Notorious workaholic Mindy Kaling is in the midst of a life-changing experience, and no, it has nothing to do with impending motherhood. "I'm so much more relaxed," she tells us about filming the final season of The Mindy Project. "The first season of any show is crazy. By season six, I'm not worried about those things anymore. It's the nicest feeling."
While we wouldn't blame her for feeling added pressure about the finale, she's taking the end of her groundbreaking comedy in stride. "I have my eye on about a million dresses, Louboutin shoes, and Chanel bags I hope to snag from Salvador Perez [the show's costume designer]. I would be crazy not to," she jokes. But still, "I have to face the end of the show in a real way, and each day [it] gets a little bit harder and sadder to be around here."
Jordin Althaus/Hulu
"Here" is not only Dr. Lahiri's office—where we conducted this on-set interview—but the Universal Television soundstage that will have produced all 117 episodes of the series on Fox and Hulu by the time it's done. "I've seen a lot of shows that start out great and then people think they start to fall off, but I loved that our show has just gotten better and better," Kaling says.
She praises Hulu for giving her the creative freedom to make the show she always wanted to, but Kaling had a strong vision for her character, Dr. Lahiri, since the beginning. "I'm glad we didn't compromise on making her more traditionally palatable or boring or more familiar as a female trope that we've seen before," explains Kaling. "When you are creating a show like this and you realize you're a lot of different firsts—first Indian woman on TV in a lead role, first Indian creator—you get pulled in a lot of directions as to what you want to do. But we never compromised what this character was going to do and say because of external pressures."
It's true. Viewers may have envied Dr. Lahiri's wardrobe, dates, and lavish decor, but she was no Mary Richards. "You see a lot of leads that are often plucky, Goody Two-shoes, sweet, boring characters, and they are the leads because they have no flaws," Kaling says. "And then they surround themselves with funny characters, typically men. What's great about this character is that she got to do both at once—she got to be the engine of comedy, while also being the point-of-view character."
