Mindy Kaling Says She Never Felt Like She Was ‘Part of a Comedy Clique’ in Hollywood — and Admits That Made Her ‘Jealous’

https://people.com/mindy-kaling-never-part-of-comedy-clique-11691661

29 comments

  1. > Speaking on an episode of Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard, 45-year-old Kaling opened up about the work she took on during and after her stint as Kelly Kapoor on The Office, saying, “I was never part of a comedy clique.”

    > “I was really jealous and I had a chip on my shoulder about it. Because in that aughts time [the early 2000s], you were in a clique or you weren’t. I was on The Office, so maybe people were like, ‘Well, she’s there,’ and maybe you could argue that that was a clique,” Kaling said. “But the writing stuff was very competitive with each other. We all had our own private ambitions, our own stuff we wanted to do. We wanted to write the best scripts, kill the table read, have Steve Carell think we were the funniest writer.”

    > She continued: “I was jealous of Judd [Apatow] and Seth [Rogen] and Jason [Segel] and then there was Amy [Poehler] and Tina [Fey], and Will [Ferrell] doing the ice-skating movie … I felt like the entire aughts was me coming up on a show that I loved but being like, ‘Why can’t I be in a clique?’ “

  8. Everywhere feels like highschool doesn’t matter how old you are I guess.

    People are going to hate in her in the comments but to accomplish what she has as a poc in the space without someone championing her is absolutely believable and should be commended.

    You don’t have to like her personality to recognize that.

  9. What a weird way to say other people find you insufferable.

  10. She is one of the masterminds behind the office and has maintained her friendship with BJ Novak. I think the grass is always greener. I have nothing but respect and admiration for her.

  11. I can’t believe the meanness of these comments. She’s one of the main writers of the Office-arguably one of the most loved sitcoms ever.

  12. The amount of hate this lady is getting for effectively saying she felt like she didn’t fit in is disgusting.

  13. These comments, woof. I like that she was vulnerable in sharing something interesting and not some media trained word-salad…

  14. Being myself not part of a comedy clique in Hollywood, I can relate to this.

  15. She can go write her umpteenth TV show where she is the object of desire of a white man who she puts on a pedestal. That always seems to boost her self esteem

    She’ll be fine

  16. I don’t enjoy Mindy’s writing because every female character she creates is a Mary Sue self insert.

  17. Mindy Kaling has an insufferable victim complex. Why is she as famous as she is?

  19. Seems like everyone in the comments are either hating on her, or hating on people hating on her in the comments.

    As usual, the world can encompass both positive and negative feelings. I love that she just openly said how she felt and what was on her mind. I also think it reeks of “I had a once in a lifetime job that paid really well as a writer and star on one of the most beloved shows of all time but I still wasn’t happy”.

    It can be both, guys. The Kaling hate can be overblown, but she can still come across as self-entitled and whiny. I remember my screenwriting professor in film school said apart from the “lottery winners” of writing, the luckiest we’d ever get is 10 years of a paid writing career. Kaling has had a lot more than that but still seems to complain an awful lot about not having more – which makes me like her candor while also being annoyed.

  20. Mindy Kaling seems like what you get when you combine Tracy Flick with the absolutely most annoying pick-me theater kid, and we’ve been subject to her tyranny for too long now.

  21. She seems unhappy with her life in general 🥱

  22. She seems worse than Rainn Wilson.

    I wonder what Greg Daniels thinks when he hears this entitled, ungrateful attitude from nobodies that he gifted a comedy career?

  23. Don’t you have to partake in comedy to be part of a comedy “clique” or am I drunk?

  28. Wouldn’t you have to be “funny” to be apart of it?

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