20 May 2024
Mindy Kaling, Emmy-Nominated Writer, Producer, and Actor
Moderated by Ellen McGirt, Editor-In-Chief, Design Observer
Join us for a conversation with Mindy Kaling, Emmy-nominated writer, producer, New York Times bestselling author, director, actor, and Tony award winner. Renowned for her commitment to inclusivity and authentic storytelling, Kaling’s big break came as a writer and cast member on NBC’s “The Office.” During her eight seasons, she wrote 24 episodes (more than any other writer) and was nominated for an Emmy — the first for a woman of color in any writing category.
Mindy will share her experiences as a trailblazer in Hollywood, including lessons for any leader looking to foster equity and inclusion, and increase representation in the workplace. Ellen McGirt, groundbreaking journalist, and writer on issues of race, equity, and social justice, will lead the conversation.
Drawing from their own experiences, Mindy and Ellen will discuss the impact of authenticity, empathy, and resilience in fostering places of belonging for all. Learn to embrace your own sense of purpose to become a catalyst for positive change in your workplace and beyond.
Back to For All Summit 2024 Keynotes
Show Transcript
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I'd like to welcome Mindy and Ellen to the stage.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Please welcome to the stage Mindy Kaling, Emmy-nominated writer, producer and actor, and Ellen McGirt, Editor-in-Chief of Design Observer.
Mindy Kaling(00:21):
Hello. Hi, everyone. That was a great introduction. I seem really famous and accomplished, hard to argue with that intro. Thank you very much. Oh, my gosh, I'm so happy to be here. Although I will say this is the kind of summit that Michael Scott would come to.
Ellen McGirt (00:45):
Yes, I know.
Mindy Kaling(00:47):
I was just thinking when he was talking about The Office, I'm like, "He'd go to a place and be like, 'Oh, I do have a great place to work. Dunder Mifflin is perfect.'" So I wonder how many Michael Scotts are out there today? If you're like, "Definitely not," then you probably are, but I'm so happy to be here. Thank you for having me. Thank you so much.
Ellen McGirt (01:09):
It's wonderful that you're here. I have a whole long list of things to talk to you about, all about your extraordinary career. Yes, you probably don't think of yourself as courageous, but we certainly do. But we should start with some breaking news, if you don't mind.
Mindy Kaling(01:21):
Please.
Ellen McGirt (01:22):
You slayed at the Met Gala on Monday.
Mindy Kaling(01:27):
Thank you. I think I should go. I don't think we're going to get better than that kind of a reception. Thank you very much.
Ellen McGirt (01:36):
Right, and you pull it up on your phones, and your dress even had a name.
Mindy Kaling(01:40):
Yes, The Melting Flower of Time.
Ellen McGirt (01:43):
By Gaurav Gupta.
Mindy Kaling(01:44):
Yes.
Ellen McGirt (01:44):
Tell me why you picked this dress, and tell me why you picked this designer.
Mindy Kaling(01:49):
Okay, so I think this was the 10th time I've been to the Met Gala, and every time I go, it never gets less stressful.
Ellen McGirt (01:57):
Yes.
Mindy Kaling(02:01):
I think I can say this, and this is with love to fashion people whom I have a lot of admiration for as someone who's not in that world at all. Fashion people make Hollywood people seem compassionate and normal. So fashion people are really intimidating and it's a world who's, I'm always suspicious of the value set in that world, and I've been proven wrong many, many times. Obviously, Gaurav Gupta is this incredibly talented Indian designer, first time at the Met. But he had done a gown for Beyonce and Cardi B., and it was his time, so I really wanted to do a good job for him.
Ellen McGirt (02:42):
Yes. Yes.
Mindy Kaling(02:44):
I don't know, I go there. I'm not 22. I don't have a TikTok. I'm not a stick, and so I'm already at a disadvantage climbing up those many stairs. Everything about that makes me feel like an outsider, and it was incredible experience. I think the gown was a piece of art.
Ellen McGirt (03:07):
It's gorgeous.
Mindy Kaling(03:08):
Gaurav is this, he is so famous in India, and now I'm hoping I can help him have a platform in the United States. So yeah, it was great and I was so happy when it was done. I went back to my room, didn't go to an after party, had a cheeseburger. I watched Shark Tank in my hotel.
Ellen McGirt (03:28):
Yes, I get it.
Mindy Kaling(03:28):
You know what I mean? So it was great.
Ellen McGirt (03:28):
You wore it so well.
Mindy Kaling(03:28):
Thank you.
Ellen McGirt (03:30):
You wore it so well, and I knew that that's where you were coming from with this choice, so it's so very you. I've had such a wonderful time rereading your books and watching all your shows and just getting to know you again as a person who wanted to have this conversation with you. But I want to read a passage from your wonderful class day speech that you gave to the Harvard Law School in 2014, which you wrote about and which you published in your book, Why Not Me? Which I strongly recommend because it feels so very you, and I think it sets the stage for this conversation. The first thing that you did, you made sure everyone was in on the joke of you and your delirious optimism pretending to believe that you were getting your own honorary law degree, which is just so charming and sweet.
(04:15):
You made fun of Dartmouth a little bit, your alma mater, and then you made fun of their divinity school and then the Kennedy School, which is also so very funny. Then you made sure that they knew that being a Harvard Law graduate would mark them for life. "If you kill someone, you're the Harvard Law murderer," you wrote, "Caught in a lewd act in a public restroom, you're the Harvard Law pervert." You have honed this extraordinary ability to mind truth and humor in unexpected places, which is such a brilliant twist on speaking truth to power. But you also said this, and this is really where I wanted to go with this in this conversation.
[NEW_PARAGRAPH]"I am an American of Indian origin whose parents were raised in India, met in Africa and immigrated to America, and now I am the star and creator of my own network television series. The continents traveled, the languages mastered, the standardized tests prepared for and taken and the cultures navigated are amazing even to me. From Calcutta, or Kolkata Madrasa or Chennai," as you wrote in your later books, "to Lagos, to Boston, to Los Angeles, my family and two generations made a dizzying journey and the destination could only be America," you say this is a dream more romantic than anything you could have written yourself, "because they believed that the concept of inherent fairness was still alive in Americans to aspire and achieve unlike anywhere else in the world." Here's the kicker you deliver to this class of future Harvard grads, "The fairness that my family and I have come to take for granted is in many ways resting on your shoulders to uphold." As funny as you are, as brilliant-
Mindy Kaling(06:00):
Thanks.
Ellen McGirt (06:01):
... as you are, as prolific as you are and the accolades that you've learned, you've always been equally determined to hold the door open for the stories and ideas and people as you can just as the dress that you chose and the designer you chose to platform on Monday. You have no trouble reminding us that everyone should too. I love that about you.
Mindy Kaling(06:19):
Oh, my gosh, thank you. As I was listening to this, I was like, "First of all, where is she going? I wrote this 10 years ago. Some things don't hold up very well. Am I going to be canceled here on a stage in New Orleans?" So that was very nice that you said that. It is so true of my family, and this is an incredibly kind thing which you said. So much of my job or what I feel my responsibility is now in my 40s is creating content that is written and created by behind the scenes and on screen by people who don't normally get to be seen on TV.
Ellen McGirt (07:00):
Right.
Mindy Kaling(07:01):
But that is something that did not come easily to me. When I first was working at The Office, it was me and seven white men, and my mindset was not like, "Oh, how do I uplift other people who look like me?" Mine was, "How do I shut the door behind me so that no one replaces me?"
Ellen McGirt (07:19):
I get it.
Mindy Kaling(07:19):
I'm not proud of it, but I think I don't want to do erasure of what I used to think because things used to be different.
Ellen McGirt (07:25):
Right.
Mindy Kaling(07:26):
So many people who've worked here know that times have changed. At least in Hollywood in the past four or five years, there's been huge shifts that have happened. The reason I felt that way was because it was true. If you employed one woman or one person of color, you didn't need another one.
Ellen McGirt (07:43):
Right.
Mindy Kaling(07:43):
So if you were in one of those rooms and you saw someone like that, you were incentivized to have them fail. So much has changed, but I came up through that system, so that's something I have had to completely change, do a 180 in my 30s when I became an employer, to be like, "It doesn't have to be this way. Things have to be different." But I'm still learning every day as an employer to not operate from a place of fear, which can be very hard when you weren't raised knowing another way.
(08:17):
So that's been one of the most gratifying parts of having power, having successes under my belt and being able to make my own rules is that I can change the way that I used to think, which to be able to do in one generation feels incredible to me, and I feel incredibly lucky to do that. Also, it's a responsibility, and it's something that I hope I do well all the time, but I'm sure I fail at it constantly. But that is really the past couple of shows that I've done I've been able to help launch the careers of so many incredibly talented young people so that they're never in a room that looks like the room I was in-
Ellen McGirt (08:17):
Right.
Mindy Kaling(08:58):
... which also, by the way, I-
Ellen McGirt (09:01):
Loved.
Mindy Kaling(09:02):
... I loved. So everything is really complicated. I think a lot of times there's a particular, if you're a person of color, of painting an experience you had where you were by definition the other as terrible, but I am also, but I had a really good time in that room. So I try to explain and show all aspects of the way that I came up so it never seems... It's just true. It's really true, and it's not black and white.
Ellen McGirt (09:31):
Before we go back into your earlier days, let's talk a little bit about Kaling International because it's really extraordinary. You're on the A-list now. TIME says you're writing TV's new rules, and let's talk about the 2012, you launched it?
