Welcome to E!'s Tales From the Top, our series on women who are leaders in their fields and masters of their craft. Spanning industries and experiences, these powerhouse women answer all the questions you've ever had about how they got to where they are today—and what they overcame to get there. Read along as they bring their resumés to life.
Even with all the characters she's created and played, Mindy Kaling's greatest work might just be her own life.
Hailed as a trailblazer, an influential person and an undeniable Hollywood success story, the 42-year-old actress, screenwriter and six-time Emmy nominee has been a force in the industry since she nailed the role of Kelly Kapoor on The Office. That was almost 20 years ago.
Even from when growing up in suburban Boston as Vera Chokalingam, the Massachusetts native born to Indian immigrants seemed destined for a life in television. After all, her parents reportedly called her Mindy instead of Vera after Mork & Mindy, the late '70s sitcom starring Robin Williams.
While there was no surefire blueprint for Kaling to plot a career in comedy, the Dartmouth graduate's flair for the craft was so strong it revealed itself when she was just a kid writing plays after school. The fact that there had been no one in the industry quite like her before made no difference.
"I think probably the biggest reason for my success," she told E! News in an exclusive interview, "is that despite successes and failures of my career, I have always been kind of a singular focus on 'I will be a comedy writer, I will write for TV,' which is not to say that I haven't had my share of adversity—definitely have, and failures—but I have never let them affect me so much that it made me want to switch my career."
With a resume now overflowing with acting, writing, directing and executive producing credits that have enriched the media landscape beyond our entertainment—from The Mindy Project to Netflix's latest hit Never Have I Ever and the highly anticipated Legally Blonde 3, which she's been tapped to co-write—it's hard to imagine what the TV world would be like had she deviated from that focus.
In between projects like the all-female Ocean's 8, Disney's A Wrinkle in Time and opposite Emma Thompson in Late Night, the comedy she also wrote, Kaling took on another special role as mom, first to daughter Katherine in 2017 and more recently to son Spencer, born during the coronavirus pandemic in 2020. Becoming a single parent, as she told E! News, remains one of the most impactful moments of change in her extraordinary life and career.
Now, in partnership with The Change Exchange—a pen pal program launched by TJ Maxx's The Maxx You Project and designed to connect women through their moments of change—two participants have the chance to become pen pals with Kaling herself.
But there's no need to fret if you're not lucky enough to exchange witticisms with the actress. She gamely dropped some knowledge on E! News about tough subjects like imposter syndrome and promotions. Study up!
E! News: In the spirit of the Change Exchange program, what was a moment of change that had a significant impact on your work?
Mindy Kaling: I think the biggest change in my life that had a huge impact on my career was having a child. My daughter was born when I was 37 and I was in the last season of doing my show, The Mindy Project, and it forever changed my career and my job particularly since I'm a single parent. It really changed the face of my career forever.
E!: Was there a lesson you had to learn when you became a mother as to how you were going to handle your career moving forward?
MK: Yeah, absolutely. I was raised by immigrant parents who gave everything to us, but their jobs establishing themselves in a career mean that they were the first people in and the last people out. And I think that having a daughter made me realize that, as much as I love my career and I really value and take pride in my work ethic and I'm constantly talking about it, I had to reprioritize the way that I worked and honestly start sacrificing things professionally so that I could be a good mom, which is something I was not used to at all.
E!: Before you became a mom, I'm sure there were certain barriers that you anticipated going into your line of work as a woman of color in the industry, but were there barriers that you hadn't anticipated?
MK: I think one of the reasons I had a lot of success in my career is that I really didn't go into it anticipating there would be barriers. I was really pretty naïve thinking that my success would come from, like, what I know, rather than who I know or what people thought of women of color. I had seen my parents have a lot of success, but I think, like I said, that I think that was naïve. I think that there were things that took me years to realize or challenges early on that I didn't even understand at the time. I really had no female mentors coming up and I think that's something that's really different now for a lot of people and I actually personally hope to change that for other young women, that they can say like, 'Oh yeah, Mindy Kaling was my mentor' and that it won't be uncommon for there to be a woman of color who was a mentor for a young person. I didn't understand that that was weird back then because that was the norm, but it was super challenging.
