Mindy Kaling
Appearances
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
And there'll be these little pockets, Artesia, parts of Chicago. But we weren't that. So all of our friends were sort of my mom and dad's white co-workers and their children.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
So my dad sort of made a decision that he's like, I'm in America. I'm going to love the Red Sox. I'm going to love the Celtics. I'm going to get into sports. And that culturally we're diving in. We're still Hindu. We still do holidays. We still were raised eating Indian food. But culturally, I didn't have this community around me of like auntie culture and all that. Yeah, I know.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
And I relate to it, but I don't know it. Yes. I actually have my literal aunts, but I don't have that extended family. So when I started doing comedy, I didn't have this rich background of observations about Indian culture and other friends to banter with about it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Yeah, and I hear that and I think it's funny and I relate to it. I had one. I didn't really have that. And so when I would think what I want to write about, the Indian identity didn't bubble up to the surface. And then my first thing that I did was this play called Matt and Ben, where I played Ben Affleck, right? And then I got hired in the office. And it was also 2001 to 2004.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Hollywood is not clamoring for shows and TV and books about your identity, right? That was, let's be honest, a 2018 thing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
That's so well put. They would take a risk on shows like Never Have I Ever.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Yes and no. I, of course, have the defense mechanism, which is like, I was doing the best with what I had. It came from the officer's number 11 on the call sheet. No one was like, she'll be the one that has her own show. I just had to be like, I think I will be, even though I'm getting no feedback that corroborates that ambition.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
And then when I did my own show 2011 or 2012, I was like, OK, I got to do things exactly like it was in the office. That was like a big hit. But, you know, they say the criticism that hurts the deepest is the ones that you're like, ah, it's kind of true. When I look back on the Mindy Project, I do wish that I had paid more attention to that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Every Wednesday morning, we got the ratings from the night before and I was consumed with fear. I wasn't thinking in those terms.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
No, and honestly, I was a dark-skinned Indian woman that weighed 150 pounds. That was the lead of a show. And so I was like, man, this looks pretty damn diverse in my opinion. I hope this is palatable enough. I hope it's not defensive, and I hope it's just putting you guys in my mindset at the time. But I think after that, I had opportunities. I was like 37 when that show ended.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Never have I ever... came on the heels of that show. And I could not be more proud of the diversity in that and inclusivity. But that criticism is one, even to this day, I look at the different projects I do and I'm like, how can it look modern? How can I not be kicking myself later?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
While also being true, you know, we've also seen the shows where you're like, this is the most cynical diversity I've ever seen. Exactly. It does not work. It's fragile and insincere. We've all seen those shows where we're like, hey, audiences are smart. But the thing I've learned now is if you do spend a little extra time, you do get the right casting director.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
You can have these really great dynamics like Maitri Ramakrishnan and her two friends on the show. One's East Asian, one's Black, and they're the most...
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
What's tough about finding young Indian women is culturally we're not pushing our young girls to like go into this field. Things have changed a lot. I'm a producer on this new Zarna Garg show. Do you know Zarna? No. She's a stand up. She's Indian and she's based in New York and she kind of came up during the pandemic. Three children, teenagers. She's so funny. You guys would love her.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
She does a lot of stuff with her family and we're shooting a pilot for her at CBS. And when we look at the casting for that, for her kids and her husband, it's remarkable how different the pool is, how many more people there are now as opposed to 2012. even in 2019 when we did Never Have I Ever.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
It's such a valuable tool when you're home for Thanksgiving, when you're sitting with your parents, when you're a sophomore in college and just being like, OK, I can point to these examples, particularly, I think, with Indian parents where they kind of need the data.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
I just saw a complete unknown. And we didn't have those types come in in the 50s and 60s. The Bob Dylans? The sort of boho Indian artists and stuff. The Indian Bob Dylans were getting the visas.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
You had to show 25 pages of paperwork that says that you deserve to be here and contribute. Exactly.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
I obviously, for selfish reasons, like to believe that. But, you know, I'm often amazed now when I see younger people, how much more activist energy there is to young artists. I was literally like, I need to stay in the WGA. I need my health insurance. I have to pay my rent. I have to keep this job. These are truths. And it wasn't until 34 when I started thinking, okay, I have safety here.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
I can now be thinking about anything other than my own self-preservation. I feel like when Issa Rae was doing Insecure, I'm paraphrasing this, you'd be like, what drives you? And she's like, I want to make opportunities for other young black artists. And I'm literally like, oh, damn, you can be both. That's why I'm often really inspired by younger people and kind of shamed.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
The thing that makes me feel guilty to admit is sometimes that's like a really nice feeling.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
I had some positive experiences. Like I went to Dartmouth College, which is in New Hampshire and pretty white because I felt exceptional. I don't know. This is just like a defect in my brain. Because I was the only one there, it made me feel special, which gave me confidence. It was a college that's not known for its performing arts.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
And so I would be doing these shows and everyone would come because it wasn't NYU or Columbia or USC Northwestern where there's actually shit going on.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
And it made me feel so confident. I started getting those accolades that made me feel like I could tell my parents, hey, I won the playwriting competition. Hey, my play got selected to do this and all this stuff at Dartmouth that they were like, oh, she seems successful in this. It's worrying us less.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Are you going somewhere? No, it's literally for you. I'm feeling vulnerable. I'm being like, no, no, that's a bit. He's not going to have to go somewhere afterwards. No, no, no, no. You look amazing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Then what I learned in the writer's room at the office, I think that kind of training, that intense eight years, so many of my shows after it where the cast members look completely different, the storylines are different. I took so much of that. I think that's why those shows are successful.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
The DNA from how you make that successful show and then just take it and put it into these different casts. And I really just owe that to Greg Daniels.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Buckingham Brown and Nichols. I went there from seventh grade to senior year.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
It has like a Hogwarts. Yeah. kind of energy. No, it was a very artsy private school in Cambridge, a hundred kids per class. It was really important to me to go there. I took a class that has stuck with me for the rest of my life on satire when I was in 10th grade. At that time, I didn't know the difference between parody and satire.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
I just thought like, I watch SNL because I think it's funny and I like it, but we really parsed through all the different things and why they're funny. It was
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Yes. We would read Mark Twain. We'd read like Huckaberry Finn. But then we would watch episodes of Saturday Night Live and talk about what they had in common and comedy and use of social justice. So it was a very fancy private school with amazing teachers.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
But what I learned, and I think everyone goes through this at some point, was it was culturally interesting to be around children whose parents thought education was really important, but who are also from this, for lack of a better term, cultural elite. I tried sushi for the first time. My parents were like, well, we don't eat that. That's expensive and weird. I was using chopsticks.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Vineyard, like Hamptons. When summer is a verb. When summer is a verb. And being able to navigate in those circles and go to college and know those kinds of people was, I would argue, almost as valuable as anything else. Because you get into these writer's rooms and can you pitch jokes? Can you listen? But there's like a
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
cultural element when you go to rooms with like a bunch of guys who went to Harvard. And then I was like, oh, I get this. And that's helped me so much.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Yeah. And how? I think that's true. It's so interesting. I worked in the office for eight years. Love the experience. Largely male cast. What I want to write about is about women who are ambitious and lust after people that they're not interested in. Yes, yes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Because then every subsequent show, the Sex Lives of College Girls, this new Kate Hudson show, it's all just about women who are trying to make the most of what they have and have sex and be successful. The correlation from how I was in high school and what I didn't have. is just expressed in those shows that I was able to do after The Office. But it's really interesting to me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
My shows have a lot of horny women. My friend BJ Novak makes this joke that every trailer for any Mindy Kaling show has a hot man's torso in slow motion. And I was like, how dare you? That's incredibly reductive. That's not true. And then it is true. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
It's like Pauline Chalamet, Kate Hudson, Maitri Ramakrishnan, their head is turning. And it's just like those 80s movies that they can't make anymore. The National Lampoon movies where it's like a guy is following a bouncing girl on the volleyball team.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
It was Jay Ellis. So Jay Ellis on your show, and he's like, could I wear my sweatshirt for my pull-ups? You'd be like, whatever makes you comfortable, Jay. But if it's all the same to you, for the story...