Mindy Kaling(09:46):
Yes.
Ellen McGirt (09:46):
Let's talk about what the opportunity that you saw then and where you went from there. I have not watched the final seasons of Never Have I Ever because I can't bear to lose them, so I'm just going to hold off till I really need them. But I've loved everything that you've made.
Mindy Kaling(10:02):
Thank you. It's funny, Kaling International, I named it as almost like a private joke to myself because I thought, "Wouldn't it be funny to name my company something that feels like it has an international reach to it?" Which is very funny when you have no success and you're starting out, but then becomes confusing when you do have several shows out. People ask me if I have offices in London and Mumbai, and I'm like, "Whoa, no, I wish I did," because now I don't want to be like, "No, no, it's a joke. My company name is a joke." But if you can think the mindset of a person who named their company Kaling International 'cause it seemed so far-fetched to them that they-
Ellen McGirt (10:46):
Like an oil company.
Mindy Kaling(10:49):
... that you would ever have success, that it could be plausible. So when I launched it, it was honestly something I did a little bit out of necessity because... So I was on the show called The Mindy Project, which I created, and thank you, and starred in after I was on The Office. At a certain point, my manager was like, "Well, at this point, when people have their own show, you start a production company." I was like, "Why? I don't have any time to do anything but the show. I'm starring in it, writing in it. At one point I'd like to get married and have children." Spoiler alert, only one of those things happen. I was like, "I don't really have time to do anything else." He's like, "I know, but it just looks better if you do." So I literally did it because someone told me, "You should just do it."
(11:33):
I didn't have these ambitions to create shows. Over the course of working on that show, though, I started thinking about what would be... the same way, by the way, when I was at The Office, I was there for eight years, and it wasn't until the last two years where I thought, "What else is out there? The same thing happened with The Mindy Project. I thought, "Wouldn't it be such a flex to create a show that I could write and I didn't have to act in to prove to people that I didn't just play this one character, that I can actually put pen to paper and write?" Because all those years that I was at The Office, even though my name was on the credits as a writer, I still had this feeling that people thought, "Well, that's Kelly. That's such a silly character. There's no way that she's actually an executive producer and a writer and a director on the show."
Ellen McGirt (12:20):
Right.
Mindy Kaling(12:21):
I wanted to show them that I could do it without being on-screen. So again, to what you're saying, starting my company, it didn't come from this philanthropic feeling of uplifting others. It was like, "I'm going to show them," which I think is the reason why a lot of really great things happen is it comes from pettiness sometimes was I had this chip on my shoulder. Then it wasn't until then that I had this idea for Never Have I Ever that it's started being like, "Oh, there's opportunities for this, to really do exciting things and give opportunities to other people and entertain people in a way that they haven't been able to be entertained."
Ellen McGirt (12:58):
So in terms of some of the shows that you're producing, I mentioned Never Have I Ever, 40 million households watched the first season in 2020, just an amazing debut. The Sex Life of College Girls is currently shooting your third season?
Mindy Kaling(13:13):
Yes.
Ellen McGirt (13:14):
One of HBO Max's most successful series to date.
Mindy Kaling(13:18):
Yes.
Ellen McGirt (13:18):
I know.
Mindy Kaling(13:23):
Thank you. I do really well writing about horny girls is-
Ellen McGirt (13:28):
That's always a safe bet, but yet you put a spin on it.
Mindy Kaling(13:34):
I remember thinking, 'cause unlike most people where whenever I get a compliment, I don't know, it makes me feel uncomfortable. I remember I was at the White House, I was getting the National Medal of the Arts, and Joe Biden was talking about my shows. It was such a delight to me to have him say The Sex Lives of College Girls, the President of the United States. It was-
Ellen McGirt (13:34):
That's adorable.
Mindy Kaling(14:01):
It was like Bruce Springsteen was sitting next to me. In my mind I was like, "Oh, gosh, the president must be like, 'Oh, let's get through this. What other perverted shows has she worked on?'" But yeah, so my two big shows I'm doing right now. I'm working another show that's going to come out on Netflix that is loosely based on the life of Jeanie Buss, who is the president of the Lakers, who's an incredible person, the first female owner of an NBA team, really glamorous, interesting person. So Kate Hudson is starring in that show. So that's coming as the beginning of next year.
Ellen McGirt (14:01):
Congratulations.
Mindy Kaling(14:38):
It's really funny, I'm just digressing. But with each of my shows, honestly, it's this chip on my shoulder where I try to prove to people. So with that basketball show, I've always loved basketball. I feel like, again, yet I want to prove to haters that I'm like, "I know my stuff about basketball, and I can talk about the Lakers and the Western Conference Finals and all this stuff that I think is really fascinating and surprise people." I think that's what Jeanie Buss actually had to do and continues to have to do at the Lakers, and it just felt like a fun project.
Ellen McGirt (15:17):
Well, I'm here for the pettiness. I love it. It's going to fuel me for the rest of the year, but I have to ask you about your commercial instincts because it's not just proving to people that you can do something that you are interested in or that you have a capacity that may not be visible. You seem to have a sense of what the audience wants or what the world wants or how to bring an audience to you. So I think that piece is the mobile and making piece.
Mindy Kaling(15:46):
Well, thank you for saying that. Look, I wish everyone referred to me as this great auteur and I had a mysterious brilliance about me and seemed very literary. I know myself well enough that that will never happen. I learned so much from working on The Office, and the thing I learned the most is that I think that in general, life is hard for the average American. When they come home from work, they don't want to sit down in front of a TV and watch something that makes them feel bad about themselves, makes them feel if they made wrong choices, that they're a bad person and that bums them out. People want to watch something that it either delights them and terrifies them, like Squid Game or something that makes them laugh and feel like they're part of something else. I think when I watched the audiences react to The Office, and even today when I see teenagers who weren't even around when it first aired, I always remember that feeling. So what I did was I love The Office.
(16:54):
I don't think it was designed as a show that where it's purpose was to necessarily showcase diverse voices, which is totally fine. That's not what it was supposed to do, and it was from a different time. But now take that the same way that we wrote that show and bring it into areas that people haven't seen on TV before. But my mindset is never to be like, people will learn about what it's like to be an Indian American family and they'll know how bad we've had it." I don't look at it that way when I create stories. I really want to show authentically how I was raised, of course, update it so it makes sense for an Indian family now in 2021, '22, but really make people laugh and be like when you came from work and you hate your boss and you want to quit your job, but you're scared to 'cause you don't want to lose your health insurance, all this stuff that you're going through, you can sit TV and be like, "Thank you, something funny."
Ellen McGirt (17:53):
Yes.
Mindy Kaling(17:54):
I really am just trying to do something funny. If I can showcase people that people haven't necessarily seen before on TV, then wonderful.
Ellen McGirt (18:01):
Which is wonderful. You're such good company, Mindy. You really are. It's just like you've been my friend in my head for so many years, and you do not disappoint.
Mindy Kaling(18:09):
That's so nice. Thank you.
Ellen McGirt (18:11):
You talk about your family a lot. You write about your family a lot. Of course, your mom was an OB-GYN just like Dr. Mindy Lahiri. Well, nothing like Dr. Lahiri, I imagine.
Mindy Kaling(18:21):
Yes, nothing.
Ellen McGirt (18:22):
Tell us a little bit about how your parents met and they came here. I teed up in the beginning, but tell us a little bit about them, please.
Mindy Kaling(18:29):
Yeah, so my father and my late mother met in Lagos, Nigeria in the '70s, and they met there. I don't know how many Indian people are here. A lot of times your Indian friends, if you ask them about their parents, their parents tend to in general be from the same area of India and speak the same regional languages.
Ellen McGirt (18:53):
Right.
Mindy Kaling(18:54):
My parents, because they met in Africa, my mom's Bengali and my father is Tamil, so when they met each other, they're from wildly different regions. My dad was a strict vegetarian and a little bit more orthodox Hindu. So when they met, my mom was more cosmopolitan and the only language they knew in common was English. So that really affected my childhood growing up because I grew up in suburban Boston in a pretty white neighborhood speaking only English. So I'm very different, actually, than a lot of the writers that I hire on my shows now who grew up speaking Punjabi or Hindi or Tamil or Bengali in that I was very Americanized.
(19:41):
It's interesting now because when I came into start working at The Office, this is like 2004, my parents' advice was, "Keep your head down. Don't begin any sentence with, 'As a woman,' or, 'As a person of color,' don't lead with identity at all and just do a good job. Just complete the assignment." I did that, and I was really successful. I think that it was a great breath of fresh air to people there that I was willing to suppress my identity. It was only later that I realized, "Oh, is that such great advice?" It's certainly not the advice that young people are given today where a lot of times it's to lead with identity.
Ellen McGirt (20:28):
Right.
Mindy Kaling(20:29):
So it's something that I struggle with a lot because I, of course, am this person where I'm obsessed with my parents. I had a great relationship with them. I still have a great relationship with my father, and I think I'm successful, yet I often struggle with, "Would I give that same advice to my children?" I don't think I would, but that's all I know, so it's tough. I think that show, Kelly Kapoor was not a character that we wanted to delve into her-
Ellen McGirt (21:01):
Her backstory, yeah.
