Emily & Kumail | The Big Sick

A medically induced coma isn’t often associated with romance, but it’s what helped and credited Emily V. Gordon and Kumail Nanjiani, the writers of The Big Sick, seal their relationship while also providing material for the film, in which Kumail also stars.
It sounds like something a group of romantic comedy writers might come up with – A Pakistani-American comedian falls in love with an American graduate student but is forced to keep the relationship a secret due to cultural expectations from his family. He decides to tell his family about the woman he loves only after she becomes suddenly ill and is placed in a medically-induced coma.

The days Emily spent in a coma, according to Kumail, who plays himself in the film, were crucial to their relationship. Emily woke up from her coma, and she married Kumail three months later.