When the world met Mindy Kaling on The Office, her status as a TV power player was yet to come. In the US spin-off of the British sitcom, Kaling played Kelly Kapoor, an optimistic, man-crazy customer service operative. Even though she was a supporting character, Kelly’s scenes always sparkled and provide meme fodder even today. “My resolution was to get more attention,” she quipped in a season seven scene, one of many examples of her causing a fuss in order to get her way.
But while Kelly made us laugh on screen, Kaling was honing her comic skills behind the scenes as a writer – when the show’s staff were hired in 2004, Kaling was the only woman and sole person of colour in an eight-person writers’ room. “The way that writers’ rooms look now versus when I started at The Office in 2004 is night and day,” she told Variety in 2019. Now, as she features on the third episode of Meghan Markle’s podcast, Archetypes, Kaling has long secured her place as a leading figure in the world of TV. The weekly audio show is aimed at examining and dismantling the boxes that society puts women into, and Kaling is a fitting guest: she has long refused to adhere to dusty stereotypes.