Mindy Kaling(21:01):
... her backstory that much. We did an episode about Diwali, which was really cool, but there was not that much else. So that's something I think about all the time of how can I take the very best parts about how I was raised and then maybe abandon some of the stuff that is a little bit outdated or maybe not healthy for kids now. I think that's just the struggle of raising children is making those decisions. But I do think that their tireless work ethic in the '80s and '90s when my mom having to rebuild their careers from scratch for a third time in the United States, my mom being in her early 40s as a resident when everyone else was in their 20s at a local Boston Hospital, all the prejudice that they had to deal with, watching them do that with such grace and really embodying the never explain, never complain, I complain a lot, who am I kidding? But watching that and really admiring that was, I think, integral to my success.
Ellen McGirt (22:07):
Yeah. Yeah. You made it to Dartmouth, very competitive school and where your entertainment chops were honed in a way that I don't usually think of Dartmouth graduates.
Mindy Kaling(22:18):
No, and it wasn't when I was there at all. I went to Dartmouth because I didn't get into Harvard. I didn't get into Yale, and it was like my parents just went down a list, and they're like, "Okay, this is where you'll go." I was like, "Great." It was the time when I was like, "They're paying for college. I'm going to go where they want." I loved it there and it really surprised people. It sometimes surprises me, but I loved my time at Dartmouth, and I think the reason is, if I'm being completely honest, is that Dartmouth in the late '90s was not a place that was celebrated for its theater and arts.
Ellen McGirt (22:19):
Right.
Mindy Kaling(22:52):
Right? It was known as a place you went to before you went to go work for Goldman Sachs. What I'll say, though, is that, and I say this all the time to the young people I work with, being forced to be with people that are not like you is the best thing you can do. Now I think that I went there and there was two things. One was there was not a big art scene. So I was the art scene. I wrote short plays.
(23:25):
I did improv, all this other stuff that if I had gone to NYU or Columbia or any of these places with more of a rich history of the arts and the performing arts, there's no way I would've had the guts to keep going. I would've been seeing all these people who are way better than me and been like, "Okay, I'm going to go become a paralegal." So I think that being a really big fish in that pond helped my confidence a lot. Then, and the other thing, again, I always say this, it's like I don't want to go into a room and just share the same beliefs as everyone else that I'm there.
Ellen McGirt (24:03):
Right.
Mindy Kaling(24:03):
I think we tend to do that as people, we want to 'cause comfortable, but it's definitely not good for being a comedy writer. You could never have a show like The Office unless you had a group of people who were using their observations from times they were with people that they couldn't stand, right?
Ellen McGirt (24:03):
Yeah. Yeah.
Mindy Kaling(24:18):
That's that job. As a culture, I feel like we're moving into this place where we're like there can be no discourse cause everyone's so mortally offended. It's like this thing I think with people of color, I think often people are scared of us-
Ellen McGirt (24:18):
Right.
Mindy Kaling(24:33):
... 'cause I think we're just going to be offended constantly.
Ellen McGirt (24:36):
Right.
Mindy Kaling(24:37):
I wish that we could remove that from our shoulders. Nobody likes joking about race than Indian people. Nobody loves being made fun of and making... Those are the things that are so juicy and delicious, which is why I think a show The Office is successful. So that's why it's a little bit of a tough time in comedy right now 'cause everyone is so scared of litigation, frankly, and they think that people of color are so thin-skinned that we can't enjoy a good joke now and again. So these are just the things I think about all the time. I don't even know how I got on this rant. I'm so sorry.
Ellen McGirt (25:17):
No, I'm just going to let you go. But how you got to The Office I find is an incredible part of your story. I was casting around for a Ben Affleck joke because he just whiffed at the Tom Brady Roast, which I know that you're a big Boston sports fan too. But I also know that you know Ben Affleck better than a lot of people in the world unless they're related to him because of this play that you wrote that got you noticed. Could you tell us a little bit about that? Because you left Dartmouth with all of that confidence and your ability to put together a skit, a performance, to understand what the audience wants, friends, best friends and a sense of adventure, and it just clicked for you.
Mindy Kaling(26:04):
Yes. Well, thank you for saying that. I think what you're referring to is when I moved to New York, my dream from Dartmouth was to become a page at NBC. For those of you who don't know what that is, that is the job you basically are a tour guide of 30 Rock, and you give tours. It's an incredibly sought after job. It's really hard to get. You guys remember how overconfident you were when you graduated from college? Just thought, "Oh, I'm going to get this job in a cinch," and I didn't get it.
(26:38):
I was babysitting in Brooklyn, and I thought my dream was to become a writer for Saturday Night Live a year after I graduated, get married at 24, have children by 27 with my own TV show around the same time. So obviously, none of that happened. But I was so depressed and I thought, "How am I ever going to get access to people so they can see what I have to offer?" So I entered the New York Fringe Festival with my best friend from Dartmouth, and we had written this play called Matt and Ben, and it's a very absurd hour-long one-Act play where I played Ben Affleck, obviously. My friend played Matt Damon, and it's a fictionalized version of when they were our same age writing the movie Good Will Hunting.
Ellen McGirt (27:30):
Isn't that interesting?
Mindy Kaling(27:31):
It was very absurd, but we tried to say something about friendship and collaboration, and I think that's what people... they came because they thought two very famous men were going to get made fun of, which they did, but also because it was a play that was about friendship and the nature of working together and collaborating. So that play, which started as just something that we wrote and rehearsed in our little living room in Brooklyn, then we won the New York Fringe Festival. Then it moved to Los Angeles, which is where I got hired for The Office.
Ellen McGirt (28:09):
Which is incredible to me. So we should really pause on The Office because that really was your gateway into the rest of the amazing things that you've done. As an aside, I think now about, particularly after the pandemic and all the changes in work that some of the young first-time professionals, their only sense of working at an office is watching The Office-
Mindy Kaling(28:33):
Oh, no.
Ellen McGirt (28:36):
... which I think about all the time in this distributed workforce.
Mindy Kaling(28:38):
No wonder so many people are working from home.
Ellen McGirt (28:39):
Yeah, right? That's right.
Mindy Kaling(28:40):
They're like, "No, thank you."
Ellen McGirt (28:42):
But you were the only woman and woman of color on the eight-person writing staff. If I have the story correct, you were part of a diversity and inclusion program. That's part of how they paid for your salary, and it was incentivized to them to take a chance on somebody who was still relatively new and hadn't written for a TV show before. So that worked out.
Mindy Kaling(29:02):
It was an incredible program, which I can only look back on now with just, I'm so grateful. I was literally a diversity hire at NBC in 2004. I don't think they do this anymore, but in 2004 at NBC, they had this program where if you hired a person of color on one of your comedy shows, the network would pay my salary so it didn't come out of the show's budget. It's the only reason why I was hired on The Office. At the time, though, I remember feeling like it was a scarlet letter-
Ellen McGirt (29:35):
Right.
Mindy Kaling(29:35):
... because everyone knew that the only reason you were hired was because you were free. Again, so much of what I'm talking about is mixed feelings about things. So I had this feeling where it was like, "I, of course am grateful, the only reason I'm getting this job, I have health insurance, I have my big break." But on the other hand, I felt stigmatized by it, and I felt like I needed to work incredibly hard, overtime to prove myself. The thing about that writer's room was that it was me, and it was seven white men who I are still friends with now and I'm not... But they had a thing where they had all gone to Harvard and had all been on the Harvard Lampoon at different ages.
(30:22):
So even though they didn't go to Harvard at the same time, they had this, I don't know, this country club feeling where they had this commonality. Meanwhile, I'm this woman of color. I went to Dartmouth. That's suddenly feeling like, I was like, "I'm not too shabby." Now I'm feeling like the safety school loser, in this really very hyper-competitive environment where I've been branded as the diversity hire. So it took a couple of years for me to have two realizations. One was that I felt like I had matured out of what I thought was a stigma, and two, to really realize like, "Hey, babe, you got to be grateful for that because that program gave you your career." So those are things that when I was in my 20s I struggled with a lot. But ultimately, I am so grateful for NBC for having that program, and I wish they still had it.
Ellen McGirt (31:19):
I know that you told your parents that you took every assignment, but you did say in your book that you described yourself as difficult to manage, and particularly Paul Lieberstein who was played Toby was also the showrunner and I think ended up being an interesting person to learn from how he managed, how he led a creative group of people. I think that the program gave you the chance for you to get into the room and make your own career. As you became difficult to manage or bringing in new ideas, your entrepreneurial spirit, your creative spirit, that was when the future Kaling International founder was born. That was my theory. What do you think?
Mindy Kaling(31:58):
I think that's really correct. The truth is, when I was growing up, I loved watching shows like Friends, and I loved romantic comedies, You've Got Mail, Sleepless in Seattle. I loved romantic things, but my first job that I got hired on was The Office, and I loved glamour and fancy clothes and people living in cities. Then I was writing for these people in cubicles in Scranton, Pennsylvania for eight years. But it's like what I said earlier about being forced to do something that you don't want to do and become really good at it. I had to be forced to do that, because all I would've wanted to do is write for a show like Sex in the City. But because I wrote all those episodes of The Office and instead of writing for Carrie Bradshaw wrote for Dwight Schrute, I became good at something that I didn't want to become good at.
(32:57):
But then I was like, "Okay, this is great. I know how to write for men. I know how to write for really funny, absurd men." I took those principles and put them into my other shows, and I think that's why they're successful because I learned how to do this other thing. It was going to grad school twice my eight years at The Office. That's the one thing I try to urge younger people to do is there's this sense now that it's like the story I have to tell that's autobiographical is the only important story. It was like, "Well, that is not untrue. But sometimes it's good to be an apprentice and to have to put aside your own identity and give yourself over to a different project and learn from that," I was forced to do that. It wasn't my choice, but I think it's why I'm successful.
