Though Emmy voting season is taking up a lot of Hollywood‘s attention these days, and ours as well, there are still some movies out there worth paying attention to (besides Wonder Woman, that is). On this week‘s Little Gold Men podcast, we do dive into the madness of Emmy For Your Consideration campaigns, with Yohana Desta joining to talk about her recent profile of Fleabag creator and star Phoebe Waller-Bridge, and Joanna Robinson discussing the marvel of Carrie Coon’s roles on both The Leftovers and Fargo. But then from there we dive back into the movie world, with a conversation about The Big Sick, the romantic comedy co-written by and starring Kumail Nanjiani, and inspired by what really happened when his girlfriend (now wife and co-writer Emily Gordon) fell into a coma, leaving him to wait it out at the hospital alongside her skeptical parents.

The Big Sick is produced by Judd Apatow, whose name on any project garners attention, but directed by a different comedic legend: Michael Showalter, veteran of The State and mastermind of Wet Hot American Summer. As he told Richard Lawson in their phone conversation, making the film was “walking a tightrope,“ in the effort to making it feel like a comedy even when one of the main characters—Emily, played by Zoe Kazan—encounters a major medical crisis halfway through. And the seriousness doesn’t just come in with the sickness; as a film about a Muslim, Pakistani man in a relationship with a white American woman, “it’s a very important story to tell.“

Listen to Richard’s conversation with Showalter, and the rest of this week’s episode, below, or subscribe and review us on Apple Podcasts.