John sits down with writer/actor Mindy Kaling (The Office, The Mindy Project, Champions) to talk about her origin story, her big break as Ben Affleck, what it’s like to simultaneously showrun and star in a sitcom, and the nature of half-hour comedies.
We also answer a listener question about point of view and its relationship with genre and medium.
Links:
* Thanks to [Mindy Kaling](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mindy_Kaling) for joining us!
* [Champions](https://www.nbc.com/champions) is available to watch on NBC.com.
* You can watch a recording of her play, [Matt and Ben](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBbMv3gO0lo), written and performed by Mindy and Brenda Withers. It premiered at the [Fringe Festival](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_International_Fringe_Festival) in New York.
* Keep an eye out for [Four Weddings and a Funeral](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/mindy-kalings-four-weddings-a-funeral-anthology-a-go-at-hulu-1106794).
* [The End of the Fucking World](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_End_of_the_F***ing_World) and [Godless](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godless_(TV_series)) on Netflix
* [The Visitors](https://www.thebroad.org/art/ragnar-kjartansson/the-visitors) by Ragnar Kjartansson at The Broad
* [The USB drives!](https://store.johnaugust.com/collections/frontpage/products/scriptnotes-300-episode-usb-flash-drive)
* [Mindy Kaling](https://twitter.com/mindykaling) on Twitter
* [John August](https://twitter.com/johnaugust) on Twitter
* [Craig Mazin](https://twitter.com/clmazin) on Twitter
* [John on Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/johnaugust/?hl=en)
* [Find past episodes](http://scriptnotes.net/)
* [Scriptnotes Digital Seasons](https://store.johnaugust.com/) are also now available!
* [Outro](http://johnaugust.com/2013/scriptnotes-the-outros) by Timothy Vajda ([send us yours!](http://johnaugust.com/2014/outros-needed))
Email us at ask@johnaugust.com
You can download the episode [here](http://traffic.libsyn.com/scriptnotes/scriptnotes_ep_362.mp3).
**UPDATE 8-14-18:** The transcript of this episode can be found [here](http://johnaugust.com/2018/scriptnotes-ep-362-the-one-with-mindy-kaling-transcript).