Ellen McGirt (33:47):
Let's talk a little bit about the industry that you're in, tremendous breakthroughs since you first started in the industry, which it wasn't that long ago, so meteoric change. But I don't think that we're exactly where we need to be. I always look for the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative for their data and their data collection. Right across the board, progress for women directors has stalled. As particularly for women of color, there hasn't been a lot of progress for girls and women on screen, limited progress for protagonists of color on screen. Most films lack meaningful LGBTQ+ representation, same with disabilities. You seem to be a one woman or four women or however big your organization is, stand against these trends. But I was wondering if you could give us your report card on inclusion efforts in Hollywood. How is it going? What do you think needs to happen?
Mindy Kaling(34:41):
Everything you're saying is accurate, and there have been enormous changes in terms of what I see on screen. When I came to LA in 2004, there was probably only one show that starred a woman that was currently on the air and that was 30 Rock. Since then, even in the past 10 years, there's been an explosion of on-camera talents or shows like Insecure, Broad City, I May Destroy You, the emergence of talents like Ali Wong and things like that. So there's been enormous change, I think, at least in the comedy world on screen. Quinta Brunson, these are people who I look up to myself even though they're all younger than me and think, "Okay, this is great." But in film, it has been, if anything, it's gone backwards in terms of what we see on screen.
(35:36):
Occasionally, there'll be a unicorn like Black Panther or something like that or Get Out. But usually what it is it's chalked up to an auteur like Jordan Peele who made that. They're like, "Okay, we'll let Jordan do his films 'cause proven himself." On TV, it's like, "Okay, Mindy seems to be able to do it." So it's like the studios will allow a couple exceptions to make their projects. So my big thing right now is I really want to produce works done by other people, particularly women and women of color, and not have to be the person that's either on-screen or the person writing it. If I can do that in the next couple of years a couple of times, that will be enormous change. But particularly because after the strikes, there's been a huge retraction-
Ellen McGirt (36:29):
The strike?
Mindy Kaling(36:32):
Of all of the studios because they're paying writers and actors more, I think a fair amount for the record. They're like, "Well, guess what? A lot of the stuff you've come to love and expect is now getting slashed." I'm sure you were noticing that when you watched TV. So a lot of the risks they were taking in the past three or four years, when there's more money with the emergence of streaming and these cool shows like Reservation Dogs and you were seeing shows all of a sudden, not one, but two shows with predominantly Indigenous casts, those things are going to be scarce, and that's the bad news.
Ellen McGirt (37:08):
That is the bad. Is there good news? Is there a role for the audience to put positive pressure?
Mindy Kaling(37:18):
I look at shows like Bridgerton or Squid Games, these are the most successful shows on Netflix, and they're insanely diverse cast. There are things that we wouldn't have seen on TV. So tuning into things, like when I was growing up, every show that I liked had a white cast, and I had no problem with that. I was like, "I love Frasier. I love friends. It's great." It didn't occur to me 'cause I didn't have this presumptuousness that I needed to be seen on screen. I could enjoy other people's stories.
(37:47):
That's what I think about a vast amount of viewers is they want to see other people's stories as long as it's good and it's advertised and supported so they know that it's out there. That's when I look at what Shonda has been able to do in drama. So I think tuning into the shows, giving things a chance that you wouldn't normally watch. Getting my dad to turn off his Fox News and watch Reservation Dogs or Bridgerton, it's my great joy to introduce him to a show that he would not normally have seen like Pachinko or Fresh Off the Boat or something, and he absolutely loves them. He just needs to be told about them.
Ellen McGirt (38:27):
Yeah. Yeah. I could talk to you all day. Couldn't you listen to her all day? I have a couple of things I want to hit and then give you a chance to just wrap anything that's on your mind or anything, any call to action to us or just how you're thinking about things. But you're a very happy mom of two beautiful kids. Every now and then we get to see the back of them as they walk away on Instagram, and good for you for keeping them so safe in this crazy world. But I had read in-
Mindy Kaling(38:55):
I'll tell you, the temptation to monetize my children is out there. I'll tell you, I have some friends whose kids start, it'll be three days before Mother's Day, and they're like, "Hi. Me and my daughter have come out with a new line of duvets." I'm like, "How much money do they get paid for that?" So thank you for mentioning that because they're now, my daughter's six. Anyone who has little kids, they get to the point where they want to be... They're like, "Take a photo of me and put me in..." But I think truly it just comes down to I don't believe that they're really able to give any kind of consent until they're 16.
(39:34):
So I also have this fear where I don't want to be in an airport and because someone recognizes my kids from online, they're like, "Kit, Spencer," and my kids turn around, and they're like, "Oh, that must be a friend 'cause they know my name." I don't know why my mind goes to these insane non-real kidnapping scenarios, this is my personality, but I always think about things like that. But again, a lot of people do it and it seems to be working for them, but for now, that's why I don't do it. But they're a huge part of my life and it is bad to not be able to show. Like everyone else, like every other annoying mom, I think they're so adorable and say the funniest things, and I wish I could share that, a lot of that stuff.
Ellen McGirt (40:21):
But one of the things that you did share, is it Hindu Like Me? What is your most recent book? Kind of Hindu, you talked about re-establishing a sense of your Hindu culture specifically because you wanted to give them a through line to your mom and to your parents and to your own ancestry. Could you tell us that story real quick?
Mindy Kaling(40:41):
Sure. I wrote an essay called Kind of Hindu, and I wrote this a couple of years ago when I did a mundan for my daughter. If you're a Hindu, then you probably know what this is, but if not, I only learned it on Wikipedia. It's in some Hindu families, they do this ritual where you shave your child's head because the hair that they were born with represents their past lives and it's good to start in their new life with no hair. So I had one and my parents [inaudible 00:41:21]
Ellen McGirt (41:20):
The picture of you after you had your head shaved, it was just one of the most adorable things I've seen. That's worth the book.
Mindy Kaling(41:27):
I think that's a lie, but I'll take it in. So my mom passed away before I had my daughter and my dad is that infuriatingly like, "Do it or don't do it. It's fine." He doesn't have a strong take on it. One of the nice things about my parents growing up is we have this idea of most Indian immigrants is they're very conservative and traditional. Really, my parents were very traditional in some ways, but they didn't push a lot of those things on us. So I had to make the decision, which I think a lot of people do when you have kids of, "Oh, God, I'm the one in charge here. I have to set what's our faith? What are our rituals?" I'm like, "Okay, I have to do this now and then I need to be consistent about it so that we seem like we're not from a broken home."
(42:19):
So I decided, "Okay, I'm going to do this for no other reason other than I'm superstitious." So I had to call, find out where the Hindu temple was in Los Angeles and talk to a priest. He sent me a list of things to get, and he did the ceremony at the house. I didn't understand anything he was saying. It was in Hindi and Sanskrit, but I had to act like an authority figure who really understood it and was affected by it to my whole family. So we shaved my daughter's head. It didn't hurt her, but she screamed as though I was torturing her.
(43:00):
It was a horrific experience, I'm not going to lie. I then, of course, did it to my son because I think this is what we just do for children is we make them do uncomfortable rituals over and over again. But I really thought about it and it made me think of a lot of things. One is, how much I miss my mother 'cause she would have... When you're doing these kind of things that you don't understand because your faith or your religion is telling you to, it's really great to have someone who is an older, more experienced person in that who's like, "It's okay. They'll get over it. You got over it," so it really made me miss my mom. But it also, I think in a lot of ways and in a really profound way, established me as the leader of my family.
Ellen McGirt (43:47):
Yes. Yes.
Mindy Kaling(43:49):
I'm not married, so I don't get to bounce these things off of a spouse, which I think is a really beautiful thing about marriage, and it was incredibly empowering to do something like that. So yeah, I would like to raise my kids with a little bit more connection to their faith than I did. When I was raised in the '80s and '90s, there just weren't as many Hindu temples in the United States. Now there are so many, which is an amazing thing about living in a city like Los Angeles.
(44:22):
They go to a school where we do celebrate Diwali and different pujas at school. It's not considered weird. It's not something you want to hide about yourself. In fact, they ask about it. The teachers want you to come and read a book about it, so it's a really nice thing. I'm sure a lot of people here can relate about having to make those kinds of decisions and how wonderful it is that something that you didn't see in your childhood is now you can make things different for your own kids. So that's one of the most fun things about my life right now.
Ellen McGirt (44:57):
Oh, that's just wonderful. We have to go. You're a leader in your family. You're a leader on must-see TV. 30 seconds, what is your best advice for us as we go forward in leading a creative, adventurous, courageous life?
Mindy Kaling(45:13):
The best advice that I've ever gotten, and this is really name dropper-y, is from Oprah Winfrey. She gave this advice to me when we were shooting this movie, A Wrinkle in Time, and this is going to get even more name dropper-y. She heard it from her friend, Maya Angelou. It's just insufferable, but this is the advice she gave me. She said to me she heard this advice and she said, "Do the best you can until you know better, and when you know better, do better."
Ellen McGirt (45:45):
Yeah, that's it.
