Mindy Kaling hasn’t enjoyed lockdown: ‘I’m very hard-working, but I’m also very social’

Actor Johnny Depp spotted at the High Court in London.

Mindy Kaling covers the latest issue of Vogue India, in a photoshoot which was done just six weeks after she gave birth to her son Spencer. That was her second pregnancy, the one she didn’t announce. She was just like “hey, I had a baby” one day and I was shook. Anyway, Mindy said that she was “not feeling body confident, and even considered saying no” to Vogue India but she’s glad she did the shoot anyway, and she looks lovely. Mindy is promoting all of her many projects, from a new book, to Never Have I Ever (which she writes and produces) to several film projects she’s working on, including the script for Legally Blonde 3. Some highlights from the Vogue piece:

She’s crazy busy, but she hardly feels like she’s working. “You know, it’s so trite, but I love my job so much. I feel so lucky that it’s so easy to do all the time.” She says she sleeps just five or six hours a night.

How she’s dealt with isolation during the pandemic: “Not great. I’m very hard-working, but I’m also very social. It was a lot of growing pains at the beginning of the pandemic. It made it easier that my daughter was here because she’s so fun and funny. In the beginning, it was a lot of just us staring at each other, but I got to know her better.”

Her dad lives nearby: When the lockdowns were announced, he didn’t come into the house for three months, but, “Every day he would drive by and wear a mask and gloves and talk to Katherine through the car window.”

She invites her writers out on socially distanced walks around the neighbourhood. “I love my house, but it feels so small to me now. Doing everything, like writing in my bedroom and also sleeping there, and exercising—the house feels much smaller.”

On Kamala Harris: “I understand now what representation means. To see her up there, to see someone who looks like her.”

How the characters she writes are very rarely identified solely by ethnicity: “It’s hard because it has to mean so much to so many people. The Mindy Project wasn’t ethnicity-driven. For a lot of white executives at the TV networks, they kind of wanted it to be. They felt more comfortable with it being about an Indian woman who felt out of place in America educating white people. And it’s not that I haven’t felt out of place in America as a dark-skinned Indian woman, but it was not the most interesting thing, coming from The Office. Had I had different training it might have been. I love those kinds of stories, and I think there should be more of them, and I might even do a show like that, but I do think people are surprised and put off that I didn’t embrace those kinds of stories early on in my career.”

[From Vogue India]

I know a lot of people love her for The Office – where she was a writer and supporting character – but I’m still waiting for a revival interest in The Mindy Project. Sure, there were some uneven episodes and plotlines, but no more so than any other sitcom. And Mindy dealt with the character’s Indian-ness in a really great way, while still mining a million other things about the character. Anyway, I love her and I love that she’s her own industry now, a mega-producer/writer, show runner, director, mom. *heart emoji*

Cover courtesy of Vogue India.

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

29 Responses to “Mindy Kaling hasn’t enjoyed lockdown: ‘I’m very hard-working, but I’m also very social’”

Comments are Closed

We close comments on older posts to fight comment spam.

  1. Tila says:

    I know it’s non of my business but I’m assuming she had a sperm donor?

  2. Zen says:

    She looks lovely in that cover photo.

  3. Susie says:

    Is she rocking an engagement and wedding band on both hands? I’m Argentinian and I sport a band on both hands…

    • K says:

      It’s possible she just put on a lot of rings (and glasses and the shirt) to mimic the second photo of RBG, in which RBG is wearing multiple rings.

  4. Daphne says:

    Thank you, Kaiser! Where is the Mindy Project love from the general population?? I cannot believe so many of my friends sat through all of New Girl but never got into Mindy Project. The dialogue is quick and subversive. The storyline with the Duplass brothers may be my favorite from any TV show. Being single in my 30s her character’s journey made me laugh out loud and cry repeatedly. Reunion please.

    • Meredith says:

      The Mindy Project was so good! I hated what they ended up doing with Danny but generally loved it. It wasn’t perfect but it was fun. One of my favorite episode is when her and Peter crashed Josh’s wedding. I still giggle when I think of CJ Wilson calling her meatball.

      One thing I feel hurts Mindy’s projects is when she brings in Tracey Wigfield to write. Tracey wrote all of my least favorite episodes.

    • BertieBott says:

      THANK YOU, Daphne!! I feel the same way about New Girl vs. The Mindy Project (and I do like New Girl, but come onnn). Love the Mindy Project so very much. The sheer number of jokes featuring as throwaway lines and every character, especially Morgan…this is my all time perfect show.

    • Green Desert says:

      Totally agree, Daphne! The Mindy Project was such a good show, I don’t think it got the love it deserved.

    • Ange says:

      I liked it to start with but Mindy’s character became such a selfish monster I had to give it away. I quit about when she was going to start that business with Danny (I think it was Danny? At the university?) but she insisted on hiring her useless brother and clearly didn’t care about the project despite everyone having sunk a lot of money into it. She then blithely ran off and started the fertility business

    • Dierski says:

      100% LOVED The Mindy Project!! Wasn’t perfect by any means, but I was always entertained. I’d be ready and watching if there were a revival of it for sure.