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
We should have him probably play basketball. We should have him play basketball.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
And for the record, J.L., he is a very funny part in this. He's more than just his hot body. But for the trailer.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
You know, I think there's a link between this sort of fantasy, because obviously I would idolize a guy and just be like, oh, and he's probably like this and he's probably like this. And I bet he treats his girlfriend so well, super nice to his mom. And he kisses a lot during sex, like all that stuff.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
He's like, this is synonymous with that SoCal vibe. Yeah. That's how I feel about your vans. I feel like I do not scream Westside at all.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
i've been here for 90 minutes but when you are someone who lives in those kind of romantic fantasies i think it informed my writing i was creating these scenarios in my head which could never have lived up to what you were actually experiencing as someone who lost your virginity when you were 13 i think good memory it was seventh grade so it could be either 12 or 13 i hope it
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
So you were the thing that people make fun of teen shows. They're like, they all look like they're 30. But you were like, me and my girlfriend were that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
So it's not a sad indie movie. It's a nice CW show. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Wow. Oh, my God. I mean, I have a bunch of follow up questions.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Because TV and film don't really show. Yeah. They don't tell you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
I'm still thinking about when Dax called me hot at the beginning.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
This isn't new information to me. Well, that's the outcome you hope for when you post those photos.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
And you think, oh, the best, some anonymous pervert in the middle of the country thinks that. But to think a celebrity is thinking you're hot, that's pretty good.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Yeah, we're describing the premise of The 40-Year-Old Virgin, my first movie, which is good to hear that besides being just a funny comedy or like speaking to a truth. In my mind, I said, this has to happen before I'm 24. And I don't know whether I heard this afterwards or not, but I remember one of the great gifts that Tina Fey, I think, has given to us besides just being really funny.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
and I love 30 Rock and just being such an amazing joke writer, is I think at some point, and she's not someone who is super open, but she said in a book or something that she lost her virginity at age 24. And I remember thinking, that's like a very nice thing to do. It's a gift. To give some guideposts to nerdy women. She's beautiful, smart, happy marriage, beautiful daughters.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
And I thought that was great because we can't all be Dax. Right.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
No, no, no. And I feel like I keep making you feel so conscious about it. But so I remember thinking that then it happened before then. Good for you. You're way ahead of me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
So one thing I think that's tricky about Indian culture is this idea that in my house, dating or any of that was pretty much forbidden. Yeah. In high school, no one is dating. By the way, not that anyone was coming after me or anything, but I also knew that it was not an option.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
And then you're expected to sort of like go to college and then meet someone and know how to date and then fall in love and get married. But with what skills?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Or even know how to be normal in romantic, intimate situations. Forget even about sexual situations. Situations when someone wants to go to the movies with you and you're like, I only know how to do this with my female friend. Yeah. I know how to go to the movie with my cousin.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
You've seen this probably people go into. I think I just need to have sex right now. Right. And so I didn't go through that. But I know that I have three children. Definitely want to destigmatize this. You know, I. do feel pretty Indian and Hindu in a lot of ways. And I really want to instill that in my kids culturally.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
But I do think what I want for them is to be like, yeah, you can go on a date or you can like somebody and talk to me about it. Because I didn't love going into college being like, does a kiss with someone then mean we have to then take this all the way to it's Yeah. I didn't love that. It's also a source of a lot of my comedic storytelling.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Never Have I Ever is literally about a nerd who asks the hottest guy at school, would you have sex with me? Growing up in the 80s and the 90s, and I think Dax were about the same age.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
So in the 80s and 90s, it felt like there was so many coming of age for this like very specific kind of guy. A geeky guy. Can't buy me love. And then later, Judd did it with Superbad. And this is why I always feel like it's crazy when people can't watch things with subtitles. Because I'm like, my entire life was being able to relate to characters who look nothing like me. I can do it easily.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
I'm very invested in Ross and Rachel and we were on a break and like I can relate to them.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
And so it's crazy when people are like, I can't watch Parasite.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
And sometimes I find subtitles annoying too when I just want to relax. So I felt like that felt really untapped and fun. This thing that I could relate to and wanting to do shows and TV about that kind of stuff.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
It wasn't agrimonious, but I just felt it was not my idea of fun. It felt a little too competitive and there was no performance element to it. So I did more sketch comedy. I more hung with like the actors.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
I did stand up briefly after college when I moved to Brooklyn. But when I was in college, I did all of those performing arts groups that you then immediately learn when you graduate are like so beyond lame. When I was at college, it was so fun and felt so cool. But acapella in short form improv.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
And I made some of my greatest friends, like my godmother of my three children was in my acapella group. Brenda? Jocelyn. Brenda's my other dear friend.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Yeah. And then also my deep lack of like coordination. Cause I had to be the person that threw the punch. Right. It was off, off Broadway. We didn't have like a fight coordinator. I was just like, so I'm going to punch. And you just kind of duck back.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Yeah, we're like in a 90s-y black box theater in the East Village. That was crazy. I really broke my nose.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
No one ever thinks about the other victim in a punching.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
It does hurt your knuckles. The St. Vincent's Hospital is still open then, and she's getting her nose checked, and I'm like, oh, my knuckles kind of hurt, too. Yeah. Hey, wondering if we could take a little x-ray. But she was such a good sport. I mean, that was a real instance of like the show must go on.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
And dressed in drag. She recoiled and there was a silence. And I was like, I felt that. But I had this feeling.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
She stumbled back. She didn't fall. But I remember this feeling of like, I definitely felt it. But is there a chance she didn't? Right. You know, like my hand feels like it, but is there a chance that it's skimmed? Do you know, like when you are walking in your house and you hear a horrible sounding splat, like someone, surely they broke their bones. And then your kid's like, I'm fine.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Well, I just wonder practically, I like need to eat Indian food and ethnic food a lot. So this area, Hancock Park, that works for me.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
You get little miracles. And I was like, is it one of those moments where it didn't hurt her?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
She's like a real actress and she still acts now. And she's a real theater actress.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Yes, she does. And Wealthly. And so she rolled with it. She stepped back. Blood. We had to go off stage. They had to stop the show. But it was the first time where I was like, oh, the show must go on in real. And we were like, this is a 15 minute play. But it was really her being like, I want to go out and finish it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Getting through it. Dave Stass and Ike Barinholtz talk about that moment all the time.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
