Vera Mindy Chokalingam (born June 24, 1979), known professionally as Mindy Kaling, is an American actress, comedian and writer.
Writing, at its heart, is a solitary pursuit, designed to make people depressoids, drug addicts, misanthropes, and antisocial weirdos.
I would say that my mother is the single biggest role model in my life, but that term doesn't seem to encompass enough when I use it about her. She was the love of my life.
There Has Ceased to Be a Difference Between My Awake Clothes and My Asleep Clothes
There's obviously instances where I perceive sexism in my job. . . . I think that the sort of sexism that I see has been one that's a little bit like a gentler form of sexism, but still a little bit debilitating, which is that when, as a producer and a writer, whether it was at The Office or [at The Mindy Project], if I make a decision, it'll still seem like it's up for debate.
The overlap in the Venn diagram of things that men hate for women to wear and the things that I love to wear, it's almost a full overlap on the Venn diagram, which is unfortunate for me.
As a kid it's adorable to have a gap in your teeth. But then, because of the shifting in my mouth, I started whistling through it, and as a 32-year-old woman, whistling while you speak in sort of annoying.
I used to forget that I was an Indian woman. I would even forget that I was a woman. I don't think of myself as bringing to the table a lot of 'women's issues. ' I don't feel the need to write about maternity. I grew up thinking that the talented people in comedy were hard-joke writers.
People ask me all the time how I got hired onto the Office. Another common question is how do I manage to stay so down-to-earth in the face of such incredible success?. . . A third frequently asked question is: "Girl, where you from? Trinidad? Guyana? Dominican Republic? You married? You got kids?" This is mostly asked by guys on the sidewalk selling I LOVE NEW YORK paraphernalia in New York City.
My whole childhood was like: Work hard, be quiet, respect elderly people, respect your parents, and just be unobtrusive.
I notice that a little bit at The Office, with, like, an actor: If I decided there'd be a certain way in the script, it would still seem open-ended, whereas. . . if I was a man I would not have seen that.
As my mom has said, when one person is unhappy, it usually means two people are unhappy but that one has not come to terms with it yet.
I worship makeup. The basics are always: Stila shadows, LeClerc powder for my crazy shiny skin, Bobbie brown liner pot, Chanel mascara, and Koh Gen Do for foundation, Nars for colors and sparkles.
What I'd really like to write is a romantic comedy. This is my favorite kind of movie. I feel almost embarrassed revealing this, because the genre has been so degraded in the past twenty years that saying you like romantic comedies is essentially an admission of mild stupidity.
I work so hard and so many hours, and I've done that for years and years and years.
I, like most women, I dress for other women, I think. If I was going to dress for men, I think in general I would be just wearing, like, a fitted black T-shirt and tight jeans every day.
Everyone should try to live their life like they'd like to be a role model.
In high school, I had fun in my academic clubs, watching movies with my girlfriends, learning Latin, having long, protracted, unrequited crushes on older guys who didn’t know me, and yes, hanging out with my family. I liked hanging out with my family! Later, when you’re grown up, you realize you never get to hang out with your family. You pretty much have only eighteen years to spend with them full time, and that’s it.
As I've gotten older, I can look at myself more clearly and own the things that I'm good at and work on the things that I'm not. Like, I am not skinny. I know that if I were to lose a little weight I'd literally have more time in the morning because I know clothes would fit better. And now I can look at those things more practically. Instead of being like, "What does that say about me?," now I'm just like, "That would be great to sleep in an extra fifteen minutes because I wasn't trying on everything in my closet. "
Also, chubby people can never truly pull off ethereal the same way skinny people can never be jolly.
I try not to put anything political on the forefront of what I'm trying to do creatively. At the same time, I do think it's wonderful when I hear people say that it's inspirational that I'm an Indian woman on camera. My life is very diverse, and my friends are a diverse group of people.