Youre deal with guys that are extraordinary baseball players. I think we sometimes forget that because we focus on the superstars making the multimilliondollar contracts. The guys are 100 levels above guys like and you me. I played high school baseball. These guys are 100 levels above us. Just to get to triple a, youve beaten the odds. Rose we conclude with a conversation of the web site impossible. Com, and we talk with lily cole, jonathan zittrain, and David Kirkpatrick about the internet and more. At this point in time its all very normative things, peer to peer. And thats where i think hopefully the power lie lies isw we might meet needs we normally pay for. I can post out im getting rid of these things from my house. Or i would love to borrow someones guitar because im going to do a gig. Or i could teach spanish or get advice on this, that, or the other. Rose mindy kaling, John Feinstein, lily cole, jonathan zittrain, and David Kirkpatrick when we continue. Captioning sponsored by Rose Communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. Rose mindy kaling is the star of the the Mindy Project. The Comedy Series returns to fox this tuesday and has just been renewed for a third season. She is also the shows creator, writer, and coexclusive producer. I am pleased to have her here on this program. Welcome. Thank you. I am so happy to be here. Rose there is a measure of stardom in this building. A whole lot of young people work here busy behind computers and other kinds of machines, and when they somehow converge on the floor that i have my studio, you know that Something Special is going on between you and those people. Theyll interrupt everything to come, as they did for you. What do you think it is . Im so excited to hear that. Rose what do you represent . What do i represent . I i dont know. You know, i think that for young women, particularly minority women, that i have the job that i have is exciting for them. And i know that i i try not to think about it too much because i i have too many other things to do, but being the first Indian American woman with your own show and the show is not particularly about race is really exciting for people. And i love that. And it feels like a nice responsibility. Rose what is it about . What is the show about . Rose yeah. The show is about being a better person. And its about someone who is flawed and selfish and boy crazy, who is terrified of aging. Who is very professionally busy and accomplished, but who is fixated on things that are sort of a little bit beneath her intelligence, but shes still fixated on them. I know plenty of women who are College Educated doctors, lawyers, professors, even, who are candidly want to get married, and they have great lives. They have money. They have great relationships with their friends, and they want to get married. And there is an embarrassment you feel if youre a little overeducated for wanting those things but it exists. And thats kind of what this show is about, i think. Rose i knew a little bit about you preparing for this conversation. You know a little bit about me. And when i sat down with you this is true you just seem like a person i would really like to know because we talked about magazine covers. We talked about observations about life. You know, and i think thats part of what you have. People feel like theyre interested in what you say and who are you because theres an authenticity about you. Thats very kind of you. Thats such a nice compliment. The nicest thing that i hear, and i hear it a lot, is women especially saying they wished they that i was their best friend, which is i think i wish you were my best friend. I dont hear it from straight men that often, so i will say thats a little bit more thats very nice to hear. Rose here is your book. Is everyone hanging out without me . I mean, here is elle magazine. All of this suggests you created your own thing, and then they came to you. I am very proud of the way that i have made my way. Because i do feel that i my mother was a surgeon. My father is an architect. They grew up in india. They met in africa and then came here. And theres no people on tv on either side of my family, no entertainers to speak of. And i was just really blessed to have parents who growing up loved jerry seinfeld, loved bill cosby, loved george carl and i know they encouraged this, although they didnt quite understand it. And i just eye really feel and this is this is going to make me sound like im 1,000 years old, but this could only happen in america, and im weirdly patriotic because my parents are immigrants and i feel so unbelievably luck they it just came from grit, you know. I dont know how many 34yearold women talk about their own grit, but i meaning determination and will. Determination. My mother, who is an ob gyn, emigrated to this country, and worked backbreakingly hard to have a career here, especially after moving from africa. I virtually never saw my parents growing up because of how hard they worked and i aplield that to entertainment which worked out, which to me just makes me feel kind of good about the country in a way, because i couldnt have done this in india, i dont think. Rose and you have in fact said if i knew i was going to have my own show, id have to do it myself. Absolutely. Rose whats the vision for the Mindy Project . I love romantic comedies and ive spoken about it a lot. And what are silly about them and what are wonderful about them. In general i found recently in romantic comedies the focus is on romance and not comedy at all. I think now its just about romance and silliness and girls wearing fancy dresses and falling into cakes and things like that. And i came up the office and i came up from a group of very hard comedy writers, and theyre of which you were one. I believe i am. If i can say that. And i believe in hard joke writing and the people that i love write hard jokes. They get youre in the trenches, and i think that to have a show with a female lead and people often say that im very girlie, i take such pride in writing jokes, and its a very oldfashioned thing. Its Something Like mel brooks did, sid caesar did. And thats how i was trained at the office. And tina fey puts a huge value on the hard joke. And i wanted that to be in my show. Rose whats a hard joke . Im tell you what its not fthats