Mindy Kaling
Mindy Kaling
Vera Mindy Chokalingam, known professionally by her stage name Mindy Kaling, is an American actress, comedian, and writer. She is the creator and star of the Fox and Hulu sitcom The Mindy Project, and also serves as executive producer and writer for the show. She is also known for her work on the NBC sitcom The Office, where she portrayed the character Kelly Kapoor and served as executive producer, writer and director...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionTV Actress
Date of Birth24 June 1979
CityCambridge, MA
CountryUnited States of America
I have such a rich fantasy life, I can't help it. I do make up a lot of romantic stories in my head.
I regard romantic comedies as a subgenre of sci-fi, in which the world operates according to different rules than my regular human world.
Sometimes I eavesdrop on people. I could rationalize it - oh, this is good anthropological research for characters I'm writing - but it's basically just nosiness. It also helps me gauge where I'm at: Am I normal?
Sometimes I aid into the confusion by having my character's name be my name.
I think a lot of writers, male and female, write as if their parents were killed in a car accident when they were 2, and they have no one to hold accountable. And unfortunately, I don't have that. I have parents who I care about what they think.
Anybody can have a birthday. It requires nothing. Murderers have birthdays. It's the opposite of anything that I believe in. And I don't like at work where you stop everything to sing 'Happy Birthday' to someone. I feel like that's for children.
I never want to be called the funniest Indian female comedian that exists. I feel like I can go head-to-head with the best white, male comedy writers that are out there. Why would I want to self-categorize myself into a smaller group than I'm able to compete in?
I have an underdog spirit in me, and now it feels weird to kind of get my own way more often than not.
I feel like the high-concept shows that have some kind of gimmick tend not to be the hit classic shows of all time.
I feel like I'm in the right profession.
Fast food is hugely important in the life of a comedy writer. All we do is order in, and what we're going to eat is hotly debated.
When people call me either a girl crush or their best friend, like, the best friend they want, that's, to me, the best compliment anyone could ever give me.
There is this cliche of, "Oh, your professional life is fine, but your romantic life isn't." But, that's also really true of me and all my friends. You don't want to not do something that's relatable simply because you're worried that it might be cliche.
When I was a little kid, I wrote this play about all these characters living in a haunted house. There was a witch who lived there, and a mummy. When they were all hassling him, this guy who bought the house - I can't believe I remember this - he said to them, 'Who's paying the mortgage on this haunted house?' I thought that was really funny.