Good news, Mindy Kaling fans. Here's another reason to channel the next time someone asks how you feel about your age.
Weeks away from turning 40, the actress speaks to about why she won't be buying into the unrealistic beauty standards for older women in the industry.
When asked about how work might change as she hits the milestone, Kaling's response was both powerful and BS-free.
"Because I never had a career based on my physical beauty, I’m approaching aging without much dread. I was never the person who was, like, Mindy 'The Body' Kaling," she tells Glamour.
"It’s so much harder to control that as we age than our mind or creative ideas," she continues, "As a young person in Hollywood, I wasn’t skinny, and that made my 20s so unnecessarily difficult. It was such an emotional roller coaster, sometimes, of how I looked onscreen compared with what other people looked like. Especially when you are a dark-skinned Indian woman who’s not even traditionally beautiful for Indian people."
Kaling recalls the very things that created anxiety in her 20s actually helped her find steadier footing today.
"The upside of having that difficult time in my 20s is that now I approach my forties without this huge expectation that I need to maintain some sense of beauty. I was never put on a pedestal because of my looks."
Her latest film, which co-stars Emma Thompson, explores similar themes in a male-dominated talk show world. The story follows Thompson as the host of a late-night show on the brink of cancellation, where she faces the anxiety of being replaced by a younger man.
And how does Kaling manage to keep up her killer confidence through the ups and downs of her own career? According to an interview she gave at the, the secret is simple.
"My parents raised me with the entitlement of a tall, blond, white man." There you have it.
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