okay. Theres a lot of shows that are on, like, attitude. And its irreverent attitude which by the way is very interesting and fashion and poses. A hard joke to me, first of all, makes you laugh out loud, and a lot of comedies they watch by the way, im not saying my show necessarily would make you laugh out loud. I think its funny. But a show that sounds like there was a like a crafted joke and it has, like it shows craftsmanship. Yes. Rose exactly. Well written. People know its been finally tuned. Seinfeld has said to me and others, its not easy. He finally stopped the seinfeld show because it was so hard and they wanted to load up the truck and drop money on him. He said, no, i was writing on Christmas Eve last year. I dont want to be doing that this year. Its hard. Its hard, especially with someone who is a master of jokes. Because hes so good, like louis ck, for instance, spills his whole life. Hes one of the funniest people i think ever born. And he just seems like hes telling stories of his life but its filled with jokes and seinfeld is amazing in another way because he doesnt let you in at all and he lives and dies by the goodness of his jokes and theyre so good. Rose where are you on that arc . Theyre both masters. The character in the show is very wild and parties. But i myself am very different from her. I mean, i was saying on this show last year, i think i counted she had Something Like nine boyfriends on the show. And i was thinking like, god, i have i only know nine men in my life, in my entire life i think ive met nine men. Rose because youve been working so hard. Yeah. I like that about the character, thats really fun. But im more retiring. I like to does stardom change that . I dont upon that i have stardom, actually. I think that im on the cover of this, but i think that in general its ellemagazine. Do you know how many people would kill to be on the cover of elle. I love it. I love how serious i look. Thats whats nice about the fashion magazines is i they tell you not to smile, and you do look much more alluring when you dont smile but adjectives like alluring and mysterious if youre me and my personality you live your whole life to be told youre alurling. Rose and smokey. Thats why i love the cover. Though not a representation of what my personality is like. Here is what b. J. Covac said. He said, shes a gangster. I love that. Rose what do you think he meant . Well, i think he meant and i dont think he meant this in a bad way there are some very masculine aspects of my personality. And tough, determined, driven . Decisive. Rose decisive. When i started at the show, i think people were surprised how decisive i was. And in general, we dont see that in women, especially not noentertainment, decisiveness without disclaimers. And in fact it can seem very curt. But when i say i like something or dont like something, and i notice a lot of women are like, i feel like that might be a good option, although i see both sides of it. And im not like that at all. Which in a man seems natural and inspires confidence. In a woman, it can seem brusque. And i know that. And i sometimes wish i wasnt that way. But i cant help it. Im impatient, which i think is another gangster quality. But i watched did you ever see the september issue, its a documentary about anna winter. And they asked her what makes you a good leader . And the timing was perfect. Without hesitation she said, my decisiveness. And people think shes cold. And i bet its because of theyre scared by her certainty. And i thought well, its not that bad. Shes one of the great minds. Rose i just interviewed larry page, and i think he would say the same thing. Yes. Rose in other words, they dont let perfect be the enemy of good. Theyre prepared to make a decision, even if it might not be a perfect decision. I love that. Thats so perfectly how i live my life so of course i love it. Thats a very i want to memorize that so i can justify my nature. Rose since were talking about the the mindy projec th tell me about mindy leherey. Mindy leherey i love her and i think shes an incredibly original character because shes politically all over the map. She has real streaks of libertarianism. She says absolutely selfish and crazy things sometimes which is so fun as a character. I alec baldwin in 30 rock some of the things he says are such gifts. My character says, i dont like that america recycles. I think it makes us look poor, frankly. She has that kind of energy about it and she has the conviction of knowing things are correct because she feels theyre correct. Rose could you make her more interesting . I mean, is it possible to make her more interesting because shes the way she has the background she has and looks the way she does . My character probably could not exist. I think its a good point, if she was not indian. Rose exactly. Because if i was being played by, frankly, a thin, beautiful blond woman, you might find it incredibly insufferable. But i have the traipings of a marginalized person, and when that person is disiels decisively saying sort of conservative things and all over the map things another thing about my character which i love is shes constantly insisting that shes young and hot to everyone. And shes always saying like, im a smoking hot doctor who makes a lot of money. Why cant i meet anybody . And she has this confidence thats, like, so delusional. And i dont see a lot. Rose its not my fault. Its somebody elses fault im not meeting somebody. Right. People are pitted against her. Shes very plucky and people cant really get her down, which i think is nice. Rose heres a clip from the spring premiere episode of the Mindy Project, coming up on april 1. Here it is. Another you two, get out of here. Go do something useful, all right, scram. Sit down. See this . I want you to show me on this what you did to cliff last night. What . Show me. Okay, this is dumb. Sure, fine, danny. His arm was i dont know, like, here, and his hand was i guess a bit cupped. On your breast. Yes. And what else, what else . My hand was here, and that thats the groin. I did not sleep with cliff. I slept next to cliff because he was very, very sad. Nothing major happened. Wait a minute. What do you mean nothing major happened . I massaged his jeans. Was he in the jeans . Cliff might have my hand, but you, you have my