Mindy Kaling, the guest on this episode of The Hollywood Reporter‘s Awards Chatter podcast — which was recorded Thursday in front of an audience at the Newport Beach TV Fest, where Kaling was honored with the fest’s Artist of Distinction Award — is a prolific writer, director, producer and actress who has proven to be one of the most gifted and influential creative voices of her generation.
The 46-year-old first came to prominence as a writer and supporting actress — she played perky customer service rep Kelly Kapoor — on NBC’s The Office from 2005-2012. She was just 24 and the only woman in the writer’s room when she started, ultimately penned more episodes of the show than any other writer and, in 2010, became the first woman of color to be nominated for an Emmy in any writing category.
She subsequently created and starred in her own show, The Mindy Project, which ran on Fox from 2012 through 2015 and then Hulu from 2015 through 2017. She was the first woman of color to create, write and star in her own network show, and the show was the first network TV series to have an Indian-American lead character.
She later co-created Netflix’s Never Have I Ever (2020-2023) and HBO Max’s The Sex Lives of College Girls (2021-2025), and created Hulu’s Not Suitable for Work (it dropped last week and is currently the most-watched show on the platform), which she did not act in, and which she describes as a semi-autobiographical trilogy; and co-created Netflix’s Running Point (2025-), a show about the female owner of a professional basketball team (Kate Hudson), the second season of which is now generating Emmys buzz.
