Mindy Kaling Biography

Mindy Kaling is a comic writer and actor who broke out as Kelly Kapoor, the flighty Indian-American from the television series The Office. Kaling grew up outside of Boston and studied theater at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire. After graduating in 2001, Kaling moved to New York to break into show business. She had off-Broadway success in 2002 and 2003, co-writing and starring in Matt and Ben, a parody in which she played actor Ben Affleck. She was hired the next year for the American version of Ricky Gervais‘s The Office, and was a cast member, writer and producer up through 2012, when she left to pursue her own series. The Mindy Project made its television debut in September of 2012 and ran until 2015, when it started its fourth season as an online series. On the big screen, Kaling has appeared in The 40 Year-Old Virgin (2005, starring The Office‘s Steve Carell), Despicable Me (2010), The Five-Year Engagement (2012) and, as the voice of Disgust, Inside Out (2015).