Mindy Kaling Reflects on Her Year of Streaming and the “Dying Breed” of Network Comedy Writers

Mindy Kaling knows a thing or two (or three) about streaming. In just one year, she’s worked with the “big three” of streaming services: Hulu, where she debuted her take on Four Weddings and a Funeral in July; Amazon Prime where her film Late Night is now available to watch; and of course, Netflix, where she received a 10-episode order for a coming-of-age series called Never Have I Ever. That’s no coincidence.

“Creatively, I love the shorter run of streaming shows,” Kaling told Decider over email, “because I can work on several projects at once and not feel like I’m shortchanging them.”

Kaling’s most recent streaming debut, Late Night—available free to Amazon Prime subscribers as of last Friday—was not a show, but a feature film, written and produced by Kaling, and directed by Nisha Ganatra. One reason Kaling chose to partner with Amazon Studios to produce the film—which, unlike Netflix, generally grants its films full-length theatrical releases before moving them to the streaming service—was “knowing that eventually, the movie would end up there,” meaning Prime Video.  “I’m like everyone else,” Kaling said. “I spend 20 minutes a night scrolling through my streaming platforms trying to find something funny to watch that won’t insult my intelligence or depress me. Hopefully, Late Night will be that for people.”

It’s hard to be insulted or depressed in face of Late Night‘s charming set-up: Emma Thompson stars as a fictional late-night talk show host named Katherine Newbury, who is David Letterman-type of comedian: beloved, established, rude, and horribly behind on the times. When it’s brought to Newbury’s attention that she has no women or people of color on her writing staff—and also that she may soon be replaced—the host hires Molly Patel (Kaling), a completely inexperienced but enthusiastic comedy nerd who’s tasked with making the show less old and less white.

Of course, there is an element of fantasy that makes the world of Late Night so enticing: In real life, no woman has ever come close to that level of success and notoriety in late-night, certainly not to the point where she becomes old news. “I’m not sure why there aren’t more female late-night talk show hosts on major networks,” Kaling said. “There are so many female stars of sitcoms. Partially it might be that there are no ‘term limits’ on those jobs. A sitcom lasts, at most, seven to nine years. But those late-night hosts are like monarchs! They have those shows for like 25 years. Or maybe it’s because there’s something that feels overtly masculine and unsettling to some TV execs about a woman confidently sharing her daily opinions about politics, even if it’s comic.”

Speaking of sitcoms that last seven to nine years, Kaling—who got her start in the writers’ room of one the most successful sitcoms of the 21st century, The Office, and went on to create six seasons of The Mindy Project—does miss the grind, somedays. “I’m part of a dying breed of comedy writers who were trained on a network comedy, with hard jokes, with 22 to 25 episodes a year that ran for 9 years,” Kaling said, when asked how working on her many streaming projects compared to working on more traditional shows and films. “I know and love that big, ambitious network schedule and lifestyle.” That said, she also loves the creative freedom that comes with streaming. “I honestly love working on both.”

Her next project for Netflix, Never Have I Ever, will be her most personal one to date. Co-created with Mindy Project writer-producer Lang Fisher, Kaling called it “unlike anything else I’ve worked on.” Though it takes place in modern-day, it’s based partially on Kaling experiences growing up as an Indian-American teenager. Maitreyi Ramakrishna stars as the lead role, Devi, a young girl dealing with the loss of her father. But don’t worry, there’s still plenty of whimsy: Real-life tennis icon John McEnroe will narrate the series, a nod to Devi’s late father’s favorite athlete.

“[Never Have I Ever] is similar to my other work because Maitreyi is a big comedy character with an unusual personality,” Kaling said, “but also deals with the emotional fallout of death and trauma. Lang and I have both dealt with that personally and wondered why we hadn’t seen that in shows before.”

Late Night is now streaming on Amazon Prime, and Never Have I Ever is set to premiere on Netflix in 2020.

Watch Late Night on Amazon Prime Video

Watch Four Weddings and a Funeral on Hulu