And doing the show with him and Dave was so fun because we'd work together.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Poor Dave. Dave is like, hey, can we not call me a Nazi like in another general? Is that OK?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
In a good old fashioned joke. It is. It's classic. It's a classic. And those guys are a throwback. Like, I've never met two guys and worked with them where they're just so hyper masculine. You know, like the kinds of guys that remember literally crying at an NBA finals. Yeah. They love Derrick Rose. They love Jordan. They remember the Pippin Jordan. Like they're just talking about that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
They're so straight and so Chicago. But then also completely without any kind of agenda, feminists with daughters who care about women. And so when we're doing the show, Jeannie Buss approached me about doing the show because she liked The Office.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
So the great Jeannie Buss, who runs the Lakers, decided that she wanted to do a show about her life. And she had seen a lot of shows and books written about the Lakers where she was like a side character. And she is the woman who runs this. And she has the most difficult, sexy, glamorous job.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
So can I say that about 10 years ago, I had heard from some of my friends. They were like, you know, you're sometimes mentioned on Armchair and I love the show and you should go on. I always think whenever anyone references me, even when they're like, I love Mindy, that I'm like, they're just saying that. But what they really mean is they hate me. This is like a mental illness.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
It's so funny you mentioned that because when we did the trailer, people will comment. Oh, so basically you took the Jenny Buss story and made it a show. They think I ripped her off. And I'm like, no, no, this is her idea. She came to me. She's an executive producer on the show. I love her character.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
She's married to Jay Moore. Oh, she is? Stand up. She loves comedians.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
So she wanted to do the show and I met her and I just fell in love with her. She's such a perfect person to base a character on to be the star of a show. She has the sexiest life. I mean, she was literally engaged secretly for a while to the head coach.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Himself has written a really fascinating book. And she's really sexy. She has to be sexy. Like part of her job is that she has to appeal to men in a really certain kind of way.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Full of celebrities and tough decisions. And then I read her book. Then I interviewed her and her best friend, the great Linda Rambis, who is another producer on this. And her son, Jordan, who's another producer, who's also great. So anyway, it was like, this is a show I had to do. I grew up loving the Celtics. My dad was a huge fan.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
He really liked Jojo White and Hondo Havlicek. Oh, okay. Yeah. So obviously Bird, Parrish, you know, the greats, but they were like deep cuts. I always loved basketball. And my dad always was like, no, this is a sport. Like they're so athletic. It's fast moving. When she approached me, I checked with Ike and Dave. They were busy. They were on a deal at another studio.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
They couldn't do it, but I'd been dying to work with them. They were writers in the Mindy Project. They were on set writers. And so I loved their energy as an actress. I loved working with them. Because they're the kind of rare writer where they would give you a note, but they understand the performer's psyche.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
You've been on shows, and this was at the office, there was the writers who would really piss off the actors because they would do like either line readings or they would come in with notes too quickly. And I have both sensitivities. I, as an actress, was like, let me have fucking two takes, please.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
You know, I'm not sitting here saying that I'm Elizabeth Moss or like one of the great actresses, but... I do have that side where I'm like, let me work it out.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
But then I also have the side as the showrunner where I'm like, hey, this is too slow. Someone needs to go in and tell them they need to speak quicker. This is a comedy.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Or like, hey, this precision in this language, this line needs to be said as written because it's not coming across the way you think it is. What's nice about those guys and that experience, which was already terrifying, is that they knew how to give me notes and when to give me notes that made me be better.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And forget about being mentioned on some sketch show or The Simpsons or anything like that. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
And they really understood actors, which is why on this new show, I mean, they are beloved by everyone. Brenda Song, who's amazing, an old pro. Kate, all the guys are in the basketball. The background extras on the team, they all love I Can Dave. Ike is just that guy. It's like Monday and he's coming in to the grip. He's like, how was your daughter sweet 16?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
He knows encyclopedic knowledge about politics, history, and movies.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
I live in terror for that. But I, on some level, thought, and this is going to sound crazy, that it would be like, oh, they think it'd be campy if they had a circus dwarf on. Wouldn't that be goofy? And it's stupid and it's not real. It's so sad.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
And then he was on Jimmy Kimmel's show and made a million dollars for a school for deaf children. Right. With his dad.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
I'm definitely inspired by elements of them. I will say, though, when I talk to my dad about the shows he loves, he respects this. But these are not his kinds of shows.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
The typical dad show. I actually am liking those shows like Bosch, Lincoln Lawyer. I'm really a shut in with four friends. So I love Ford versus Ferrari. I'm watching the dad shows.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
I relate to that and I've heard of it, but then I watch your wife's show. I watch every moment the weekend it came out. You know what it is that I don't respond to is things that are overrated, which is a lot, right? But when things are correctly rated, like nobody wants this. For me, I'm a single mom, 45, I live in LA.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
I want to see Kristen fall in love with Adam Brody and want to become a better person and go on hot dates and have hot kisses.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Her sister, Justine, is so good. His brother. Everyone is so good in doing it right. I tend to be harder on comedies for sure. But the thing that my assistant makes fun of me is she's like, you watch everything and And it's true. I was watching the Fernanda Torres movie. I'm still here. She was nominated for Best Actress. And it could not be more different than anything that I work on.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
But she is the wife of someone. It's a period piece whose husband has been disappeared by the government. Right. And how do you carry on after all that? Watching that, like weeping. So I really don't have a social life. I really just watch TV and film and wear cute outfits.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Are you going to like Jimmy Kimmel's compound and fishing?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
I'm trying to bust you on having a nice life. What is going on here?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
No, that is one of the four or five truly lucky things that's ever happened to me career wise. I came in as a writer. I would have done anything just to be in the Writers Guild.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Was prepared to have a life of that. And they just needed regular looking people. So the reason it was lucky was because I don't think I would have been cast 2004 sitcom. There's no way I'd have been on any actual show that wasn't like a mockumentary about an unglamorous place with normal people.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
But with those rules in place, he could be like, hey, NBC, can this woman be in it? And they're like, oh, yeah, yeah. She looks real.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Almost too real, though, because when I look back at that first season, I remember Mike Schur and BJ Paul Lieberstein like, yeah, yeah, yeah. This is real. This is real. And then I wasn't thinking like, hey, you're a 24 year old single woman. Like maybe put on a little makeup.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Because I remember at that time it was like, yeah, what's cool in comedy is to put me in an ugly shirt. I want my judge to think I'm cool. And guess what? Cool comedy guys who like that, they actually still like hot women.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
