You touched upon this throughout your talk, yet in a room full of boys, how can girls get a word in, and why can males help girls speak up without speaking for them?


Emily V. Gordon: The trick that I learned that sort of shuts a room down is a joke. I do a fast joke... Then I can speak and mention what I would like to mention. That's not habitually the only trick you could use, that’s just what I've learned. I've learned that Once I get cut off — because it will happen — to not get discouraged and think, "Oh, these guys aren’t going to listen to me because they’re sexist!" Because that's all true, inherently, although that doesn’t mean that I should get discouraged. I’m still supposed to keep speaking up even if I get shut off, and I wish the world were constructed differently that that wasn't the case, nevertheless don’t get discouraged. That’s my biggest segment of opinions, because I think early on it was my thought that if that happened to me, that meant I should just be quiet, and that’s not true.


If you’re in a writers room, each person pitches jokes, and the jokes either get a big laugh or they get nothing, they get didn't think about, and you move on, as well as a guy I was in a room with pitched a joke, it got nothing, and he moved on, however he kept pitching jokes. Candidly, I was like, "That didn't shut you down at all? Getting shut off for that bad joke you did?" And he was like, "No, they didn’t like that one, although I thought maybe they’d like another one." And just that very, very generic thought was something that sort of caused me to shift. He’s not thinking, "One joke means each person thinks I'm trash." His was, "Oh, that one didn’t work, keep moving." And I thought that was a good way to adopt things, and thus I began adopting it as well: Just keep moving. Just keep moving and keep working.


MTV News: Fake it 'till you make it.


Gordon: Yeah! Very generic suggestions, although it’s what works.


Kumail Nanjiani: And I would mention — as Emily mentioned, you’re going to be able to see girls get interrupted — and I think it’s your job to be like, “Hey, let her finish!”


Gordon: Which you have done, several times!


Nanjiani: Yeah, that happened a lot while we were working on our movie. I’d be like, “She was talking before you began talking, so let her finish her thought first!” I think that’s a very concrete way that boys can do that because if a woman’s like, “Let me finish,” then that makes it real awkward, unfortunately. Then guys feel threatened and attacked, and guys don’t react well as soon as they’re feeling like that.


Gordon: And they should fix that, although up until they do…


Nanjiani: Yeah, they should fix that!


Gordon: But I also think, with girls in rooms, it’s all our jobs to watch out for each other. If anyone is being spoken over, I think it’s our job to go back and be like, “You were saying something.” I used to conduct categorize therapy as a therapist, and that was segment of what we had to do as a facilitator, was go, “Oh, you were talking. You got cut off. What were you saying?” I think that’s a fantastic lesson for anyone — male, female, anybody. Folks are going to get cut off. It happens. Just go back. Go back and permit the person finish what they were saying.


MTV News: That ties into what you said while in your talk — if someone sounds racist, Emily will tackle it, and if someone sounds sexist, Kumail will tackle it, so that neither of you are dismissed as acting crazy.


Gordon: I think it’s just really that if he is forced to tell people that they’re being racist, then people think that he’s being overly sensitive. Same thing with me.


Nanjiani: Playing the race card.


Gordon: Yeah, exactly, and thus we just noticed it’s habitually easier to speak up for each other than it is to speak up for yourself, and yes it just erases that line that you don’t have to worry about whether or not you seem sensitive, you’re just sticking up for someone else.


MTV News: Do you have tricks on how to speak up for someone else? That’s not habitually easy, especially when you don’t aspire to throw yourself into a line of fire.


Gordon: Depending on the scenario, I’ll some days go with humor and sarcasm. I love sarcasm, like, “What are you, old? What is this, 1945?” Just a literal, “Do you visualize how silly you look right now?” Sort of like holding up a resemble more than making it like, “I’m going to create a stand!” Just being like, “What are you, dumb? What’s wrong with you?” I learned that from Todd Glass. There’s a comedian named Todd Glass who has a way that he shuts down people at dinner parties any time they’re saying something awful that’s like, “What are you, like 70? What are you doing?” I love that. It’s sarcastic, it gets the point across, it’s quick. I some days go sarcasm. What do you think?


Nanjiani: You know, this situation is a tricky thing. You just have to speak up and hope that the people around you agree with you or visualize it as well because it may be very easy to feel like you’re being sensitive.


This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.