Good Hang with Amy Poehler

Podbit · Good Hang with Amy Poehler

Mindy Kaling

Explore episode Jun 30, 2026
TV & Film
Why Mindy Sets Her Shows in Worlds She Doesn't Have to Research

Mindy Kaling · Jun 30, 2026 TV & Film

The Mindy Project was set in an OB-GYN practice because Mindy's mother was one — she barely had to research anything. Her mother spent every day with women sharing their most intimate secrets. That intimacy became the DNA of the show's world, even as the character couldn't be more different from her mom.

Where this was said

The Mindy Project as a Tribute to Her OB-GYN Mother

At 39:58 · chapter starts 39:35

Mindy explains that The Mindy Project's medical setting was chosen partly out of laziness: her mother was an OB-GYN, so she already understood the office culture, the nursing relationships, the intimate confessions of patients. The character herself couldn't be more different from Mindy's mother — but the world felt real because it was. Mindy also reflects on the useful contradiction of having a lead character who is selfish and flawed but whose job is genuinely selfless: helping women through some of the hardest transitions of their lives. The conversation then pivots into a deeply funny detour about whether Mindy or Amy could actually deliver a baby — both conclude they could probably project confidence well enough to get the baby out, but are unanimous that suturing is a bridge too far.

Society & Culture
The Cannes Press Junket — When International Press Gets Rude

Mindy Kaling · Jun 30, 2026 Society & Culture

At the Cannes press junket for Inside Out, Amy and Mindy were asked, more or less directly, why a fat smiling woman should be a star and whether Mindy was really a Hufflepuff pretending to be a Gryffindor. Mindy's response: unlike Javier Bardem, she just laughed and sat there.

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