I do think that's changed a ton. Sarah Silverman wore a hoodie and jeans, which works for Sarah when you're stunningly beautiful.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Your beauty still comes through. You can't even hide it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Yes. It's terrible. I think I might have told you this or told it to your people. I had only done one podcast and it went so badly that I was like, I think it's not for me. Yeah, I've heard she doesn't do podcasts.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
I don't remember the last time I had a crush. I don't have lust feelings. Now, maybe that's connected to if you've had to pump milk for a baby within the last six months, maybe you have to give yourself some time. One of your commercials, you were both talking about it. And it was like, are you very menopausal? Take this medication. I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Dex and Monica are telling me about this ad. That's how open I was listening to this podcast. I was like, I got to get the ads. I got to get this pill they're talking about. Oh, wow. No, but anyway, I'm at that age.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Not Kylie Jenner. But again, I'm twice the age she was when she had her kids.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
That's chilling. It's a good point. You know, if I listen to who's like one of the great interview, like Hugh Grant. Have you guys ever heard him get interviewed?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
He did, I think, Smart List. He was promoting a new horror movie and I thought that was an interesting choice. So I was like, oh, I want to watch this and hear why he would do a horror movie. That seems fun. So I listened to it. Smart List is like you guys were, it brings out a good side in him, but it was like his podcast. He was so funny.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
I was like, I know you haven't had this conversation before, but why is every anecdote you're saying perfectly worded, great analogies, great callbacks to stories that you then call back later? I was listening to that and I was like, I have a crush on you, Hugh Grant, but I wasn't like Googling him to see if he was in between marriages.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Sure, sure. Not that he would be interested, but I was satiated.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Do you think that so many of the young actors, they were raised being like being in plays and doing Shakespeare doesn't make you effeminate. It's part of our tradition. We can learn Shakespeare and it doesn't make us pussies. Sorry to use that word in pejorative, but you can be a very masculine man and be in Much Ado About Nothing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
There was a little zone I had where I'd have like four lines in a Seth Rogen movie where I was Paul Rudd's ex and something. And it never felt like, oh, I could cobble together a job this way. But it was really glamorous.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Those experiences were really fun, doing Oceans and doing A Wrinkle in Time. It really crystallized to me that I am probably not going to be really good in something unless I write it. There's something about my cadences or what I think I'm good at that I could probably showcase better if I just wrote it myself. Which is not to say that I don't think I was fine in A Wrinkle in Time.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
The movie's not about my acting. I love doing this. I love being in Inside Out and I love being cast in things. And We all have the dream of like, Wes Anderson needs you to be a bellhop and something like that. Yeah, of course. I'd love to go do that, but I don't think I'll ever be able to make a living unless I'm maybe writing it myself for another show.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Thank you, and I'm so excited to be here, and also I feel really honored to be here. I love the show, and I know this may make you feel uncomfortable to hear this, since I'm just facing you, telling you compliments.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
You know, it's so funny. We were talking about those roles that I did from 2004. It was exciting. I was like, oh, I'm going to go be on Curb and play like Richard Lewis's assistant. Oh, I'm going to go be in 40 Old Virgin and I'll be Natalie Portman's other friend that's not Greta Gerwig and we're going to do whatever.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
But what was interesting about that, and I'm so curious about you guys, is I was never a part of a comedy clique. And I was really jealous and I had a chip on my shoulder about it. Sure. Because in that aughts time, you were in a clique or you weren't. I was on The Office, so maybe people were like, well, she's there. And maybe you could argue that that was a click.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
But the writing staff was very competitive with each other. We all had our own private ambitions, our own stuff we wanted to do. We wanted to write the best script, kill the table read, have Steve Carell think we were the funniest writer. We were all friends also and helping each other. But we were like, when are we going to get a show? And I was jealous of Judd and Seth and Jason.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
And then there was Amy and Tina and Will doing the ice skating movie. The Danny McBride camp. Danny McBride came a little bit later. I remember then that there was the Fempire. It was literally a clique of female writers that were successful. And I was like Diablo and Liz Merrily there.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
And so I felt like the entire odds was me coming up on a show that I loved, but being like, why can't I be in a clique?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
It really fueled me in a good and bad way where I was like, I don't have Lorne. I don't have Judd. I don't have any of these people who are going to do something for me. I got to do it myself. I'm going to show them all. I had that energy, but also clicks exist because people are friends. They go out to dinner and they ask each other about their lives.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Okay, well then good, because this is, I think, a good one. You make everyone sound like the best version of themselves, and they're people that, not that I didn't care about them, but I didn't know them or think about them, and then I now love them and am a fan.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Yeah, and they're not just friends because they're trying to get ahead in their career. I'm such an introvert and so socially anxious that I remember being on the set for 40 Old Virgin and there's the Four Rows of Video Village and Paul and Seth and Elizabeth Banks was going to work that day and Leslie Mann was there and they were all sitting at
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
the front by the monitors, joking around, talking and everything. And I was sitting in the back row and it became so awkward because I didn't feel like I knew how to jump in. And I also knew because I'd been in the office, that feeling when someone's trying to be part of it and I didn't want to do that. Desperation. Desperation. I'm like, I'm feeling desperate.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
So whatever I say is going to sound like pollen banks, like whatever. And so I just went back to my trailer. I remember thinking, I hope, hope, hope that they don't think that I was being cold.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
I mean, the truth is they weren't thinking about me. I was a day player on the 40-year-old virgin. But I remember being like, what a missed opportunity if I was better socially. I could have been smiley. And then when they turned to me, been like, I almost wanted to go to Maui, you know, whatever their Hawaiian vacation conversation.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Because people do that really successfully that are just normal and nice. And you're like, yeah, come join the convo.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Loneliness is a choice, I think. And as I'm getting older, what I'm noticing, I have a friend, Parissa, who said this to me. She was like, oh, yeah, we got to get dinner next month. And I'm always like, I'm tired. I don't want to do whatever. And she's like, you can't be one of those old people that has no friends except their spouse. You just want to watch your Netflix.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
So you kind of just have to make dinner plans and go. I have three kids, which is a lot for an unmarried woman.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Yeah. Ten months, four and seven. And I remember thinking recently, do I have three kids?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
What you just described is literally what I'm longing for. I cannot wait till my daughter's just a little bit older.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
They go to college, they go do their thing. My new resolution is I have to start watering and adding fertilizer to my adult friendships.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