E!: Looking back, was it that ignorance was bliss or you had to adjust and learn the hard way?
MK: I think it was probably helpful to me that I not understand fully what I had kind of up against me when I came into my career. I think I definitely felt the pressure of being the only woman and the only minority in our writers room. Going into it, I was like, 'OK, I guess this is normal. There's just one of us here'. But what that does is, unconsciously, it really makes you feel like two things: One, you feel like you have to follow the model minority myth, and two, you also have this feeling of like, 'Oh, there can only be one.' And I think those are two things that are these kind of unfair things that a lot of people of color and young women feel like are on their shoulders, which really shouldn't be.
E!: If you could give women, girls, your own daughter one piece of career advice, what would that be?
MK: This is a piece of advice probably for young people of color coming up is that this idea that there can only be one is disappearing…As an employer and as someone who sees a lot of employer practices, from the corporate level almost everyone is wanting rooms to be truly diverse, wanting productions to be really diverse, and so I would say please don't worry about that.
E!: Were you ever in a position where you knew you were being paid unfairly? And if so, how did you handle that?
MK: I only have ever realized that my compensation was not as much as it should be years later because everyone holds what they get paid, like their cards, so close to their chest. It's really hard to even know sometimes because it's such a private thing. Because there is not a lot of transparency, it's hard to tell at the time, so it really wasn't until later that I sort of had seen that.
E!: What would be your biggest advice for women who feel that they're underpaid or they feel that they deserve a promotion?
MK: I really got an interesting window into that when I became an employer when I was hiring writers for my shows. And I always noticed, and I thought this was so interesting, how the male writers and the male crew that I would have, their representation would always be asking whether their contract was up or not, for a raise, for concessions, for perks. And the women who I worked for, they never had their reps—like if it wasn't a year where their contract was up or anything, they wouldn't ask for anything. They were very much by the books, by the word of the contract and they never felt that they should have any extra perks. And you just notice that. You notice like, Oh, their reps aren't advocating for them. I think asking for a raise, being someone who is ambitious, but works hard and then would like to be shown it—it doesn't always occur to people who are employers to do that…Being your own advocate in those ways—that's my biggest piece of advice for women.
E!: Have you gotten any career advice from your famous colleagues that has stuck with you?
MK: Ava [DuVernay] has given me a lot of advice. I think the thing that I most take away though is her work ethic and her work demeanor on set. She just wanted the set to be a reflection of what she wanted, like in terms of it was incredibly diverse and in departments where you don't usually see it. And that just became a cornerstone of her company, Array. That's their singular purpose is to make crews be more filled with diversity and with women in positions that don't normally get to have it.
E!: Have you ever struggled with imposter syndrome? And if so, how did you overcome it?
MK: I don't feel imposter syndrome and the reason I don't is that I work so hard. I feel imposter syndrome happens when people feel unqualified for their jobs. Before I got my own show, I put in eight years at The Office. I wrote 24 episodes of TV. I was an executive producer at the end of it and I'd been a staff writer at the beginning. Then I did my show for six years, did 117 episodes. I feel like I'm a real A-student. I feel like I really prepare for my work. Again, it's not all successes. A lot of times I failed, but I do feel qualified for my, you know, when I move up the ranks, like, 'OK, I put in my time. I put in my, whatever it is, 10,000 hours. I feel qualified to do this next thing.'
E!: On social media nowadays, everyone's lives look very seamless and glossy and everything looks very easy, but what would you say is something that people don't see about your life or your work that is crucial to your success?
MK: I feel like I really identify with Elle Woods because I feel like I love girly things. I love hair, makeup, fashion. I love talking about the Met Gala and things like that and because I do that, I think that people find it hard to believe that I also am doing the hard, unglamorous work that it takes to write shows, hire production staff, work logistically as an employer to create these TV shows that I work on and write these scripts. And I think that you don't always get to see that process, either on social media or in life, and so, I think that's probably, I think, a bigger misconception about the way that I work.
(This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.)