Mindy Kaling speaks at her Hollywood Walk of Fame ceremony

Variety

Transcript

00:00Hi, thank you so much. Nidhia, I'm so in awe of you. I'm so honored you're here.

00:06Eric Garcetti, all of our honored guests that came from so far, thank you so much.

00:12BJ, thank you. Fun fact, my daughter calls BJ Uncle Fofo. I have no idea why that is,

00:23but he's such an important and integral part of my family that sometimes I

00:27forget the reason that I know him is because we work together professionally,

00:31and I'm as starstruck by him now at age 29 as I was when I first met you at 24.

00:39I love you. My friend, Baron Holtz, who's also here today, it's his birthday

00:45actually, so thank you. He always says that whenever anything good

00:51happens, he says to me, take it in men, take it in, be in the moment. And I think

00:56that I am physically incapable of taking things in. I don't know how to be

01:02in the moment. I just don't know. I'm always in the moment after the

01:07moment, regretting what I could have said in the moment. Or I'm before the moment,

01:11and I'm scared of the moment, and I'm sort of hyper-preparing for the moment.

01:15But this is one of the times where I'm just gonna force myself to just be in

01:20the moment. I'm so happy. I love recognition. And this is just incredibly

01:30nice. Thank you to the city of Los Angeles. Thank you to Warner Brothers, my

01:35family, the incredible Channing Dungey, who has fought some major fights with me.

01:41You know, she's texting me from Hawaii on vacation over something at, you know,

01:4711 o'clock at night. The Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, you know, everyone

01:51who made this happen. And anyone who's tuning in right now instead of at school

01:56or working, I love that for you. I'm Hindu, and we practice cremation, which is a

02:02beautiful tradition that my ancestors have done for thousands of years, and so

02:07will I. But also, I'm obsessed with legacy. So sometimes I get disappointed that I

02:13won't have a grave, but this, this is so much better than a grave. I am so

02:20grateful to the fans of my work, and to the audiences who got me here, who

02:26believed in me enough to think that I actually was a star, who watched my shows,

02:30even if their boyfriend said, that looks lame, or they read a review that says, we

02:36liked the first two seasons, but the third one fell off. I'm grateful to

02:40anyone who could just watch me in a movie or pick up my book of essays and

02:44wonder what's on my mind. I'm incredibly grateful to anyone who took a chance on

02:50me. And many of those people are here today. Bela Bajaria, who's kind of my

02:55fairy godmother. Craig Irwick, who's been my fairy godfather several times. And of

03:01course, of course, Greg Daniels. Greg discovered me, like in the good old

03:08fashioned way that you discover someone. He didn't just turn on his phone and

03:12watch me in a TikTok. He had to like sit in a black box theater and watch a play.

03:17Oh, it was terrible. And that's how I got my big break, which is on The Office.

03:23And then there is the great Howard Klein,

03:31who has been my creative partner and my manager for over 20 years. And he has

03:36held my hand through every success and every heartbreak. He and Nancy, his wife,

03:40are like my family. Howard took a chance on me as a staff writer, and he believed

03:44in me. But you know what's more important? He believed that he could one

03:48day make money off me. And you know what? That means more. That is the real

03:54compliment. I want to acknowledge my collaborators, who I'm lucky enough to

04:00consider my close friends. If you can write a movie or make a TV show with

04:04someone at the end of it, you still want to have dinner with them, and

04:07you're not in a protracted legal dispute with them. I think that's pretty good.

04:11And there's several of them here today. Lang, Tracy, Ike, Dave, Warbs, Charlie,

04:18Dan, Akshara, I love you guys. Your brilliance is really why I'm here. And

04:24sure, there's there's probably like a group chat going on where you're

04:26talking about me. But you know what? I don't know won't hurt me. And also, if

04:32you ever do mess with me, you'll be getting a letter from my attorney, PJ

04:34Shapiro, who's also here. Love you, PJ. I really enjoy when people call me a

04:42multi hyphenate. But really, it's only possible because of my reps, Kevin,

04:48Brian, Maha, Joe, Rick, Michael, and my publicist, Katie and Morgan. I love

04:54that I can create a TV show, act in a cool movie, do a pharmaceutical ad for

04:59psoriasis medication, and then head to Fashion Week. And you know what, that's

05:04versatility. So thank you. My two oldest friends are here, Jocelyn and Julia,

05:11whom I adore. They knew me before hair extensions and elastic lash extensions

05:18and trips to Korea to get calf extensions, which haven't worked. By

05:21the way, I'm still pretty short. And they knew me when this was all

05:25hypothetical. And they just listened to me strategizing like a crazy person in

05:30dorm rooms and middle school hallways. But they were the ones that said, man, I

05:34think you could actually do this. Kate, the great Linny, Caroline, you guys

05:40keep my life actually afloat. And I can't even begin to know how to thank

05:44you. I remember as a kid watching messy TV with my mom and my dad. We watched

05:51Friends, Frasier Seinfeld, and my whole family came together for it. My mom

05:56would come back from the hospital where she worked really long days delivering

06:00babies as an OBGYN. And my dad would have just driven two to three hours back

06:05from his job site in Connecticut. And despite how challenging the days were,

06:10we would all sit together at night and watch it to come. It was more than

06:14entertainment for us. It was our way of relaxing, we could put down our defenses

06:19from hard days and just be together. I find it so powerful, that kind of

06:24storytelling on TV, how it was able to bring us together when words failed us

06:29or just took too much energy. I think it's remarkable. I think it's so

06:34remarkable how many connections that you can make by sharing laughs. And from

06:38the earliest age, I thought, I want to do that. I need to do that. And so

06:43lastly, I'm so lucky that my dad is here today.

06:50Can you believe it, dad? He and my mom encouraged me to be an artist by giving

06:56me the gift of autonomy. And these are Indian immigrants in the 1980s and 90s.

07:02And I can't tell you how rare that is and how that is the story is one that I

07:06don't always see with my contemporaries. As a helicopter parent, I can hardly

07:11understand how they were able to do that. But I love you so much, dad. Thank

07:15you. And I love you, mom. Okay, so I did it, folks. I'm really in the moment. And

07:21it feels strange, but nice. And now that we're done, we can all drink cocktails

07:26and eat meatballs at the after party, you can meet my three rambunctious

07:29children. And thank you so much for coming in the middle of the day. It

07:33means the world to me. Thank you to all my friends, anyone I didn't see here.

07:37I'll see you afterwards. And thank you in person. But it means so much to me.

07:40And thank you everybody for watching at home.

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