So I'll just be like, Monica and I are going to Dunsmore end of March. Yes. Oh my God, yes.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Yeah. You know, I felt when I was a kid, I'm definitely getting married because I love romantic love and I love men. end in romance. And I'm definitely going to have children. And then when I got into my 20s and I had a couple pretty unfulfilling relationships. And then as I was in my 30s, I was like, I don't know that me getting married and honestly divorces and seeing some of that happening.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Did your parents stay married? They had an amazing marriage. And particularly when my mom got sick and the way my dad took care of her.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
2012 what my dad did for my mom in that final year i was like wow what a great guy but what a great marriage but anyway i knew that i wanted children but i was old enough at that point and had enough sort of disposable income and had seen so many acrimonious divorces i hope this doesn't sound bad and this is not going to be relatable to a lot of listeners but a person would have built up their career and their nest egg and then they have a divorce and half of their money's done yeah
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
That should happen in most cases. And California law is a reason to protect families. And I get it. But I was like, damn, I don't want that. Exactly. Not that it's all about the money. And so this romantic part of me that was like, you're going to find your Darcy was like, well, what if Darcy takes all my money and then takes half my money? And then I have these fantasies because I'm insane.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Or I'm like, he's going to take half my money and his bitch wife. They'll get a fucking Fifth Avenue apartment.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Yeah, and then with my office residuals from playing Kelly, they're going to be sending their kids to Dalton in the Upper West Side or whatever while I'm childless because I have revenge fantasies not healthy at all. I was like, I don't want my money to go to this hypothetical ex and his new family.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
I also was like, I want to have Christmas and Thanksgiving with my children every year because I'm a writer and also in scene. These fantasies where I'm like, so I would be then alone where my children were going to this other person's house.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Yes. Having a guy that is very funny, independently wealthy, busy, 6'2". Oh, my God. These are all mine. Do you know what I mean? Jewish. Jewish. No, it's just good body, but not too good. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Your standards are high, as they should be. Yeah. Smart and funny with a job in health insurance, which, by the way, in L.A. is actually pretty hard. You know what's weird? I know the version of that that's a single woman in excess. I agree. And like a hot woman. I know so many writers on all my shows that are like a 29-year-old, educated, funny.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
They were the first to, when the fires happened, they're like, let's go make sandwiches.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
I know. And so what was a real gift to me was the ability to really enjoy my autonomy. I know it might surprise people, but I love seeing my friends' marriages that work. I love my married couples. I love hanging out with my friends who are married couples. But... I love my life so much. I am so invested in what's going on with my children.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
But also, I have the sort of extra bandwidth to have these several shows on the air and to be able to do all the editing and managerial and going to sets and traveling for all that. Still take care of my three children. I don't know that it's because, but I think it's helped because I'm not having to care for an adult anymore. And ask about their day and my in-laws. Also compromise on decisions.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
I don't have to compromise at all. I don't have to run anything by anyone. There's never a miscommunication with the nanny because I said bedtime was this time, but actually it's this. Small things too. My friends are saints. Planning the birthday gifts.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
for your brother-in-law's wife and i'm like are you fucking kidding me yeah i just finished a day of work i'm not going on fucking shop bop and buying lindsey a sweatsuit that she likes i can't be doing that and so it might change i'm really open to it i have a famous friend she'll remain anonymous but her famous husband said i need a wife they had kids and they were both working and she's like yeah i need a wife too yeah exactly we both need a fucking wife
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Your relationship, Kristen, is so rare because you both are so successful and you have really fulfilling careers, but you make it work.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
That's really rare in men. Is that a generalization? That's correct?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
And want it. I think that's the difference. Meanwhile, I want him to marry like a demure woman who just is like pliable.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
It scared me for the longest time. And then it was Reese Witherspoon. I was getting ready to shoot a movie and it got delayed for some reason. And I was like, oh, well, I'm going to just wait. And she was like, do this. Do not wait until it's too late. And no woman wants to tell another woman TikTok. Right. It's not feminist. It's kind of a bummer. Sure, but it's the truth. It's the truth.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
We were in her trailer in a field in New Zealand. She's like, if you want this, you have to do it now. Otherwise, and she listed some people that I knew of, but not known personally, some very famous women who waited and then it was too late. It's only possible because I waited till I was 37 to have my daughter because I had disposable income. I have my nanny, I have my dad who helps.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Every single one of my children, he has picked up taking them for like a 45 minute walk every single morning for like the first year of their life. Ugh. This is a guy who grew up in Chennai. Yeah. In like the 50s. And so he came here and he's just gotten on board with everything. He's gotten on board with my lifestyle. He's gotten on board with three children, no husband. My mom passed away.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
She was the motor of our family. She was the superstar of our family. She was the one that everyone could individually relate to the most. And she was gone. And he's like, OK, I got to be that. I got to not be judgmental about everything in her life when he definitely could have been. He met my stepmom, who was... My stepmom is so beloved by my children.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Her name is Lynn, born and raised in Santa Monica. A beautiful, nice Jewish lady who met my dad at their apartment complex. Amazing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Meet cute apartment complex. They met two years later, got married in my backyard. So he's gone through so much stuff. Make a lot of generalizations about a man of a certain generation and what they're willing to do. And I even make fun of them on my shows about not being flexible. And he has been in complete defiance of those things. It was beautiful.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
While still being a traditional Indian guy with like an Indian accent. I feel lucky to have him.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
It's remarkable how two things. It doesn't totally get easier when you love someone. But it's also surprised me how my relationship with my mom has continued in some ways. What you said about the last years of your dad's life, the one thing that TV and film does, I think that is such an injustice is people are not at their best when they're dying. No, they're scared, depressed.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
But in TV and film, you see things like little women and everyone's angelic and the best they've ever been before they die. And it is a lie. My mother was my best friend and she was a doctor and she was as stoic as it comes. But she was scared. And from the time she was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer to the time she died was eight months. And she knew it was going to happen.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
And she knew exactly the trajectory of it because she was a doctor. And. She was so frightened and negative. We were all relieved because she wasn't in pain. That feeling actually made me feel so much guilt.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
My mom, too. It was better that my mom went in eight months than in four years.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
That was a challenge for me. I really had to do that because a lot of times I would try not to think about her because it would make me feel too sad. And I was like, well, she wouldn't want that. The thing with the kids though, there's so much, of course, that's so triggering where you're like, oh my God, my mom would have loved this. Oh my God, now I understand why my mom did this.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
