Mindy Kaling has opened up about her pregnancy in her first extended remarks on the subject.
“Really excited. Yeah, it’s really — it’s so unknown to me,” the actress-producer of “The Mindy Project,” 38, gushed to interviewer Willie Geist in a preview clip for NBC’s upcoming edition of “Sunday Today.” “I have a lot of control over a lot of aspects of my life, and this is one where I’m like, ‘OK . . . it’s out of my hands,’ which is kind of a fun feeling.”
She also joked, “Well, as you know, it’s so easy to criticize parenting until you’re a parent, so one of the nice things about becoming a parent is that I’ll be able to openly criticize other parenting because I will have a child!”
Kaling told “Today” that her own mother, the late Boston obstetrician/gynecologist Dr. Swati Chokalingam, provided a role model for parenting. “My mom was incredibly fierce and so devoted to us,” said Kaling, who has not revealed details of her child’s paternity. “[She] just loved us and really wanted us to be happy no matter what we did. My career choice was not something that she was familiar with, and she [still] was just so supportive of that. And if I could give that to my child, just that open-mindedness, I’d be so happy.” Chokalingam died of pancreatic cancer in 2012, on the same day Fox Broadcasting ordered “The Mindy Project” pilot.
Rumors arose in mid-July that Kaling, an Emmy Award-nominated writer-producer for “The Office,” was expecting. Media mogul Oprah Winfrey later told People magazine that Kaling had confided earlier that month to being five months pregnant. The two had been in a press line at the Disney fan event D23 promoting the upcoming Ava DuVernay film, “A Wrinkle in Time,” in which they appear, Winfrey said. “That’s when she told me. My mouth dropped,” Winfrey told the magazine, relating the conversation. “ ‘What did you just say?’ ‘Oh, Oprah, I don’t think you know. I’m five months pregnant.’ And I said, ‘WHAAAAT?!’ ”
She added, “That was it, and we just kept smiling. And then I said to [fellow cast-member] Reese Witherspoon, ‘Did you know?’ and she said, ‘I just found out, too.’ And then I said to [DuVernay], ‘Did you know?’ And she said, ‘I just found out.’ “
