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 think a lot of people compare female writers or female comedians to each other in a way that men are not. Male comedy writers are not scrutinized.
I notice that a little bit at The Office, with, like, an actor: If I decided there'd be a certain way in the script, it would still seem open-ended, whereas ... if I was a man I would not have seen that.
That’s the one nice thing about being a dork about men: you can sometimes play it off as restrained and classy.
The overlap in the Venn diagram of things that men hate for women to wear and the things that I love to wear, it's almost a full overlap on the Venn diagram, which is unfortunate for me.
So I’m into men now, even though they can be frightening. I want a schedule-keeping, waking-up-early, wallet-carrying, non-Velcro-shoe-wearing man.
I’ve worked in television for 10 years straight. If I were a man, it wouldn’t be considered strange [to have confidence] at all.
When I was twenty-five, I went on exactly four dates with a much older guy whom I'll call Peter Parker. I'm calling him Peter Parker because the actual guy's name was also alliterative, and because, well, it's my book and I'll name a guy I dated after Spider-Man's alter ego if I want to.
I have a personality defect where I sort of refuse to see myself as an underdog... It's because of my parents. They raised me with the entitlement of a tall, blond, white man.
In my writers' room, which is mostly men, I get a lot of questions like "What would be the quickest way to pass as a seemingly normal guy between the ages of twenty-five and forty years old?"
I, like most women, I dress for other women, I think. If I was going to dress for men, I think in general I would be just wearing, like, a fitted black T-shirt and tight jeans every day.
Here's my feeling: For everyone, men and women, it's important to be a feminist. It's important to have female characters. It's wonderful for women to mentor other women, but it's just as important for women to mentor men and vice-versa. In my line of work, having Greg Daniels be such a great mentor to me is fantastic. Finding a writer's assistant, be it a man or a woman, and encouraging them to think with a feminist perspective, is key.
I think women in general like men that don't give them the thing that we want. We want a chase.
They talk about how men are chasers, but women are just like that too. At least a lot of the women that I know, who tend to be ambitious, professionally driven women, they love that. Like seeking something professional that is hard to get, I think they feel the same way about men.
It would be disingenuous of me to blanket-ly love everything a woman has produced simply to make a statement that we're all in this together. No. We're in Hollywood trying to be competitive, and get numbers, have our eyes on the Nielsens and things like that.