And to not be able to call her and be like, when I was 12 and such a pain in the ass and you were just trying your best and I was being difficult about that, I wish I could just call her and be like, I'm so sorry.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
I mean, yes and no. It's nice, but you don't need it. Do you have a thing to ask with your daughters? My daughter, she's seven now and she says stuff that's just chilling to me. where it's so soulful and I wish I could help her. We're transitioning from Legos into bed and the transitions are hard for her. She wants to keep everything going. My son just can move on. Hey, let's do that.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
He'll ask once. I'm like, no, and he'll be fine. But my daughter, every night in negotiation, she says to me, when can I be in charge of what I want to do? And I was literally just like, I am so sorry. It's not going to be for a long, long time for seven. But I know that feeling. She always says that she hates eating. And she's like, why do we have to do this three times a day?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
And I love eating and I just like look forward to my meals. But I wouldn't want to eat the kids food, but she can't eat spicy food or interesting food. But it's so repetitive and boring and you have no autonomy. And I just sit there and I'm like, I wish I could just let you be Drew Barrymore. Let's go to the club. Let's go do it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
And the most beloved by cast and crew. He's our producing director for this new show, Running Point.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
The answer is yes. I was never a kid person. Are you guys naturally kid people? Do you gravitate towards children?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
I never had that dynamic. I also babysat for money when I lived in Brooklyn right around when I was doing Mountain Ben. I liked children and it was a good way to make money, but I didn't have that feeling. And then with my kids, it really made me understand my mother because my mother, literally an OBGYN, but not a kid person, but was obsessed with us. And I was like, I get it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
It unlocked a love of children. I now love children. Like all I want to do is when you or Kristen post photos, I'm like, I want that emoji to be moved. I want to see their pretty little faces.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
And it's so sweet. And I didn't think that about myself. But I'm surprised how much the same person I am before, too. Still competitive, still weird pettiness, still chips on my shoulders. That did not go away. I just love and want to protect children. Yeah. When I see movies that have children in them, I now am way more affected by them. Where's that Dev Patel movie, Lion? Did you see that?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Oh, I didn't see that. I mean, just anything about children on their own or in peril or anything like that, I can't take it. But that relationship I have with these kids has been so unbelievably profound. And to be able to have a family that I made myself and there's just the four of us in our family staring at each other. We go to our little vacations.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Can you take any of this in or no? No, I can. And Monica, I don't know if this goes to what we're saying before. I don't hear this a lot from straight white men that they're huge fans. And not that it should mean more than when an Indian teenage girl says it, but it's just so much more unusual. So thank you.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
We're going to Montana and I'm wading in the river with them. You're like, I did it. I did it. We all have those friends, male or female, where they don't feel complete unless they have a partner. And I'm not judgmental about that because I felt like I used to be that way. Something happened where I don't need it, but I'm open to it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
JLo has been in so many relationships in the time that I've been single. I don't know her at all, but I've been like, she's a romantic.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
She's a love addict, she says. When she got back together with Ben, she was like, we must do a documentary about it. It fuels her.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
But it left a mark. You really remember that as a big relationship. Were you like going to the Halloween party? Were you part of that?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Look at this record. What? Well, the Ashley Olsen is so cool, too, because she's so elusive. Exactly. The row. I mean, I'm obsessed with fashion wise.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
I'm obsessed with the row. I think because they're so out of culture, I actually haven't been able to become obsessed with them because I know so little about them. But the row is expensive for me and I'm rich. I know.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
I look at the row and it's like a sitcom. I'm like, is there an extra zero on that? I know.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
And would you also find that it's so expensive and then you find people that you deem yourself to be more rich than who are wearing the row? That's you and me. You are definitely more rich than me, but I don't have three children. And you're head to toe in the row? I'm often head to row. Now I'm like, I know you guys are doing well. What if she's like old Indian money?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
He's super talented. Trevor Noah on the news, they were like, he just purchased a house for $28 million in Brentwood or something. This was three years ago. I think it said he's like one of four homes. And I was like, damn Daily Show money. And then they're like, no, no, no. It's a stand up.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
They earn it. They do. They live on the road. Now, I'll say this. The thing I should have done if I wasn't a comedy writer is finance. I love making money. I love knowing about people's money. I love the Gilded Age in New York. The patrician class. I think it's great. I think everyone on the front of their house should say how they bought it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
When you've only mostly been valued from people are like, she's so smart and so funny. I'm embarrassed how much that is affecting me. I can relate. It's the best compliment to get. I hate to say it. Am I in love with you? Am I going to try to kiss you? Let's see. Kristen and I consider a friendly acquaintance. She would allow it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
If it was through their money, their wives, they inherited it. Because otherwise it's too much. Like Trevor Noah, I'm going to tell him this if I see him this Oscar season at a party. He should write stand-up tour furnished by Daily Show Money. 62 dates. 10,000 seats a venue.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
I think when you don't have family money and you aren't from old money, I mean, literally my bio and my Instagram is new money. I think it's fascinating.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
And none of them are paying taxes. They sort of are exempt from the daily indignities the rest of us have to do, which is not fair. It's made them all weird, to be fair. Yes, it's made them all weird. In my 20s and 30s, you would hear, did you know Olivia Munn invested in Uber in the first round? And now she has $27 billion. And you're like, why isn't anyone inviting me?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
And then the four things that I do invest in make famously zero.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
I'd like to think that I'm only obsessed with money and how people get it because I think it would be so nice to have so much with my children that I could just go teach. I'd love to go teach TV writing or teach Latin or one of these other things that's interesting to me. I could travel.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
OK, I don't know him really. So I gave birth on Sunday and the show started shooting on Monday.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
I came a week later and I met him on set and I was watching dailies, obviously. But we had almost like a parasocial relationship because I'd seen all the dailies. And I obviously know of him and the way that you guys talk about him and smartless guys talks about him and everything. But I've only had a couple short conversations with him. But he's very funny.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Yeah, she's good at portraying anger in a way that it's still sort of palatable. Networks don't like when women scream at other people, especially their employees. They're just like, well, nobody wants to see that. And yet she can do it in a way where you're like... let that billionaire get what she wants. Yeah. It's funny because I'd worked on two shows with more unknown casts.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
I'd done College Girls, which has an amazing cast, but were relatively unknown. And then Never Have I Ever, where we really were trying to find people. And it was kind of fun to do this show where...