heart. And you have to write his grandmothergrandmothersgrandm. You write it by yourself unless you sprained your hand last night. You know what i mean . Rose thats her. Thats her. Rose tell me about the relationship with danny. Danny is another corkt that works in the office in the beginning of the first season they had a very adversarial relationship but over the course of two years have become very friendly, and theres been sort of a sexual tension building underneath them. And his character, like my character, is incredibly strong and confident. Very masculine. Rose played by chris mussina. Who is unbelievable. Hes so good. He had not done a lot of comedy when i first approached him for the role. He, in fact, was in damages playing a soldier in iraq. But there was something about his intensity, and i come off i sound like a 15yearold girl when i talk as you can see, and theres something about him that was so masculine and so tough they thought played very well with my energy. And it turned out to be correct because i think we have good chemistry. Rose all the cameos, specifically james franco, come out of your mind . Were very lucky on the show because its a dating show, and so many of my friends who are writers and creators are men who could be people they dated. So we have a lot of writeerly actors on the show. Franco came on. He was so funny and not surprisingly very strange on the show. Hes wonderful. Seth rogan. Glenn howington. We have a lot of writerperformers who come and play my boyfriend. Rose does your success represent anything about diversity, anything about the possibilities of expanding the world of women in comedy . I hope so. I hope so. I mean, even when i started on the office, and that was nine years ago, when i started on that show, there were not that many femaleled comedy shows. And now several of my favorite shows, like veep 30 rock thats sorts of the way of life. Not only are they led by women lena dunham, tina fey they created their own shows. So even in the years ive been here, that changed a lot. Being a darkskinned minority, i hope there are more women who look like me who have their own shows. Carrie washington on scandal. And thats a hit show with many, many more millions of people watch that show. Rose what do you think of lena dunhams work . I love lena. I love lena, and i think love her or love the character or both . I think on purpose the character is hard to love. That is a very, very interesting and very selfish character. Rose because shes exhibitionist . The exhibitionist thing has never bothered me, although a lot of other people are bothered by it. She is in many ways like my character. The character is supremely confident in which she doesnt necessarily have the goods to back it up. And that makes her controversial. Lena is a true artist and i dont think shes setting out to do a sitcom. I think shes setting out to do a show that she likes that happens to be really funny and i think there are parts of the show that are brilliant. Sometimes i feel old for that show. Lena is nine years younger than me. Rose youre not in the target audience. I think i am in the target audience, but i think the show fearlessly its a very frank show. Im on a network show about romance and love and doctors. But me personally, i i nudity and frankness in sexual situations and things like that, i am just the way that i was raised. I am very shy around it because i wasnt i didnt you know, my parents arent distinguished artists the way that lena was that were raised that way. Rose she grew up in an environment that was much more accepting of yes, she grew up in manhattan with artists as parents. Yeah, i yeah, i didnt have that same experience. Im not saying its always comfortable watching it, but i always i love it. And i will say this oridge nalt, theres nothing like it on television. And originality is truly, i think, the most important thing on any show. Its why the people who love my show love it because they are not finding that in any other show. And why lena is such a lightning rod because whatever youll say about her, no ones doing it, and only she can do it. So did you realize that about yourself at an early age, they have to find whats unique and original about me and write to that . You know, i i dont know if i looked for it. You know, i saw dave shapelle on the show and you guys were talking about the essence of funny. Rose right. And he even qualified it by saying i know this is going to sound cocky but there are just people who are funny. And i have felt in my life that when people are drawn to me and my opinions, its always been the things that are less effortful, which i always thought was very lucky. My to be kind of a new money child of immigrants, and im very patriotic, and i have this very strange mix of qualities who loves comedy, lovesritiness and glitz, all those things are im blessed with them, im blessed with kind of this original point of view for many americans, and if i stay true to it, what i really love, people respond to it. Whats so weird to me is there arent a lot of people like me. There are girls who like the show and it is reaching them. And thats one of the nicest things about the show, its resinating for people who are not the child of indian immigrant. Its interesting. Rose is it for you a logical extension of the office . I run my writers room, because greg daniels who createdly the American Office to me is my mentor, brilliant. The type of writers on my show are very similar to the office. A couple of whom are from the the office. I run the room the same way. That was a mocumentary. What was beautiful about it was what was beautiful is what was simple and my show was not at all like that. What was beautiful is beautiful. People have nice clothes. They have money. Its in new york city. Its not scranton, pennsylvania. But i run the room in the same way. So tonally, i actually think theres a lot of similarities. Rose and you learned what from correl. From correl . Well, on the office i was number 14 on the call sheet, which means if there are 13 actors that precede me in importance. In hollywood theyre kind of nice because they kind of openly say things like that, im number 14, which is very low on the totem pole. And steve, of course, is number one. Whats nice is youre number 14 and are on a show for eight y