By Dustin Rowles | TV | March 8, 2024 |
By Dustin Rowles | TV | March 8, 2024 |
Mindy Kaling has not appeared onscreen in a major role since 2019’s Late Night, a movie she co-wrote and starred in alongside Emma Thompson. Mostly quietly, however, Kaling has worked behind the scenes to build something of an empire.
Kaling, who began as a writer on The Office before taking a role onscreen, spends most of her time these days producing and show-running television. In 2018, she co-wrote and co-ran Champions, an Anders Holm and Fortune Feimster sitcom that failed, despite a mostly positive reception (it’s fun, and it’s also currently available on Netflix for those who want to watch it). She followed that up with a Hulu miniseries Four Weddings and a Funeral, which was actually terrific, even if it didn’t elicit a lot of attention (it did, however, bring Nikesh Patel some necessary attention, which he parlayed into the main love interest in the likewise fantastic and underseen Starstruck).
Kaling hit it big with her next series, Never Have I Ever, which ran for four seasons on Netflix, no minor feat for the streamer. It also happens to be one of the best comedies of the last several years and a must-see for people of any age, but especially teenagers. While exploring high-school life in Never Have I Ever, Kaling has also been covering college life in the Sex Lives of College Girls, the terrific Max series that launched the career of Reneé Rapp (and also stars Timothee Chalament’s sister, Pauline).
Not everything has been a rousing success: Though she is not a writer on Velma, she is a producer and voices the main character for a series that audiences and critics have maligned, though the hate-watch community has elicited a second season out of the series.
When she’s not successfully running comedies, Mindy Kaling is also an investor in a successful skincare line, Lion Pose, and — like Reese Witherspoon — has her own book imprint, in which she not only promotes diverse voices in publishing but produces movie adaptations of some of those novels.
At the moment, however, Kaling is back in the television world in the casting stage of her next series, a Neflix 10-episode comedy set in the world of professional basketball. She’s landed Kate Hudson as the lead, as well as Scott MacArthur (The Mick), Brenda Song, Drew Tarver, Max Greenfield, and, uh, Chet Hanks. Here’s the logline:
“When a scandal forces her brother to resign, Isla Gordon (Hudson) is appointed President of the Los Angeles Waves, one of the most storied professional basketball franchises, and her family business. Ambitious and often overlooked, Isla will have to prove to her skeptical brothers, the board, and the larger sports community that she is the right choice for the job, especially in the unpredictable, male-dominated world of sports.”
Kaling is running the show with Ike Barinholtz, the guy from The Mindy Project who is currently crushing it on Jeopardy’s Tournament of Champions. It’s gonna be a big hit.