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
she was just like a pro pro and justin and jay and max greenfield everyone had just done it yes and every show is challenging for different reasons but it was great to work with the median age was like 38 or higher that was fun i hadn't done that in a while yeah they know not to block anyone's light they know where to find the camera they actually can show up and pretty much give you what you want pretty darn quickly
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Yeah. And she's just old school. She's probably had to see some really bleak shit as an actress coming up at the time she came up. Just a pro.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
She's not getting a sense of identity herself from her workplace. Yes. She's just like, I know who I am.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
And Brenda Song is such a pro too. I mean, she was a child actor who came in and super funny.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
I'll tell you what's funny about Ike's dad's being in it is because we really wanted him to come play this part.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Was he a judge or a lawyer in real life? In real life, he was a lawyer. He played a judge on Jury Duty. And now he's playing a lawyer. Okay, got it. But he'd been on Jury Duty, which was a very hot show. I loved it.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
And he was very good on it. I think he was one of the best parts of the show.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
So for this one, we were like, you know, it'd be great. Like, as if your dad can play this part. But my knowledge of him is like the guy I used to have Thanksgiving with before I had children. And then we heard through casting that his agent's like, they have a counter. And I was like, what? What?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
It's the most L.A. thing about me. I mean, as somebody who was straight up unattractive in high school and then has lost and gained the same 50 pounds over the course of my life, that kind of compliment feels so distant. I'm sorry, Kristen Bell. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
This is really nice. I loved being here. I'm really such fans. I love what you get out of the people you talk to. It's really incredible. I know you've done 800 episodes. You might be 800. No.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Have me on again. We'll have to have you on for our dates.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Also, you probably can't do this for security reasons, but I'm 45 now. So when I pulled in, I have a thing now. I don't know if you have this where I'm like, oh, Dax has a shit together. I've never seen your home.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
I've never seen the layout. I'm a big yard person because I'm from the East Coast. But it's, again, close to my ethnic food. This feels like there's a place where you can work separate from where you live. And I don't want to.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
And that's not a very common L.A. thing. People get rid of the yards to put in pools.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
I don't know. You go. Can I talk about Monica for a second? So you're younger than me, but there's not a lot of Indian women. Now there's a lot more. Yeah, yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
10 or 12 years ago. Is that when you guys started this?
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
I remember hearing about you because you were becoming well-known because of it. And I remember thinking, not that I'm keeping tabs on the other South Asians, but it was like, oh, there's another person who's out here. In the group. In the group. And then having listened to you. Oh, my God. I'm kind of a repressed person and I have four friends.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
And there was just an openness about you that honestly, I... I don't know if this is offensive to South Asian people. Oh, she was, I think, South Asian and raised by a family that seems pretty traditional in some ways. But she's not talking like somebody who is. That's one of the reasons why I didn't do podcasts is I am repressed. I am from the East Coast. Pretty traditional upbringing.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Don't air out stuff. But you never say anything that would bring shame to your family. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
But I have to say, that is a really rare gift that you were given. And I feel that way about my parents because they're in some ways very traditional, but I got one into this path that they completely love and supported, even though I think it worried them. They were able to sublimate their own fears to support me. And I know it wasn't easy for them, but it is a gift because I don't think...
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
That many people whose parents have immigrated here are given the challenges to have their kids go into the arts. And not just the arts, the arts where you're talking about your feelings and your truths.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
Yeah. About the candor thing. I mean, I think that's what's intoxicating about listening to this podcast is how candid people are. I don't know if you guys have heard this before, but it unlocks the listener.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
When you're talking to Bradley Cooper and you guys have such a history and so much in common and are so open about sobriety and the mistakes you guys have made and what you've learned from them. It makes me, even as I'm listening to it, being like, God, I wish there was someone in the car with me right now so I could be open with them too. But so you saw Hassan
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
So I was not raised around a lot of other Indian people. I was born and raised in suburban Boston. Yeah.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
It's professors and children's professors. And then my parents are from two different parts of India. So my dad is from South India. My mom, she's Bengali and she's from Calcutta. But they met in Africa and they were the only two Indian people. My dad speaks Tamil and my mom spoke Bengali and Hindi. The only language they had in common was English.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
My mom was a doctor at a hospital that my dad was helping build in Lagos, Nigeria. That's a meet cute. It's a meet cute. An architect and an OBGYN. And so they met and it was one of those things where I think literally their African friends were like, we know two Indian people. You should be together. And they were right.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
But it's sort of a nuance that I think only Indian people get, which is that culturally it's so different. in the 70s to be Bengali and be Tamil. And my dad was from more of a traditional Hindu family. My mom was also Hindu, but the way they celebrate it is so different regionally. My dad doesn't celebrate Diwali and my mom does. And my mom doesn't know about some of my dad's holidays.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
But the only reason I'm bringing it up is not to give like a long, boring history about how my family met. But when they met each other, the culture that they had in common was like, OK, we speak English. We're moving to the United States.
Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard
Mindy Kaling
And so I wasn't raised speaking any Indian languages, which I think is huge, crucial, actually, to the way you're brought up. And I realized now have adult Indian friends or ones that I made in college where they were raised kind of within their community. You'll hear people that they're raised in a super Indian neighborhood in New Jersey or in Michigan.
Fresh Air
Celebrating 20 Years Of 'The Office'
And that's a very cool tool because if you notice in the show, it's only certain characters sort of have the permission to have that familiarity with the camera and the cameraman. And other characters who have less self-awareness do it less. And it works great. Like, for instance, Rainn Wilson, who plays Dwight, I think is a kind of character who has less self-awareness.
Fresh Air
Celebrating 20 Years Of 'The Office'
And he doesn't do it as much as, say, John Krasinski and Jenna Fisher, who play Jim and Pam, the two, like, the love interests.
Fresh Air
Celebrating 20 Years Of 'The Office'
Or that he's the host of a party and that he wants to keep, you know, he wants to be kind to the camera people as the host of this party and the party is the office.
Fresh Air
Celebrating 20 Years Of 'The Office'
You know when you're on the subway and you see this, like, really weird-looking loser that's talking really too loudly and they have, like, a girlfriend? To me, that was, like, a big change in, like, the second season is that, like, characters who are—you're kind of like, that person's loved by somebody? They are.
