THE WRITE STUFF
IN THE MALE-DRIVEN WORLD OF LATE-NIGHT TV, TWO WOMEN TOPPLE THE PATRIARCHY WITH FORMIDABLE ONE-LINERS
In Late Night, Mindy Kaling’s Molly finds herself faced with her very own Miranda Priestly in the form of Emma Thompson’s acerbic late-night talk show host, Katherine Newbury. When Katherine gives Molly the job of a lifetime in an attempt to diversify her white, male writers’ room, both women realise they have more in common than they initially thought. Kaling, 40, tells WHO about drawing from her own experiences in TV to write the film.
This is your first time writing a feature film. How was that different from writing for TV? The characters that I usually play in The Mindy Project or in The Office are these big, broad comedy characters who are delusional and very funny and flawed. Molly’s flawed, too, but she’s much more of a grounded, vulnerable character who is a little bit more relatable than I’m used to playing.
The movie explores the notion of a diversity hire in the workplace. Is that something you had specific experience with?
I came up on The Office writing staff as a part of the NBC diversity initiative, and I remember feeling grateful for it but embarrassed for other people to know that. It took me a long time to realise that was the way that I found the opportunity to be on the show – and other people who don’t look like me find access through where they went to college, who their siblings are … [So] I didn’t have to feel guilty about that.
Was it cathartic to look back at your past experiences in writers’ rooms and reimagine them?
I have all my distinct memories of being the only woman and the only person of colour on a TV sitcom writing staff. And then I have all the feelings of being an employer 12 years later on my own show [The Mindy Project] – the impatience, all the frustrations. I really do identify with both the Katherine and Molly characters, and that was like, “Oh, this is going to be so fun to write.”