4 Creative Lessons from Mindy Kaling’s Late Night

Spoiler Alert: There will be no spoilers in this article.

I loathe knowing every single thing that a film is about, so I try to just keep my comments to a minimum and allow those who I’m speaking to the chance to be surprised. 

Call me a purist, but I love the excitement of awe and magic that can come from theatre, film and books. Don’t need to have a full rundown of the entire script before I see something. When I step into a theatre — movie or otherwise — I’m suspending my disbelief and allowing the actors and company to take me on a journey.

Okay. Stepping off of my soapbox now.

I grew up performing. My first passion is the stage, so it surprised no one when I moved to L.A. to pursue acting. It was something I talked about for ages and ages. 

Shortly after landing in L.A. for the second time, I landed myself in a beginning level improv class at The Second City Hollywood where I would study, work, perform and graduate from.

So, when I first saw the trailer for Late Night, I was in. Mindy Kaling and Emma Thompson in a movie about women working in late night television? Hi. Hello. Nice to meet you.

I’m a sucker for a film that can showcase the elusiveness that is comedy, and especially comedy writing. When I saw Amazon released the film this weekend, I watched it immediately.

What I wasn’t prepared for, was how much it would remind me of so many insecurities I had and particularly, how so many of us are crippled because we feel inadequately prepared for what we really want to be doing. 

So, I’ll share what I learned from Late Night, but told with my own stories because I don’t want to be that jerk who ruined it for everyone else. And I’ll start with the biggest lesson of all.

Everyone is Faking It

There’s this myth that people who are working in the field you want to work in are so much better at their craft than you.  

For Late Night, it was comedy writing, but it could be any field, any position, anyone. 

There is this belief that you are inferior because you’re you.

Drop a gal in L.A. with some big dreams and wide eyes, and she’s going to think everyone else is awesome and made for television. But after six months, she’s quick to figure out that’s just not true It’s amazing what a good walk, a few catch phrases and some mediocre knowledge can do for someone.

When I worked in national media years after I left L.A., that’s when I really understood how everyone was just making things up. I loved the people who I worked with and admired a good bunch of them, but no one was born supernaturally gifted.

Even the people at the top of any industry, the ones who are supposed to know and be good at all of the things, aren’t always. So whenever you think someone has it all figured out, they don’t. They’re just praying you don’t notice.

Sometimes, You’re Born with It

I say this being proud of my training and background in theatre, improv and otherwise: Sometimes, the best people in the room aren’t the ones who have had the most training.

Much of your time as a performer or artist is spent either talking about where you’ve studied or who you’ve studied with. It’s validation that you’ve put in the work and know the true struggle behind the craft.

And then, someone comes into a class or audition and completely kills with no formal training at all. 

Everyone hates that person.

At Second City, people loved to tell these stories: “So and so never took an improv class and ended up on the Mainstage.” That was the ultimate for anyone studying or performing at Second City in L.A., Chicago or Toronto. The Mainstage meant you had made it. You were the best of the best.

So, if someone made it without a single bit of training over hundreds of people who had spent hours and hours in classes and studying shows, it would be a hard blow.

There’s an entitlement that comes from dedication to a craft. 

And even though people try to convince you that you need name recognition for training, you can’t ignore great. Plenty of people drain their bank accounts to take “one more class”, and they just can’t see that maybe, the training doesn’t matter. 

That’s not to say that even if you’re innately good at something, you won’t have to work hard. But it does mean that instead of tripping over who you know, what you’ve done etc., maybe just concentrate on the task at hand.

If you’re really good, the only thing people can say is, “Yes, And”.

There’s Not One Way In

I have some friends who still swear by casting director workshops. If you don’t know, for these workshops you pay a fee to work through some scenes in a workshop with a casting director or their assistant.

But it was never for me. I knew that wasn’t my way in, whatever that means. 

For so many of us who don’t have a “linear” career path, it’s hard to navigate our field because anything could happen. You gather stories from other friends of how they did it, and what you should do. If you listen to everyone else though, you’ll never be able to make the moves you want because your mind will be cluttered with other people’s thoughts.

If there’s no one way, it means that any way could be your way. 

Actors have DM’d directors or hopeful entrepreneuers have called into shows and been offered jobs.

There are no true gatekeepers anymore. The internet has created a freedom that so many people still don’t know what to do with. 

You don’t have to know what to do, but you need to just do something. 

Risk > Comfort

Somewhere along the way, we convince ourselves that if we put ourselves out there, if we’re really honest about our hopes and dreams, that it makes us weak. More than anything, Late Night reminded me of how very not alone I am in that fear of exposing what you really want.

There’s a risk in being the hopeless believer because you could hope and dream for your whole life and end up with nothing. You could publish a book that no one reads, release a feature film that flops or be completely booed off stage.

And while those things would hurt, the deeper question and the only one you should be asking is, what will you lose by not trying at all?