Rise to Fame
Growing up in Karachi in a strict Shiite Muslim household, he has said he was supposed to become a doctor. Instead he immigrated to rural Iowa at 18, studied at Grinnell, moved to Chicago, and spent his days in tech while doing open mics at night. Silicon Valley made him a recognizable face. The real move was The Big Sick (2017), which he co-wrote with his wife Emily V. Gordon about their actual courtship, including the part where she fell into a medically induced coma. It grossed $56.4 million on a $5 million budget and earned an Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay. Few screenwriters have needed their source material to survive in order to finish writing it.
In the Spotlight
The moment he posted that shirtless photo in 2019, the internet lost its mind. A full year of training, five days a week, paid for by Marvel, had turned the Silicon Valley comedian into something that looked photoshopped. Eternals (2021) wasn't the crossover hit the studio wanted, but the transformation conversation overshadowed the film's lukewarm reception entirely. He later admitted it gave him body dysmorphia, which he has said felt deeply uncomfortable given how Marvel had framed the whole thing around inspiration. Now he's pivoting back toward comedy: a Hulu stand-up special, Night Thoughts, a recurring role on Only Murders in the Building, and a production company with his wife. The Marvel chapter appears to be closed.
Side Notes
His green card took 15 years. He was vocal about that in a 2018 Twitter thread that went wide during the Trump immigration debates, and it became part of why Time named him one of its 100 Most Influential People that year. He came from a family that didn't allow alcohol or premarital relationships, which makes his eventual marriage to an American woman after she came out of a coma feel like an improbable screenplay, except it was just his life. He co-created Little America on Apple TV+ in 2020, an anthology series about immigrant stories, which was more direct processing of that background than anything he'd done in front of a camera.