    • lucy2 says:

      I enjoyed the first couple of seasons, but by the time it moved to Hulu I’d kind of lost interest.

  5. Scorpion says:

    I’ve been loving it. I’m just getting house work done.

  6. duchess of hazard says:

    Wait, the line that says “Her father spoke to Katherine from the car” was that Mindy’s dad or Katherine’s dad (I ask because the father has never been named)?

    • Truthiness says:

      Mindy’s dad “dropped in” when Mindy was cooking with Kamala Harris so I bet he lives relatively close. But I wish it was the baby’s father!

    • Amelie says:

      I got confused there too! It wasn’t immediately clear it was about Mindy’s dad and not Katherine’s dad. For a few minutes I thought she was trying to drop a truth bomb about her baby’s father and did a double take! I’m assuming the truth will come out when her kids are much older. And yeah it’s none of our business but it is fun to speculate. I feel like she always acted like she was surprised she got pregnant and didn’t expect for it to happen the way it did, meaning an unplanned pregnancy. I really don’t think Katherine’s dad is a sperm donor because of that. I’ve always suspected BJ Novak or some other unknown guy Mindy was having a casual fling with. I do think Spencer (second kid) was planned though. She was more covert about it and not as “how the heck did I end up pregnant?”

  7. Lunasf17 says:

    I love her. I watched the first few seasons of the mindy project but kind of lost interest but might have to give it another shot. I read an essay from her recently and she said that she decided to have her kids on her own. It sounded like she used an Anonymous sperm donor. She didn’t come out and say those exact words but she definitely implied that it was her decision and she knew exactly what she was doing.

  8. Bettyrose says:

    I think I’ve always appreciated the value of representation. Although I’m not a WOC, women like Harris and Abrams mean so much to me as representation of strength and determination. I haven’t followed Mindy’s career but I always like what she has to say.

  9. Stef says:

    I LOVE the Mindy Project, one of the best sitcom shows in the past decade, definitely better than New Girl. So many great jokes a d fresh perspectives. Morgan was my favourite character.

    Not sure why, but it was pulled from Netflix Canada over a year ago and I miss it.

    Love her and so happy to see her thriving and living life her way. It’s no one’s business who her kid’s father is and I respect her for keeping it to herself.

  10. Lolsa says:

    WREATH WITHERSPOON

  11. Miumiiiu says:

    I loved TMP too. There aren’t many shows I watch twice but I’ve watched tmp twice or 3 times, the office 4-5 and never have I ever was a really entertaining show too.

  12. Zaya says:

    I love the mindy project. I actually just started to rewatch the series.

  13. Adi says:

    I think in terms of a Mindy Project Revival…I felt like the characterization of the Black characters were such a reduction and so so steeped in stereotype without any real nuance…..that would be pretty hard to ignore or write off in our current political moment. Honestly, it was barely ignorable back then and my Black women friends and I all had to stop watching for self care reasons.

    I love that you can see her growth in how she handles black women and men in her body of work (like Four Weddings and Never Have I Ever) but we need to leave The Mindy Project alone…cause yikes.😬

    • tcbc says:

      Also her face looks more helium-filled every time I see it. Lay off the fillers! You already got the heavy-duty surgery, you shouldn’t need to “tune up” all the time!

  14. Daphne says:

    I definitely cringed at some of the decisions Mindy made but I realized that is why the show was realistic to me. She was not always a heroine but an anti-heroine in her own life. I think Danny had film commitments so they tried to make it work with him. Good intel on some of the episodes being written by a different team! Re WOC, I appreciate hearing the feedback. I would hope Mindy Kaling would examine that and address it in future project. I did find some of the “gay” jokes inappropriate that I did not notice when I watched it on air. I am trying to be more sensitive and aware.

  15. L4frimaire says:

    I’m pretty neutral on Mindy Kaling . I don’t like her overly idealist, post racial persona, but admire the real Mindy Kaling’s creativity, like some of her work, and how she’s in control of her career, her way. I find her lips really distracting on that Vogue cover. They look injected and puffy. In her Insta photo, her lips , while still full, are thinner and more defined, more attractive. Anyway, l love how she just went and had her 2nd baby on the DL, while no one had a clue, even when she posted photos during her pregnancy. Very cool and well done.

    • CV says:

      you nailed it about her work vs her as a person, and wow I really find her face fillers/botox distracting and I am surprised it’s not discussed here much

  16. KPS says:

    I am totally re-watching The Mindy Project today. That was a terrific show! Might be my #2 fav after Schitt’s Creek.

  17. Mimi says:

    I got the Mindy project entire series DVD box and I’ve been watching seasons 1-3 (my fav seasons) over and over in quarantine. Never gets old, one of my favs. So funny and unique. I love Mindy Kaling.