NBC Nightly News with Tom Llamas - The Drink with Kate Snow: Mindy Kaling

Episode Date: February 15, 2021

Early in her career, Mindy Kaling faced brutal rejection – and then she found her way to “The Office” where she was able to shine. She speaks candidly with Kate Snow about her feelings of failure, despite all she has achieved as a writer, actress, and creator.

Hey everyone, this is Kate Snow. I recently spoke with writer, showrunner, and actress Mindy Kaling over a hot cup of soup. She definitely had an interesting choice of drink. Mindy is known for her roles, of course, on The Office and The Mindy Project, but can you believe this TV star was actually told that she wasn't pretty enough to be on television when she was just starting out. Awful. Mindy has a great story of rising above those naysayers. This interview is part of my series, The Drink with Kate Snow. You'll find other conversations with people at the top of their game at nbcnews.com slash the drink. You know how they say that you have to put in 10,000 hours to be really good at something? So where did you put in your 10,000 hours? Working for eight years at the office. Mindy Kaling, you have picked probably

maybe the oddest, strangest drink that we've ever had featured on the drink, but that's okay. I love it. Great. I've got soup. My piping hot, well-dressed butternut squash soup. I have the exact same one. I'm trying it. Yeah. Bottoms up. So you're working with Campbell's, right? There's a reason for the ask for the soup. Yes. Yeah. This is my new favorite thing. Okay. So during the pandemic, my cooking has been from like, ah, I used to make these elaborate meals that would take forever. And now I spend 15 minutes in the kitchen for food and I don't want my children to eat garbage. And so. By the way, you have, so you have a three-year-old, right? She's three, your daughter. And then you have, how old is the, is your boy now? You're newborn. He's four months.

How are you even talking to me right now? Like when I'm four months old and a three-year-old. That's the kind of nice thing about being at home and during the pandemic and everyone's in quarantine is I feel like we're all in maternity leave. Except you're still working all the time. When did the comedy thing really, like when did that come into your life? Because I know in college you went to Dartmouth and you joined a comedy troupe. Was that the beginning? No, I mean, honestly, it was very unusual in my family. My mom was a doctor, my dad was an architect. And I think that people had this assumption that because that they were traditional, that they were also conservative. I think they were because they immigrated for like thousands

of miles away and met in another country and came to the United States. I think they were because they immigrated for like thousands of miles away and met in another country and came to the United States. I think that they have a real sense of adventure. They really like loved that. I love comedy. And since the time I was six or seven years old, I was writing stuff, writing comedy. Like I had a little typewriter, this is like pre-computers. And I would like write little one or two page plays and make my mom read them. So yeah, I was six and seven years old. That's amazing. Yeah. Even though my interests were comedy and theater and writing, I will say like, I was very, that kind of like type a, like, like born from Asian parents about the way that I was going to get there. You know, like I was, even though my, my interests were like artistic,

like I got there, it was very like methodical results oriented. And I think that's because I had these, these strivers who are parents and these like, and, and immigrants who had to rebuild their lives in the United States. So it actually helped that I've always had that kind of determination and work ethic that I got from them. I don't think I'd be where I was now if I didn't have that. You come up with this play, you and a friend, about Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, and basically like how they wrote Good Will Hunting, I guess. What the heck? Like, why are you? I know what we'll do,

Ben Affleck. We had no money. We just were like, you know, living in New York. I was babysitting, making money that way. And we just started sort of improvising in these roles. And I did it with my best friend. And I played Ben Affleck, obviously. We wrote it. We starred in it. Somehow it just like took off in New York. They wanted to make a series out of your play that did so well in New York. They were going to like do a pilot. And is it true that they said to you, you can't be in it?

Yeah. So my career, and I don't know if you feel this way too about your career, Kate, has been such a roller coaster of, you know, I think a lot of people you'll see, they'll get that like one project and then it's just like that. No, no, no. That's not me either. No. I had just come to New York and the play was this huge success and it, which was so surprising to so many people. And we felt like we were the toast of town. I remember I got my actor's equity card. I was making $600 a week acting in it and I could afford health insurance. The next great big news happens, which is that

we there's the WB. They basically said, Hey, we want you and your friend, Brenda, who wrote this play to write a pilot about your life. And we were like, this is incredible. This is all we've worked for. So we wrote a show called Mindy and Brenda. And we called it Mindy and Brenda because we were like, oh, then they'll obviously have to cast us in it, which backfired. They were like, yeah, we don't think you guys look camera ready. And so they let me audition for the role of Mindy, but they didn't cast me or my friend. Then The Office came out, which was almost a celebration of a completely different philosophy, which was that your beauty, I mean, you've seen the show. That show is not about beautiful people. It's about real people being funny.

That kind of saved me. And not just saved me in terms of my career, but like saved me like mentally and emotionally. I manage my department and I've been doing that for several years now. And God, I've learned a lot of life lessons along the way. Your department's just you, right? Yes, Jim, but I am not easy to manage. You know how they say that you have to put in 10,000 hours to be really good at something?

So where did you put in your 10,000 hours? Working for eight years at the office. Because I would get there at 6.30 in the morning morning to act and I'd stay there and act all day and then when I wasn't in a scene I would go back to the writer's room which was like in the next next building and I'd write scenes write episodes then I'd go back to set come back I wrote 24 episodes of the office in my eight years there yeah So I wrote more than a full season of the show myself. And so I learned how to write for TV, how to produce TV, how to cast TV. I was there from 24 to 32, pretty much. And I was, I don't remember doing anything during that time, but

working on the show. Like I had boyfriends, I did whatever, but I barely have a memory. I also heard you say though, that in those years, you didn't necessarily check everything off your to-do list that you thought you might have. No, I remember when I was a teenager, I was like, oh, surely I'll be married by 24 with children by 26. Like none of that happened. You know, I've always been a person where I've obviously professionally driven, but I have, I always had really high hopes and high standards for myself in all parts of my life. I was like, I'm going to be a size four. I'm going to be married with four children. By the time I'm 30, I'm going to have finished having all my kids. I mean, like, you know, these are really insane, insane things. How do you reconcile that now?

I'm still haunted by those things. And I'm being totally honest, Kate, like I'm still haunted by the things that I thought my life was going to be. I would never have thought I would be a single mother of two, for sure. At the same time, I would have never thought that I have like my own TV show. You know, I came from a place where I wasn't cast in a show that I wrote and named myself. So the fact that I would ever get a chance to eventually do that. So I got to do like over a hundred episodes of the office. Then I got to do like 117 episodes of my show,

the mini project. And now I'm a huge fan. I feel like a super fan right now. I love it. Thank you. Okay. That makes me so happy. In some ways I've, I've met my expectations of my younger self. And in other ways, I'm like a huge failure. So it's just like taking, taking the good with the bad. Before you have to go, can I do some rapid fire questions? Weirdest thing about you? Weirdest thing about me? Um, I like cold showers. Best advice you ever got? Before you can say, I love you, you have to be able to say I. Worst advice you ever got? Don't ever try to be on TV. You're not pretty enough.

Favorite role you've ever had? Favorite role? I loved playing Mindy Lahiri in The Mindy Project. Thank you so much. And thank you for the soup. Yes, my pleasure. Cheers. Cheers.

Great to talk with you. Great to talk to you too.