Mindy Kaling(45:50):
I love that advice, especially now with everyone's digital footprint and we have so much, all of our social media and things that we've posted or said or we are constantly revising how we behave and what we think is correct. What I love about that is do the best you can until you know better. It's this grace to forgive yourself or something you did or something you said that embarrasses you or makes you feel ashamed. It's like release yourself of the shame, but this is the trick, when you do know better, you have to change, and so I love it. I love being released of guilt and giving yourself the grace to do things, but also giving yourself the task, the really sometimes very hard task of changing when you know it's the right thing to do. So I try to do that as much as I can, again, this is the kicker, I fail constantly at it, but I try to think of that advice all the time.
Ellen McGirt (46:47):
Mindy, thank you so much for coming.
Mindy Kaling(46:48):
Of course. Thank you for having me.
Ellen McGirt (46:49):
This has just been such an wonderful conversation.
I'd like to welcome Mindy and Ellen to the stage.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Please welcome to the stage Mindy Kaling, Emmy-nominated writer, producer and actor, and Ellen McGirt, Editor-in-Chief of Design Observer.
Mindy Kaling(00:21):
Hello. Hi, everyone. That was a great introduction. I seem really famous and accomplished, hard to argue with that intro. Thank you very much. Oh, my gosh, I'm so happy to be here. Although I will say this is the kind of summit that Michael Scott would come to.
Ellen McGirt (00:45):
Yes, I know.
Mindy Kaling(00:47):
I was just thinking when he was talking about The Office, I'm like, "He'd go to a place and be like, 'Oh, I do have a great place to work. Dunder Mifflin is perfect.'" So I wonder how many Michael Scotts are out there today? If you're like, "Definitely not," then you probably are, but I'm so happy to be here. Thank you for having me. Thank you so much.
Ellen McGirt (01:09):
It's wonderful that you're here. I have a whole long list of things to talk to you about, all about your extraordinary career. Yes, you probably don't think of yourself as courageous, but we certainly do. But we should start with some breaking news, if you don't mind.
Mindy Kaling(01:21):
Please.
Ellen McGirt (01:22):
You slayed at the Met Gala on Monday.
Mindy Kaling(01:27):
Thank you. I think I should go. I don't think we're going to get better than that kind of a reception. Thank you very much.
Ellen McGirt (01:36):
Right, and you pull it up on your phones, and your dress even had a name.
Mindy Kaling(01:40):
Yes, The Melting Flower of Time.
Ellen McGirt (01:43):
By Gaurav Gupta.
Mindy Kaling(01:44):
Yes.
Ellen McGirt (01:44):
Tell me why you picked this dress, and tell me why you picked this designer.
Mindy Kaling(01:49):
Okay, so I think this was the 10th time I've been to the Met Gala, and every time I go, it never gets less stressful.
Ellen McGirt (01:57):
Yes.
Mindy Kaling(02:01):
I think I can say this, and this is with love to fashion people whom I have a lot of admiration for as someone who's not in that world at all. Fashion people make Hollywood people seem compassionate and normal. So fashion people are really intimidating and it's a world who's, I'm always suspicious of the value set in that world, and I've been proven wrong many, many times. Obviously, Gaurav Gupta is this incredibly talented Indian designer, first time at the Met. But he had done a gown for Beyonce and Cardi B., and it was his time, so I really wanted to do a good job for him.
Ellen McGirt (02:42):
Yes. Yes.
Mindy Kaling(02:44):
I don't know, I go there. I'm not 22. I don't have a TikTok. I'm not a stick, and so I'm already at a disadvantage climbing up those many stairs. Everything about that makes me feel like an outsider, and it was incredible experience. I think the gown was a piece of art.
Ellen McGirt (03:07):
It's gorgeous.
Mindy Kaling(03:08):
Gaurav is this, he is so famous in India, and now I'm hoping I can help him have a platform in the United States. So yeah, it was great and I was so happy when it was done. I went back to my room, didn't go to an after party, had a cheeseburger. I watched Shark Tank in my hotel.
Ellen McGirt (03:28):
Yes, I get it.
Mindy Kaling(03:28):
You know what I mean? So it was great.
Ellen McGirt (03:28):
You wore it so well.
Mindy Kaling(03:28):
Thank you.
Ellen McGirt (03:30):
You wore it so well, and I knew that that's where you were coming from with this choice, so it's so very you. I've had such a wonderful time rereading your books and watching all your shows and just getting to know you again as a person who wanted to have this conversation with you. But I want to read a passage from your wonderful class day speech that you gave to the Harvard Law School in 2014, which you wrote about and which you published in your book, Why Not Me? Which I strongly recommend because it feels so very you, and I think it sets the stage for this conversation. The first thing that you did, you made sure everyone was in on the joke of you and your delirious optimism pretending to believe that you were getting your own honorary law degree, which is just so charming and sweet.
(04:15):
You made fun of Dartmouth a little bit, your alma mater, and then you made fun of their divinity school and then the Kennedy School, which is also so very funny. Then you made sure that they knew that being a Harvard Law graduate would mark them for life. "If you kill someone, you're the Harvard Law murderer," you wrote, "Caught in a lewd act in a public restroom, you're the Harvard Law pervert." You have honed this extraordinary ability to mind truth and humor in unexpected places, which is such a brilliant twist on speaking truth to power. But you also said this, and this is really where I wanted to go with this in this conversation.
[NEW_PARAGRAPH]"I am an American of Indian origin whose parents were raised in India, met in Africa and immigrated to America, and now I am the star and creator of my own network television series. The continents traveled, the languages mastered, the standardized tests prepared for and taken and the cultures navigated are amazing even to me. From Calcutta, or Kolkata Madrasa or Chennai," as you wrote in your later books, "to Lagos, to Boston, to Los Angeles, my family and two generations made a dizzying journey and the destination could only be America," you say this is a dream more romantic than anything you could have written yourself, "because they believed that the concept of inherent fairness was still alive in Americans to aspire and achieve unlike anywhere else in the world." Here's the kicker you deliver to this class of future Harvard grads, "The fairness that my family and I have come to take for granted is in many ways resting on your shoulders to uphold." As funny as you are, as brilliant-
Mindy Kaling(06:00):
Thanks.
Ellen McGirt (06:01):
... as you are, as prolific as you are and the accolades that you've learned, you've always been equally determined to hold the door open for the stories and ideas and people as you can just as the dress that you chose and the designer you chose to platform on Monday. You have no trouble reminding us that everyone should too. I love that about you.
Mindy Kaling(06:19):
Oh, my gosh, thank you. As I was listening to this, I was like, "First of all, where is she going? I wrote this 10 years ago. Some things don't hold up very well. Am I going to be canceled here on a stage in New Orleans?" So that was very nice that you said that. It is so true of my family, and this is an incredibly kind thing which you said. So much of my job or what I feel my responsibility is now in my 40s is creating content that is written and created by behind the scenes and on screen by people who don't normally get to be seen on TV.
Ellen McGirt (07:00):
Right.
Mindy Kaling(07:01):
But that is something that did not come easily to me. When I first was working at The Office, it was me and seven white men, and my mindset was not like, "Oh, how do I uplift other people who look like me?" Mine was, "How do I shut the door behind me so that no one replaces me?"
Ellen McGirt (07:19):
I get it.
Mindy Kaling(07:19):
I'm not proud of it, but I think I don't want to do erasure of what I used to think because things used to be different.
Ellen McGirt (07:25):
Right.
Mindy Kaling(07:26):
So many people who've worked here know that times have changed. At least in Hollywood in the past four or five years, there's been huge shifts that have happened. The reason I felt that way was because it was true. If you employed one woman or one person of color, you didn't need another one.
Ellen McGirt (07:43):
Right.
Mindy Kaling(07:43):
So if you were in one of those rooms and you saw someone like that, you were incentivized to have them fail. So much has changed, but I came up through that system, so that's something I have had to completely change, do a 180 in my 30s when I became an employer, to be like, "It doesn't have to be this way. Things have to be different." But I'm still learning every day as an employer to not operate from a place of fear, which can be very hard when you weren't raised knowing another way.
(08:17):
So that's been one of the most gratifying parts of having power, having successes under my belt and being able to make my own rules is that I can change the way that I used to think, which to be able to do in one generation feels incredible to me, and I feel incredibly lucky to do that. Also, it's a responsibility, and it's something that I hope I do well all the time, but I'm sure I fail at it constantly. But that is really the past couple of shows that I've done I've been able to help launch the careers of so many incredibly talented young people so that they're never in a room that looks like the room I was in-
Ellen McGirt (08:17):
Right.
Mindy Kaling(08:58):
... which also, by the way, I-
Ellen McGirt (09:01):
Loved.
Mindy Kaling(09:02):
... I loved. So everything is really complicated. I think a lot of times there's a particular, if you're a person of color, of painting an experience you had where you were by definition the other as terrible, but I am also, but I had a really good time in that room. So I try to explain and show all aspects of the way that I came up so it never seems... It's just true. It's really true, and it's not black and white.
Ellen McGirt (09:31):
Before we go back into your earlier days, let's talk a little bit about Kaling International because it's really extraordinary. You're on the A-list now. TIME says you're writing TV's new rules, and let's talk about the 2012, you launched it?
Mindy Kaling(09:46):
Yes.
Ellen McGirt (09:46):
Let's talk about what the opportunity that you saw then and where you went from there. I have not watched the final seasons of Never Have I Ever because I can't bear to lose them, so I'm just going to hold off till I really need them. But I've loved everything that you've made.
