Vera Mindy Chokalingam (born June 24, 1979), known professionally as Mindy Kaling (), is an American actress, comedian, screenwriter, and producer. She has received numerous accolades for her work, including two Screen Actors Guild Awards and a Tony Award, as well as nominations for six Primetime Emmy Awards. Kaling was recognized by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2013. A decade later she received the Producers Guild of America's Norman Lear Achievement in Television Award, and was awarded the National Medal of the Arts from President Joe Biden.She first gained recognition starring as Kelly Kapoor in the NBC sitcom The Office (2005–2013), for which she also served as a writer, executive producer, and director. For her work on the series, she was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing in a Comedy Series. Kaling gained wider attention for creating, producing and starring as Dr. Mindy Lahiri in the Fox comedy series The Mindy Project (2012–2017). She then expanded her career creating numerous shows such as the NBC sitcom Champions (2018), the Hulu miniseries Four Weddings and a Funeral (2019), the Netflix comedy series Never Have I Ever (2020–2023) and the HBO Max comedy series The Sex Lives of College Girls (2021–present).Her film career includes voice roles in Despicable Me (2010), Wreck-It Ralph (2012), and Inside Out (2015) as well as live action roles in No Strings Attached (2011), The Five-Year Engagement (2012), A Wrinkle in Time and Ocean's 8 (both 2018), and Late Night (2019), the last of which she also wrote and produced. Her memoirs, Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns) (2011) and Why Not Me? (2015), reached The New York Times Best Seller list. She also received a Tony Award for Best Musical as a producer for the musical A Strange Loop.
