Inside Mindy Kaling’s Mind of Romance: Her Spiciest TV Hot Take & More

If there is one entertainer out there who is as in love with romance as we are here at Swooon, it’s Mindy Kaling. From her Ryan-smitten and slightly unstable Kelly Kapoor on The Office to the snark-eyed optimism of The Mindy Project to creating and writing Netflix’s flirty/dirty duo Never Have I Ever and The Sex Lives of College Girls, Kaling has been a champion of comically complicated love (and inclusive storytelling) for nearly two decades.

Fittingly, her affair with affairs of the heart was formed by the O.G. queen of such things. “My parents growing up were very, what’s the word? Strict about what we read and what we watched,” admits the devoted mother of two. “[But] romantic comedy movies were kind of okay. So I feel like Sleepless in Seattle…you know, Nora Ephron was classy. That was a very classy, those kinds of Nora Ephron-type of movies were totally fine. So yeah, I would say Nora Ephron was my way in.”