PIONEERS
WOMEN WANT TO BE MINDY KALING’S BEST FRIEND. This is an actual problem in her life. Fans approach her in airports to solicit not just a photo but also companionship. Maybe it’s her candid memoirs, in which she talks about everything from being the first woman and person of color in the writers’ room of The Office to anxieties about what people write about her online. Maybe it’s that they see themselves in the characters she’s written on The Mindy Project or Never Have I Ever. Maybe they want to prove to this unabashedly ambitious person with great comic timing that they’re smart and funny too.
Kaling is gracious about it, but her calendar is full. Plus, she’s an unrepentant workaholic. “I never leave my house,” she says. That’s not entirely true. She did in March to meet me for lunch in West Hollywood after giving notes on episodes of her various shows since 5:15 a.m., when she heard her 4-year-old daughter stirring in the other room. And she is considering doing so again for a friend’s screening that evening—though she will likely stay in to do another pass on the Legally Blonde 3 script. “She can outline an entire season of television on the back of an envelope in the time it takes someone else to come up with one joke,” says B.J. Novak, her former Office co-writer and close friend.
After 17 years in front of the camera, Kaling, 42, is relieved to work behind the scenes. “I used to spend so much time, especially as a performer, on how to be more likable, be cool, be maternal, to seem smart and approachable,” she says. Focusing on story has allowed Kaling to “strip