Mindy Kaling(10:02):
Thank you. It's funny, Kaling International, I named it as almost like a private joke to myself because I thought, "Wouldn't it be funny to name my company something that feels like it has an international reach to it?" Which is very funny when you have no success and you're starting out, but then becomes confusing when you do have several shows out. People ask me if I have offices in London and Mumbai, and I'm like, "Whoa, no, I wish I did," because now I don't want to be like, "No, no, it's a joke. My company name is a joke." But if you can think the mindset of a person who named their company Kaling International 'cause it seemed so far-fetched to them that they-
Ellen McGirt (10:46):
Like an oil company.
Mindy Kaling(10:49):
... that you would ever have success, that it could be plausible. So when I launched it, it was honestly something I did a little bit out of necessity because... So I was on the show called The Mindy Project, which I created, and thank you, and starred in after I was on The Office. At a certain point, my manager was like, "Well, at this point, when people have their own show, you start a production company." I was like, "Why? I don't have any time to do anything but the show. I'm starring in it, writing in it. At one point I'd like to get married and have children." Spoiler alert, only one of those things happen. I was like, "I don't really have time to do anything else." He's like, "I know, but it just looks better if you do." So I literally did it because someone told me, "You should just do it."
(11:33):
I didn't have these ambitions to create shows. Over the course of working on that show, though, I started thinking about what would be... the same way, by the way, when I was at The Office, I was there for eight years, and it wasn't until the last two years where I thought, "What else is out there? The same thing happened with The Mindy Project. I thought, "Wouldn't it be such a flex to create a show that I could write and I didn't have to act in to prove to people that I didn't just play this one character, that I can actually put pen to paper and write?" Because all those years that I was at The Office, even though my name was on the credits as a writer, I still had this feeling that people thought, "Well, that's Kelly. That's such a silly character. There's no way that she's actually an executive producer and a writer and a director on the show."
Ellen McGirt (12:20):
Right.
Mindy Kaling(12:21):
I wanted to show them that I could do it without being on-screen. So again, to what you're saying, starting my company, it didn't come from this philanthropic feeling of uplifting others. It was like, "I'm going to show them," which I think is the reason why a lot of really great things happen is it comes from pettiness sometimes was I had this chip on my shoulder. Then it wasn't until then that I had this idea for Never Have I Ever that it's started being like, "Oh, there's opportunities for this, to really do exciting things and give opportunities to other people and entertain people in a way that they haven't been able to be entertained."
Ellen McGirt (12:58):
So in terms of some of the shows that you're producing, I mentioned Never Have I Ever, 40 million households watched the first season in 2020, just an amazing debut. The Sex Life of College Girls is currently shooting your third season?
Mindy Kaling(13:13):
Yes.
Ellen McGirt (13:14):
One of HBO Max's most successful series to date.
Mindy Kaling(13:18):
Yes.
Ellen McGirt (13:18):
I know.
Mindy Kaling(13:23):
Thank you. I do really well writing about horny girls is-
Ellen McGirt (13:28):
That's always a safe bet, but yet you put a spin on it.
Mindy Kaling(13:34):
I remember thinking, 'cause unlike most people where whenever I get a compliment, I don't know, it makes me feel uncomfortable. I remember I was at the White House, I was getting the National Medal of the Arts, and Joe Biden was talking about my shows. It was such a delight to me to have him say The Sex Lives of College Girls, the President of the United States. It was-
Ellen McGirt (13:34):
That's adorable.
Mindy Kaling(14:01):
It was like Bruce Springsteen was sitting next to me. In my mind I was like, "Oh, gosh, the president must be like, 'Oh, let's get through this. What other perverted shows has she worked on?'" But yeah, so my two big shows I'm doing right now. I'm working another show that's going to come out on Netflix that is loosely based on the life of Jeanie Buss, who is the president of the Lakers, who's an incredible person, the first female owner of an NBA team, really glamorous, interesting person. So Kate Hudson is starring in that show. So that's coming as the beginning of next year.
Ellen McGirt (14:01):
Congratulations.
Mindy Kaling(14:38):
It's really funny, I'm just digressing. But with each of my shows, honestly, it's this chip on my shoulder where I try to prove to people. So with that basketball show, I've always loved basketball. I feel like, again, yet I want to prove to haters that I'm like, "I know my stuff about basketball, and I can talk about the Lakers and the Western Conference Finals and all this stuff that I think is really fascinating and surprise people." I think that's what Jeanie Buss actually had to do and continues to have to do at the Lakers, and it just felt like a fun project.
Ellen McGirt (15:17):
Well, I'm here for the pettiness. I love it. It's going to fuel me for the rest of the year, but I have to ask you about your commercial instincts because it's not just proving to people that you can do something that you are interested in or that you have a capacity that may not be visible. You seem to have a sense of what the audience wants or what the world wants or how to bring an audience to you. So I think that piece is the mobile and making piece.
Mindy Kaling(15:46):
Well, thank you for saying that. Look, I wish everyone referred to me as this great auteur and I had a mysterious brilliance about me and seemed very literary. I know myself well enough that that will never happen. I learned so much from working on The Office, and the thing I learned the most is that I think that in general, life is hard for the average American. When they come home from work, they don't want to sit down in front of a TV and watch something that makes them feel bad about themselves, makes them feel if they made wrong choices, that they're a bad person and that bums them out. People want to watch something that it either delights them and terrifies them, like Squid Game or something that makes them laugh and feel like they're part of something else. I think when I watched the audiences react to The Office, and even today when I see teenagers who weren't even around when it first aired, I always remember that feeling. So what I did was I love The Office.
(16:54):
I don't think it was designed as a show that where it's purpose was to necessarily showcase diverse voices, which is totally fine. That's not what it was supposed to do, and it was from a different time. But now take that the same way that we wrote that show and bring it into areas that people haven't seen on TV before. But my mindset is never to be like, people will learn about what it's like to be an Indian American family and they'll know how bad we've had it." I don't look at it that way when I create stories. I really want to show authentically how I was raised, of course, update it so it makes sense for an Indian family now in 2021, '22, but really make people laugh and be like when you came from work and you hate your boss and you want to quit your job, but you're scared to 'cause you don't want to lose your health insurance, all this stuff that you're going through, you can sit TV and be like, "Thank you, something funny."
Ellen McGirt (17:53):
Yes.
Mindy Kaling(17:54):
I really am just trying to do something funny. If I can showcase people that people haven't necessarily seen before on TV, then wonderful.
Ellen McGirt (18:01):
Which is wonderful. You're such good company, Mindy. You really are. It's just like you've been my friend in my head for so many years, and you do not disappoint.
Mindy Kaling(18:09):
That's so nice. Thank you.
Ellen McGirt (18:11):
You talk about your family a lot. You write about your family a lot. Of course, your mom was an OB-GYN just like Dr. Mindy Lahiri. Well, nothing like Dr. Lahiri, I imagine.
Mindy Kaling(18:21):
Yes, nothing.
Ellen McGirt (18:22):
Tell us a little bit about how your parents met and they came here. I teed up in the beginning, but tell us a little bit about them, please.
Mindy Kaling(18:29):
Yeah, so my father and my late mother met in Lagos, Nigeria in the '70s, and they met there. I don't know how many Indian people are here. A lot of times your Indian friends, if you ask them about their parents, their parents tend to in general be from the same area of India and speak the same regional languages.
Ellen McGirt (18:53):
Right.
Mindy Kaling(18:54):
My parents, because they met in Africa, my mom's Bengali and my father is Tamil, so when they met each other, they're from wildly different regions. My dad was a strict vegetarian and a little bit more orthodox Hindu. So when they met, my mom was more cosmopolitan and the only language they knew in common was English. So that really affected my childhood growing up because I grew up in suburban Boston in a pretty white neighborhood speaking only English. So I'm very different, actually, than a lot of the writers that I hire on my shows now who grew up speaking Punjabi or Hindi or Tamil or Bengali in that I was very Americanized.
(19:41):
It's interesting now because when I came into start working at The Office, this is like 2004, my parents' advice was, "Keep your head down. Don't begin any sentence with, 'As a woman,' or, 'As a person of color,' don't lead with identity at all and just do a good job. Just complete the assignment." I did that, and I was really successful. I think that it was a great breath of fresh air to people there that I was willing to suppress my identity. It was only later that I realized, "Oh, is that such great advice?" It's certainly not the advice that young people are given today where a lot of times it's to lead with identity.
Ellen McGirt (20:28):
Right.
Mindy Kaling(20:29):
So it's something that I struggle with a lot because I, of course, am this person where I'm obsessed with my parents. I had a great relationship with them. I still have a great relationship with my father, and I think I'm successful, yet I often struggle with, "Would I give that same advice to my children?" I don't think I would, but that's all I know, so it's tough. I think that show, Kelly Kapoor was not a character that we wanted to delve into her-
Ellen McGirt (21:01):
Her backstory, yeah.
Mindy Kaling(21:01):
... her backstory that much. We did an episode about Diwali, which was really cool, but there was not that much else. So that's something I think about all the time of how can I take the very best parts about how I was raised and then maybe abandon some of the stuff that is a little bit outdated or maybe not healthy for kids now. I think that's just the struggle of raising children is making those decisions. But I do think that their tireless work ethic in the '80s and '90s when my mom having to rebuild their careers from scratch for a third time in the United States, my mom being in her early 40s as a resident when everyone else was in their 20s at a local Boston Hospital, all the prejudice that they had to deal with, watching them do that with such grace and really embodying the never explain, never complain, I complain a lot, who am I kidding? But watching that and really admiring that was, I think, integral to my success.
Ellen McGirt (22:07):
Yeah. Yeah. You made it to Dartmouth, very competitive school and where your entertainment chops were honed in a way that I don't usually think of Dartmouth graduates.
