Playing the annoying, gossipy and overly emotional Kelly on “The Office” (NBC, 2004- ), Mindy Kaling established herself as a strong comic actress, even though she was originally hired as a writer on the show. But her transition from writer to onscreen talent was par for the course on the series. Producer Greg Daniels had clauses in the writers’ contracts to cover whatever acting duties arose – his penchant for improvisation often led to dragging the writers on set, rather than stuffing them into a dark, windowless room to pound away at a keyboard. For Kaling, who was already well-versed in acting and improv, the experience allowed her to utilize a multitude of talents that on any other show may not have been possible.
Kaling was born in 1979 and raised in Cambridge, MA, where she attended private school at Buckingham Browne & Nichols. After graduation, she enrolled at Dartmouth College and pursued an array of creative interests, but mainly focused on acting and writing. She joined an improvisational comedy group called “The Dog Day Players,” wrote skits for “The Rockapella,” an a cappella group formed at Brown University, and drew her own comic strip, “The Badly Drawn Girl,” for The Dartmouth. After graduating in 2001, Kaling pursued writing and acting while working as a production assistant on such shows as “Crossing Over with John Edward” (Sci-Fi, 2000-04) while periodically babysitting to pay the bills. Struck by the meteoric rise to fame of stars Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, Kaling and her former college roommate, Brenda Withers, penned “Matt & Ben,” a satirical play about the two Oscar-winning friends trying to write a screenplay adaptation of J.D. Salinger’s “Catcher in the Rye,” circa 1995. Kaling was both funny and oddly believable in the Affleck role.
In the audience during one of the performances of “Matt and Ben” was Greg Daniels, who was impressed with Kaling as a writer-performer. Daniels was working on filling the writing and acting rosters for the American version of the BBC hit, “The Office” and hired Kaling onto the writing staff. But as with most of Daniels’ writers, Kaling was thrust before the camera and soon became a regular character on the show. Her first episode, “Diversity Day,” introduced Kaling as Kelly Kapoor, a yappy Indian-American prone to emotional outbursts and talking incessantly about pop culture. She went on to portray the gregarious Kelly as having cheerful cluelessness, most evidenced with her mad crush on co-worker Ryan who only begrudgingly return her affections. As a writer, Kaling penned the noteworthy episode, “Diwali,” which focused on her character celebrating her country’s Festival of Lights, ending with a rousing rendition of the “Diwali Song” sung by Steve Carell, a hilarious parody of Adam Sandler’s “Chanukah Song.”
Thanks to her regular exposure and a recommendation by castmate Carell, Kaling appeared in “The 40-Year-Old Virgin” (2005) as the ex-girlfriend of Paul Rudd and “Curb Your Enthusiasm” (HBO, 2000- ) in the fifth-season episode “Lewis Needs a Kidney,” playing the assistant of comedian Richard Lewis. After a bit role as a restaurant hostess in the comedy “Unaccompanied by Minors” (2006), Kaling was considered by producers to join “Saturday Night Live” (NBC, 1975-) and flew to New York for an audition. But because of her contractual obligations to “The Office,” she turned down the offer – though Kaling did accept an opportunity to be a guest “S.N.L.” writer in April 2006. She also had a small role in the romantic comedy “License to Wed” (2007), which featured “Office” co-stars John Krasinski and Angela Kinsey.