NEED TO KNOW
If you’ve missed seeing Mindy Kaling on screen, she’s right there with you!
The mom of three, 45, recently explained why she’s taken a step back from acting, during a conversation with The Hollywood Reporter as part of the Paley Media Council Series on Thursday, June 5.
Kaling detailed how her superstitions played a role in that decision while explaining why she didn’t make a cameo in her Netflix series Never Have I Ever. Kaling and Lang Fisher co-created the teen comedy, which ran for four seasons and takes inspiration from Kaling’s cultural upbringing.
“A show literally about an Indian American family in Southern California, and if I wasn’t on that—what’s wrong with me?” Kaling began. “I think there is a part of me that feels a little superstitious. I’m like, ‘these seem to have gone well and I’m not in them so maybe I’ll wait.’ ”
However, Kaling admitted fans may see more of her on screen soon.
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“I miss it,” Kaling confessed. “I would like to write or co-create a show for me to act in soon.”
For Kaling, she would love to have the opportunity to double as an actor and director in her next project, which is “unbelievably fun and it’s so efficient.”
“I would love to do that again,” she shared. “That’s the thing that maybe in the next couple of years, when I launch a couple of other things that are earlier in the pipeline, that would be something that would be fun to do again.”
In February, Kaling’s co-created and executive-produced Netflix show Running Point was released, starring Kate Hudson in the lead role. While attending an Emmy consideration event for their Netflix show, Hudson praised Kaling’s work ethic, especially after giving birth.
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“I have to say, I’ve fallen in love with this woman,” Hudson, 46, said of Kaling. “And she’s just not only so brilliant, but so trusting … she puts the best team together.”
“And she was pregnant,” Hudson continued. “We had a script, like our first table read. She’s on Zoom. She then has the baby and is sending notes, like an hour after she has the baby. I was like, ‘Isn’t Mindy literally in labor?’ “
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Hudson added, “She is a powerhouse and delivers what she says she’s going to deliver.”
Kaling, who has never revealed the identity of the father of her children, is a mom to daughter Katherine Swati and son Spencer Avu. In February 2024, she quietly welcomed her third child, a daughter named Anne.