Mindy Kaling(22:18):
No, and it wasn't when I was there at all. I went to Dartmouth because I didn't get into Harvard. I didn't get into Yale, and it was like my parents just went down a list, and they're like, "Okay, this is where you'll go." I was like, "Great." It was the time when I was like, "They're paying for college. I'm going to go where they want." I loved it there and it really surprised people. It sometimes surprises me, but I loved my time at Dartmouth, and I think the reason is, if I'm being completely honest, is that Dartmouth in the late '90s was not a place that was celebrated for its theater and arts.
Ellen McGirt (22:19):
Right.
Mindy Kaling(22:52):
Right? It was known as a place you went to before you went to go work for Goldman Sachs. What I'll say, though, is that, and I say this all the time to the young people I work with, being forced to be with people that are not like you is the best thing you can do. Now I think that I went there and there was two things. One was there was not a big art scene. So I was the art scene. I wrote short plays.
(23:25):
I did improv, all this other stuff that if I had gone to NYU or Columbia or any of these places with more of a rich history of the arts and the performing arts, there's no way I would've had the guts to keep going. I would've been seeing all these people who are way better than me and been like, "Okay, I'm going to go become a paralegal." So I think that being a really big fish in that pond helped my confidence a lot. Then, and the other thing, again, I always say this, it's like I don't want to go into a room and just share the same beliefs as everyone else that I'm there.
Ellen McGirt (24:03):
Right.
Mindy Kaling(24:03):
I think we tend to do that as people, we want to 'cause comfortable, but it's definitely not good for being a comedy writer. You could never have a show like The Office unless you had a group of people who were using their observations from times they were with people that they couldn't stand, right?
Ellen McGirt (24:03):
Yeah. Yeah.
Mindy Kaling(24:18):
That's that job. As a culture, I feel like we're moving into this place where we're like there can be no discourse cause everyone's so mortally offended. It's like this thing I think with people of color, I think often people are scared of us-
Ellen McGirt (24:18):
Right.
Mindy Kaling(24:33):
... 'cause I think we're just going to be offended constantly.
Ellen McGirt (24:36):
Right.
Mindy Kaling(24:37):
I wish that we could remove that from our shoulders. Nobody likes joking about race than Indian people. Nobody loves being made fun of and making... Those are the things that are so juicy and delicious, which is why I think a show The Office is successful. So that's why it's a little bit of a tough time in comedy right now 'cause everyone is so scared of litigation, frankly, and they think that people of color are so thin-skinned that we can't enjoy a good joke now and again. So these are just the things I think about all the time. I don't even know how I got on this rant. I'm so sorry.
Ellen McGirt (25:17):
No, I'm just going to let you go. But how you got to The Office I find is an incredible part of your story. I was casting around for a Ben Affleck joke because he just whiffed at the Tom Brady Roast, which I know that you're a big Boston sports fan too. But I also know that you know Ben Affleck better than a lot of people in the world unless they're related to him because of this play that you wrote that got you noticed. Could you tell us a little bit about that? Because you left Dartmouth with all of that confidence and your ability to put together a skit, a performance, to understand what the audience wants, friends, best friends and a sense of adventure, and it just clicked for you.
Mindy Kaling(26:04):
Yes. Well, thank you for saying that. I think what you're referring to is when I moved to New York, my dream from Dartmouth was to become a page at NBC. For those of you who don't know what that is, that is the job you basically are a tour guide of 30 Rock, and you give tours. It's an incredibly sought after job. It's really hard to get. You guys remember how overconfident you were when you graduated from college? Just thought, "Oh, I'm going to get this job in a cinch," and I didn't get it.
(26:38):
I was babysitting in Brooklyn, and I thought my dream was to become a writer for Saturday Night Live a year after I graduated, get married at 24, have children by 27 with my own TV show around the same time. So obviously, none of that happened. But I was so depressed and I thought, "How am I ever going to get access to people so they can see what I have to offer?" So I entered the New York Fringe Festival with my best friend from Dartmouth, and we had written this play called Matt and Ben, and it's a very absurd hour-long one-Act play where I played Ben Affleck, obviously. My friend played Matt Damon, and it's a fictionalized version of when they were our same age writing the movie Good Will Hunting.
Ellen McGirt (27:30):
Isn't that interesting?
Mindy Kaling(27:31):
It was very absurd, but we tried to say something about friendship and collaboration, and I think that's what people... they came because they thought two very famous men were going to get made fun of, which they did, but also because it was a play that was about friendship and the nature of working together and collaborating. So that play, which started as just something that we wrote and rehearsed in our little living room in Brooklyn, then we won the New York Fringe Festival. Then it moved to Los Angeles, which is where I got hired for The Office.
Ellen McGirt (28:09):
Which is incredible to me. So we should really pause on The Office because that really was your gateway into the rest of the amazing things that you've done. As an aside, I think now about, particularly after the pandemic and all the changes in work that some of the young first-time professionals, their only sense of working at an office is watching The Office-
Mindy Kaling(28:33):
Oh, no.
Ellen McGirt (28:36):
... which I think about all the time in this distributed workforce.
Mindy Kaling(28:38):
No wonder so many people are working from home.
Ellen McGirt (28:39):
Yeah, right? That's right.
Mindy Kaling(28:40):
They're like, "No, thank you."
Ellen McGirt (28:42):
But you were the only woman and woman of color on the eight-person writing staff. If I have the story correct, you were part of a diversity and inclusion program. That's part of how they paid for your salary, and it was incentivized to them to take a chance on somebody who was still relatively new and hadn't written for a TV show before. So that worked out.
Mindy Kaling(29:02):
It was an incredible program, which I can only look back on now with just, I'm so grateful. I was literally a diversity hire at NBC in 2004. I don't think they do this anymore, but in 2004 at NBC, they had this program where if you hired a person of color on one of your comedy shows, the network would pay my salary so it didn't come out of the show's budget. It's the only reason why I was hired on The Office. At the time, though, I remember feeling like it was a scarlet letter-
Ellen McGirt (29:35):
Right.
Mindy Kaling(29:35):
... because everyone knew that the only reason you were hired was because you were free. Again, so much of what I'm talking about is mixed feelings about things. So I had this feeling where it was like, "I, of course am grateful, the only reason I'm getting this job, I have health insurance, I have my big break." But on the other hand, I felt stigmatized by it, and I felt like I needed to work incredibly hard, overtime to prove myself. The thing about that writer's room was that it was me, and it was seven white men who I are still friends with now and I'm not... But they had a thing where they had all gone to Harvard and had all been on the Harvard Lampoon at different ages.
(30:22):
So even though they didn't go to Harvard at the same time, they had this, I don't know, this country club feeling where they had this commonality. Meanwhile, I'm this woman of color. I went to Dartmouth. That's suddenly feeling like, I was like, "I'm not too shabby." Now I'm feeling like the safety school loser, in this really very hyper-competitive environment where I've been branded as the diversity hire. So it took a couple of years for me to have two realizations. One was that I felt like I had matured out of what I thought was a stigma, and two, to really realize like, "Hey, babe, you got to be grateful for that because that program gave you your career." So those are things that when I was in my 20s I struggled with a lot. But ultimately, I am so grateful for NBC for having that program, and I wish they still had it.
Ellen McGirt (31:19):
I know that you told your parents that you took every assignment, but you did say in your book that you described yourself as difficult to manage, and particularly Paul Lieberstein who was played Toby was also the showrunner and I think ended up being an interesting person to learn from how he managed, how he led a creative group of people. I think that the program gave you the chance for you to get into the room and make your own career. As you became difficult to manage or bringing in new ideas, your entrepreneurial spirit, your creative spirit, that was when the future Kaling International founder was born. That was my theory. What do you think?
Mindy Kaling(31:58):
I think that's really correct. The truth is, when I was growing up, I loved watching shows like Friends, and I loved romantic comedies, You've Got Mail, Sleepless in Seattle. I loved romantic things, but my first job that I got hired on was The Office, and I loved glamour and fancy clothes and people living in cities. Then I was writing for these people in cubicles in Scranton, Pennsylvania for eight years. But it's like what I said earlier about being forced to do something that you don't want to do and become really good at it. I had to be forced to do that, because all I would've wanted to do is write for a show like Sex in the City. But because I wrote all those episodes of The Office and instead of writing for Carrie Bradshaw wrote for Dwight Schrute, I became good at something that I didn't want to become good at.
(32:57):
But then I was like, "Okay, this is great. I know how to write for men. I know how to write for really funny, absurd men." I took those principles and put them into my other shows, and I think that's why they're successful because I learned how to do this other thing. It was going to grad school twice my eight years at The Office. That's the one thing I try to urge younger people to do is there's this sense now that it's like the story I have to tell that's autobiographical is the only important story. It was like, "Well, that is not untrue. But sometimes it's good to be an apprentice and to have to put aside your own identity and give yourself over to a different project and learn from that," I was forced to do that. It wasn't my choice, but I think it's why I'm successful.
Ellen McGirt (33:47):
Let's talk a little bit about the industry that you're in, tremendous breakthroughs since you first started in the industry, which it wasn't that long ago, so meteoric change. But I don't think that we're exactly where we need to be. I always look for the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative for their data and their data collection. Right across the board, progress for women directors has stalled. As particularly for women of color, there hasn't been a lot of progress for girls and women on screen, limited progress for protagonists of color on screen. Most films lack meaningful LGBTQ+ representation, same with disabilities. You seem to be a one woman or four women or however big your organization is, stand against these trends. But I was wondering if you could give us your report card on inclusion efforts in Hollywood. How is it going? What do you think needs to happen?
