Mindy Kaling tells Michelle Manelis about her journey from junior writer to writer, star and producer of the new film Late Night
CAN YOU TALK ABOUT YOUR JOURNEY AS A WOMAN OF COLOUR IN THE
HOLLYWOOD WORKPLACE?
Having written on The Office for eight years, I had lots of chances for storytelling but never an opportunity to tell the story of how I got into the business. That's the thing people want to know about, particularly young women. When I started at The Office I was the only woman and I was the only minority on the staff. And I always try to be careful, because that staff was filled with great writers like Michael Shur and BJ Novak who would identify as feminists, but it was still terrifying because I had this feeling that if you're the only woman or the only minority and you have an off-day, and the rest of the staff is white you think, "Oh God, this is what they're going to think of all Indian people, all Indian women." I was the diversity hire there.
DID YOU WRITE THE ROLE OF MOLLY PATEL FOR YOURSELF IN THE MOVIE?
Yes I did. But stranger things have happened. I could have been replaced by somebody else!
HAVE YOU HEARD ANY FEEDBACK FROM PEOPLE WHO WORK IN LATE-NIGHT TV?
Yeah and I was really nervous about it. Steven Colbert saw the movie and I was so nervous about what he would think. I was so relieved that he loved the movie and thought it was accurate. I had writers from his show and Jimmy Fallon's show and Seth Meyers' show come to our table read to make sure that everything was real in it.
SETH MEYERS IS IN THE MOVIE. WAS HE HARD TO GET?
I've known Seth for a while. When The Mindy Project first came out he did me this great favour of playing one of my boyfriends. And he already had his own show, so he was really busy. So I've known him forever. But even Bill Maher, Jake Tapper, all of them did it for no money just because they wanted to be supportive of the project.