Mindy Kaling is a lovely comedian, writer actress and producer that have gradually gained attention over the years and have established herself in the film industry.
Her rise to fame was like a steady climb. From her bitingly sharp writing in The Office, to her delightful acting in the delightful rom-com The Mindy Project, Kaling grew her fame from ordinary script writer to a well beloved international star.
To fully explore how she got to where she is today, continue reading.
About Mindy Kaling
Mindy who is currently 44 was born in June 1979, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to a Tamil architect father and Bengali ob-gyn mother. According to the star actress in her memoirs, she describes herself as being a “sensitive” child who grew up in a loving household.
She attended prestigious Buckingham Browne & Nichols high school and furthered her education at Dartmouth College, ultimately graduating with a degree in playwriting.
Her first big break in 2004
Following her graduation, Kaling began her career as a writer but her first big break finally came in 2004 when Greg Daniels who developed The Office for American audiences met with her to discuss career options, eventually offering her a staff writing gig for the first season of The Office making her one of the nine total Office creatives for the inaugural season.
She also got her first big acting gig in The office too as she was given the supporting role of the delightfully narcissistic Kelly Kapoor which the writers specifically crafted as an exaggerated version of Kaling.
As the seasons progressed, her role on the show also increased, with Kaling becoming a director and executive producer, writing 24 episodes in total. She left the series at the conclusion of season eight.
Her First Memoir
After leaving the Office, Kaling went ahead to write and release her first memoir, Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?, which was kind of comedic and showed traces of the highest highs and lowest lows of her life in a collection of essays. The memoir made the New York Times’ best-sellers list.
The Mindy’s Project
This was one of Kaling’s best on-screen performance and write up.
Following her final season contract with The Office, Kaling entered a development deal for a pilot at NBC. The Untitled Mindy Kaling Project which according to her was inspired by Pride and Prejudice and her mother. The pilot was later picked up by Fox a few weeks after, which later became titled The Mindy Project.
Fox encouraged her to change the lead character’s name from Mira to Mindy. “It lent an authenticity to the show that people really responded to,” Kaling wrote in her memoir Why Not Me?. The Mindy Project, which revolved around a very fashionable, eccentric ob-gyn and her quirky colleagues in Manhattan, soon became a popular series among viewers and critics alike.
Throughout the series’ run, Kaling gave an outstanding performance, served as an executive producer, and wrote dozens of the 117 total episodes.
Recent endeavours
In 2020, Mindy Kaling signed on to co-write the hit movie Legally Blonde 3 starring Reese Witherspoon, and she is also a major writer in Netflix's new series "Never Have I Ever,” which tells the story of a highschool student who is Indian trying to navigate her way through school without being labelled as an outcast.
Kaling has made over $20 million through acting, writing, and producing projects, according to Forbes.
In her personal time, she maintains a close friendship with Oprah and owns a part of a Premier League soccer team.