Once, while Mindy Kaling was filming season five of her television series, she had to walk from the writers’ room to the set. On the show, Kaling played a young doctor who reveled in high fashion. The set was across the lot at Universal Studios, and so, clad in her couture costume, she click-clacked in stilettos over the pavement to film. Suddenly, she heard a menacing bellow.
Kaling, 40, is used to being treated like she doesn’t belong. When she was hired as a writer on NBC’sat just 24, she was the only woman and the only person of color in the writers’ room. With T, which ran for six seasons, she became the first woman of color to create, write, and star in a primetime sitcom. After years of feeling like a conspicuous outsider in Hollywood, Kaling has embraced her trailblazer status—and it’s led to her funniest, most honest work yet.
What changed, she says, is realizing just how much of a role model she is. When she’s at the airport or at CVS, young women of color come up to her “incredibly shyly and politely, often trembling, telling me how much it means to them and to their family to see someone like me making it.” Or they’ll tell her that their parents were nervous about them pursuing a career in TV or film until they saw Kaling’s success.
, the show was nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Comedy Series. Shortly after, the Television Academy, which puts on the awards show, told Kaling that because there were too many producers on, they were going to cut her from the list. She, the only woman of color on the team, wouldn’t be eligible for an Emmy like the rest of the staff.
It could be disheartening, but she tells me she instead chooses to find the humor in it. “I am grateful, because I do think it keeps me feeling like an outsider, which is helpful as a writer.” Even when her face is on the billboard.Styled by Shiona Turini. Hair by Marc Mena for Leonor Greyl Paris; makeup by Janice Kinjo for Dior.
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