Mindy Kaling(34:41):
Everything you're saying is accurate, and there have been enormous changes in terms of what I see on screen. When I came to LA in 2004, there was probably only one show that starred a woman that was currently on the air and that was 30 Rock. Since then, even in the past 10 years, there's been an explosion of on-camera talents or shows like Insecure, Broad City, I May Destroy You, the emergence of talents like Ali Wong and things like that. So there's been enormous change, I think, at least in the comedy world on screen. Quinta Brunson, these are people who I look up to myself even though they're all younger than me and think, "Okay, this is great." But in film, it has been, if anything, it's gone backwards in terms of what we see on screen.
(35:36):
Occasionally, there'll be a unicorn like Black Panther or something like that or Get Out. But usually what it is it's chalked up to an auteur like Jordan Peele who made that. They're like, "Okay, we'll let Jordan do his films 'cause proven himself." On TV, it's like, "Okay, Mindy seems to be able to do it." So it's like the studios will allow a couple exceptions to make their projects. So my big thing right now is I really want to produce works done by other people, particularly women and women of color, and not have to be the person that's either on-screen or the person writing it. If I can do that in the next couple of years a couple of times, that will be enormous change. But particularly because after the strikes, there's been a huge retraction-
Ellen McGirt (36:29):
The strike?
Mindy Kaling(36:32):
Of all of the studios because they're paying writers and actors more, I think a fair amount for the record. They're like, "Well, guess what? A lot of the stuff you've come to love and expect is now getting slashed." I'm sure you were noticing that when you watched TV. So a lot of the risks they were taking in the past three or four years, when there's more money with the emergence of streaming and these cool shows like Reservation Dogs and you were seeing shows all of a sudden, not one, but two shows with predominantly Indigenous casts, those things are going to be scarce, and that's the bad news.
Ellen McGirt (37:08):
That is the bad. Is there good news? Is there a role for the audience to put positive pressure?
Mindy Kaling(37:18):
I look at shows like Bridgerton or Squid Games, these are the most successful shows on Netflix, and they're insanely diverse cast. There are things that we wouldn't have seen on TV. So tuning into things, like when I was growing up, every show that I liked had a white cast, and I had no problem with that. I was like, "I love Frasier. I love friends. It's great." It didn't occur to me 'cause I didn't have this presumptuousness that I needed to be seen on screen. I could enjoy other people's stories.
(37:47):
That's what I think about a vast amount of viewers is they want to see other people's stories as long as it's good and it's advertised and supported so they know that it's out there. That's when I look at what Shonda has been able to do in drama. So I think tuning into the shows, giving things a chance that you wouldn't normally watch. Getting my dad to turn off his Fox News and watch Reservation Dogs or Bridgerton, it's my great joy to introduce him to a show that he would not normally have seen like Pachinko or Fresh Off the Boat or something, and he absolutely loves them. He just needs to be told about them.
Ellen McGirt (38:27):
Yeah. Yeah. I could talk to you all day. Couldn't you listen to her all day? I have a couple of things I want to hit and then give you a chance to just wrap anything that's on your mind or anything, any call to action to us or just how you're thinking about things. But you're a very happy mom of two beautiful kids. Every now and then we get to see the back of them as they walk away on Instagram, and good for you for keeping them so safe in this crazy world. But I had read in-
Mindy Kaling(38:55):
I'll tell you, the temptation to monetize my children is out there. I'll tell you, I have some friends whose kids start, it'll be three days before Mother's Day, and they're like, "Hi. Me and my daughter have come out with a new line of duvets." I'm like, "How much money do they get paid for that?" So thank you for mentioning that because they're now, my daughter's six. Anyone who has little kids, they get to the point where they want to be... They're like, "Take a photo of me and put me in..." But I think truly it just comes down to I don't believe that they're really able to give any kind of consent until they're 16.
(39:34):
So I also have this fear where I don't want to be in an airport and because someone recognizes my kids from online, they're like, "Kit, Spencer," and my kids turn around, and they're like, "Oh, that must be a friend 'cause they know my name." I don't know why my mind goes to these insane non-real kidnapping scenarios, this is my personality, but I always think about things like that. But again, a lot of people do it and it seems to be working for them, but for now, that's why I don't do it. But they're a huge part of my life and it is bad to not be able to show. Like everyone else, like every other annoying mom, I think they're so adorable and say the funniest things, and I wish I could share that, a lot of that stuff.
Ellen McGirt (40:21):
But one of the things that you did share, is it Hindu Like Me? What is your most recent book? Kind of Hindu, you talked about re-establishing a sense of your Hindu culture specifically because you wanted to give them a through line to your mom and to your parents and to your own ancestry. Could you tell us that story real quick?
Mindy Kaling(40:41):
Sure. I wrote an essay called Kind of Hindu, and I wrote this a couple of years ago when I did a mundan for my daughter. If you're a Hindu, then you probably know what this is, but if not, I only learned it on Wikipedia. It's in some Hindu families, they do this ritual where you shave your child's head because the hair that they were born with represents their past lives and it's good to start in their new life with no hair. So I had one and my parents [inaudible 00:41:21]
Ellen McGirt (41:20):
The picture of you after you had your head shaved, it was just one of the most adorable things I've seen. That's worth the book.
Mindy Kaling(41:27):
I think that's a lie, but I'll take it in. So my mom passed away before I had my daughter and my dad is that infuriatingly like, "Do it or don't do it. It's fine." He doesn't have a strong take on it. One of the nice things about my parents growing up is we have this idea of most Indian immigrants is they're very conservative and traditional. Really, my parents were very traditional in some ways, but they didn't push a lot of those things on us. So I had to make the decision, which I think a lot of people do when you have kids of, "Oh, God, I'm the one in charge here. I have to set what's our faith? What are our rituals?" I'm like, "Okay, I have to do this now and then I need to be consistent about it so that we seem like we're not from a broken home."
(42:19):
So I decided, "Okay, I'm going to do this for no other reason other than I'm superstitious." So I had to call, find out where the Hindu temple was in Los Angeles and talk to a priest. He sent me a list of things to get, and he did the ceremony at the house. I didn't understand anything he was saying. It was in Hindi and Sanskrit, but I had to act like an authority figure who really understood it and was affected by it to my whole family. So we shaved my daughter's head. It didn't hurt her, but she screamed as though I was torturing her.
(43:00):
It was a horrific experience, I'm not going to lie. I then, of course, did it to my son because I think this is what we just do for children is we make them do uncomfortable rituals over and over again. But I really thought about it and it made me think of a lot of things. One is, how much I miss my mother 'cause she would have... When you're doing these kind of things that you don't understand because your faith or your religion is telling you to, it's really great to have someone who is an older, more experienced person in that who's like, "It's okay. They'll get over it. You got over it," so it really made me miss my mom. But it also, I think in a lot of ways and in a really profound way, established me as the leader of my family.
Ellen McGirt (43:47):
Yes. Yes.
Mindy Kaling(43:49):
I'm not married, so I don't get to bounce these things off of a spouse, which I think is a really beautiful thing about marriage, and it was incredibly empowering to do something like that. So yeah, I would like to raise my kids with a little bit more connection to their faith than I did. When I was raised in the '80s and '90s, there just weren't as many Hindu temples in the United States. Now there are so many, which is an amazing thing about living in a city like Los Angeles.
(44:22):
They go to a school where we do celebrate Diwali and different pujas at school. It's not considered weird. It's not something you want to hide about yourself. In fact, they ask about it. The teachers want you to come and read a book about it, so it's a really nice thing. I'm sure a lot of people here can relate about having to make those kinds of decisions and how wonderful it is that something that you didn't see in your childhood is now you can make things different for your own kids. So that's one of the most fun things about my life right now.
Ellen McGirt (44:57):
Oh, that's just wonderful. We have to go. You're a leader in your family. You're a leader on must-see TV. 30 seconds, what is your best advice for us as we go forward in leading a creative, adventurous, courageous life?
Mindy Kaling(45:13):
The best advice that I've ever gotten, and this is really name dropper-y, is from Oprah Winfrey. She gave this advice to me when we were shooting this movie, A Wrinkle in Time, and this is going to get even more name dropper-y. She heard it from her friend, Maya Angelou. It's just insufferable, but this is the advice she gave me. She said to me she heard this advice and she said, "Do the best you can until you know better, and when you know better, do better."
Ellen McGirt (45:45):
Yeah, that's it.
Mindy Kaling(45:50):
I love that advice, especially now with everyone's digital footprint and we have so much, all of our social media and things that we've posted or said or we are constantly revising how we behave and what we think is correct. What I love about that is do the best you can until you know better. It's this grace to forgive yourself or something you did or something you said that embarrasses you or makes you feel ashamed. It's like release yourself of the shame, but this is the trick, when you do know better, you have to change, and so I love it. I love being released of guilt and giving yourself the grace to do things, but also giving yourself the task, the really sometimes very hard task of changing when you know it's the right thing to do. So I try to do that as much as I can, again, this is the kicker, I fail constantly at it, but I try to think of that advice all the time.
Ellen McGirt (46:47):
Mindy, thank you so much for coming.
Mindy Kaling(46:48):
Of course. Thank you for having me.
Ellen McGirt (46:49):
This has just been such an wonderful conversation.