Fresh Air
Celebrating 20 Years Of 'The Office'
Like, you see Dwight is loved by somebody and Kelly has love in her own way and, you know, all these people that you're like— that person's like so sort of terrible in their own way. Oh, but I guess there's another person out there who understands them and likes them. And most of our characters on the show who are real characters have some kind of love life.
Fresh Air
Celebrating 20 Years Of 'The Office'
And that's realistic, I mean, and sort of unusual. And that's a big difference, I think, between our two seasons.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Meghan Markle's Cringe Netflix Show, Bizarre Baldwins Reality Show, and Obama Divorce Rumblings, with Maureen Callahan | Ep. 1021
And since we put all of our energy into making those, this we're just going to put into a different bag. Different bag. Peanut butter pretzel. Into a cellophane bag. I've been eating these forever, and I love these so much. Sure you have.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Meghan Markle's Cringe Netflix Show, Bizarre Baldwins Reality Show, and Obama Divorce Rumblings, with Maureen Callahan | Ep. 1021
how she pours i know that daniel loves peanut butter i'm still gonna label this you always want to be conscious if someone has a nut allergy she actually doesn't know so i can take it home and prep the guest room and now everything's ready for daniel's arrival tonight
The Megyn Kelly Show
Meghan Markle's Cringe Netflix Show, Bizarre Baldwins Reality Show, and Obama Divorce Rumblings, with Maureen Callahan | Ep. 1021
I don't think anyone in the world knows that Meghan Markle has eaten Jack in the Box.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Meghan Markle's Cringe Netflix Show, Bizarre Baldwins Reality Show, and Obama Divorce Rumblings, with Maureen Callahan | Ep. 1021
It's so funny, too, that you keep saying, Meghan Markle, you know I'm Sussex now. You have kids, and you go, no, I share my name with my children. Yes. And that feels so, I didn't know how meaningful it would be to me, but it just means so much to go, this is our family name.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Meghan Markle's Cringe Netflix Show, Bizarre Baldwins Reality Show, and Obama Divorce Rumblings, with Maureen Callahan | Ep. 1021
Anything that I can do with handwriting, I think adds a personal touch. Let's write a menu, folks. So when you have unlined paper, you can use a template that can at least keep your lines straight, no matter how straight you believe that you write. It's always helpful to have a template. Use a soft pencil because you're going to erase those lines, obviously, after you've written everything in.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Meghan Markle's Cringe Netflix Show, Bizarre Baldwins Reality Show, and Obama Divorce Rumblings, with Maureen Callahan | Ep. 1021
First things first, heirloom tomato quiche with fresh basil. I always do those little scrolls. I don't know why. In school, I got an A- in penmanship class. But you know what? I was like, I'll take the minus for a little bit of character.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Meghan Markle's Cringe Netflix Show, Bizarre Baldwins Reality Show, and Obama Divorce Rumblings, with Maureen Callahan | Ep. 1021
We should do some one-on-one. It's going to be good. We're going to do some personal training after.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Meghan Markle's Cringe Netflix Show, Bizarre Baldwins Reality Show, and Obama Divorce Rumblings, with Maureen Callahan | Ep. 1021
I got to set early to make you a frittata. Then while it was cooking, I'm reading. What? A yogurt parfait. It's the same thing that you would give your kids, right? It just looks a little bit more darling. Do you believe my little donuts? You guys, I made those for you. You baked them from scratch? Yes. Oh, that's nice. I have some treats for you to take home. Oh.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Meghan Markle's Cringe Netflix Show, Bizarre Baldwins Reality Show, and Obama Divorce Rumblings, with Maureen Callahan | Ep. 1021
i made dog biscuits for nina and then we had our sun tea so i made you some oh sun tea yes and they're different ones that you and the girls can do together and also some raspberry preserves you know when i come to your house you're like do some coffee do some coffee because i'm a coffee holly And you're like, give me some cream. And so I thought, how can I make the cream that you love?
The Megyn Kelly Show
Meghan Markle's Cringe Netflix Show, Bizarre Baldwins Reality Show, and Obama Divorce Rumblings, with Maureen Callahan | Ep. 1021
So I did a little bit of condensed milk and a little bit of half and half and added some nice vanilla bean paste and frothed it up. Oh, my God. And I think you're going to love it.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Meghan Markle's Cringe Netflix Show, Bizarre Baldwins Reality Show, and Obama Divorce Rumblings, with Maureen Callahan | Ep. 1021
I think a gift bag is important. Guest experience starts young. If there's a garden theme, then let's really go with it and try to inspire them to want to get their hands in the dirt and grow something, watch it grow. Little mini gardening tools. Our kids have real sets. They take their gardening seriously. I think it's nice to give kids some seeds that they can plant.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Meghan Markle's Cringe Netflix Show, Bizarre Baldwins Reality Show, and Obama Divorce Rumblings, with Maureen Callahan | Ep. 1021
Things that they can watch grow easily and pick from. So sugar snap peas and some sweet basil. What are we missing? Something sweet. Manuka honey stick. Great. I always have these in my house. Let's just sit it in there so it can actually be featured a little bit more.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Meghan Markle's Cringe Netflix Show, Bizarre Baldwins Reality Show, and Obama Divorce Rumblings, with Maureen Callahan | Ep. 1021
What's your favorite thing that you see in your kids that you go, oh, that's their dad? Like, oh, some of the words that they still say with a British accent. So they'll say zebra. And what else do they say? They have these little moments where it comes out because they have very American accents, but they say words that are just like him. And I think it's adorable. Zebra is a good one.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Meghan Markle's Cringe Netflix Show, Bizarre Baldwins Reality Show, and Obama Divorce Rumblings, with Maureen Callahan | Ep. 1021
I always make it a point when I'm traveling if I can't do bedtime stories with my kids because Archie and Lily are just three and five. So I'll always pack a really thin book and I'll videotape myself reading it. So whoever's with them or Papa can say, here's mama reading your bedtime story. You find ways to show up for each other.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Meghan Markle's Cringe Netflix Show, Bizarre Baldwins Reality Show, and Obama Divorce Rumblings, with Maureen Callahan | Ep. 1021
And if that's the one thing that I can convey through the show or through as ever as a brand, I want people to know you can show up for each other because you know how good it feels when someone shows up for you. So thank you for coming. Thank you.
The Megyn Kelly Show
Meghan Markle's Cringe Netflix Show, Bizarre Baldwins Reality Show, and Obama Divorce Rumblings, with Maureen Callahan | Ep. 1021
Megan, I want to ask about your look. My who? Your look. Your look, Megan. Oh, my look. Your look. Did I not say it right? I don't know. I'm way cooler than I am. I don't know what you're talking... My look. My look. She likes my look. Your look. Oh, my gosh. Your fashion is like one of my favorite things.