- Hello, I'm Mindy Kaling.
- And I am Dame Emma Thompson.
- I'm an extraordinary, talented young writer and performer.
- I am a two time Oscar winning actress,
activist, mother, mother of dragons.
Now I'm making things up.
- And we'll answer some questions
that we have in this cute little cup.
(happy upbeat music)
- What's the best piece of advice someone told you
that you still live by to this day?
- Always laugh in the face of disaster.
- That's a great one.
My piece of advice is before you can say I love you
you must be able to say I.
It's a riddle.
It's just that before you can say
to somebody else that you love them
you need to be able to know who you are
and what you stand for.
- Yes, yes absolutely because love
romantic love is generally a projection
of the impossible onto the other person.
And so, it's a very difficult space.
And you need to be very careful with it.
I think that's very good advice.
Very good advice.
- As a teenager in 2019, how do I not succumb
to peer pressure but also not come off as lame?
- That's like saying how do you live.
- I think the problem is everyone always says
just be yourself but then what if yourself is dorky
to other people, it's very hard.
I think you just have to wait it out.
- Absolutely trust your instincts.
They are you sword and your shield
and they will never let you down.
The things that you really feel inside yourself
don't crush 'em down 'cause you think
that other people will think that they're lame.
But if you can stick to that, you'll be safer.
- I was moved by that.
(Emma chuckles)
- Like Katherine's character in Late Night,
she's strong but is described as being mean
and abrasive, how do you handle being
a boss lady when so few people accept
women in powerful positions?
- So many of the adjectives that are used
to describe a successful leader are attributed to men.
- Indeed.
- Decisive is the most common because I'm very decisive.
- Which would be termed bossy, you know,
that's what people would say about women.
- So the way I handle it is I kind
of let my work speak for itself.
If you kind of ignore what the other people
are thinking and focus on the work
and the work is good, then people
don't think of you as bossy, they think
of you, oh she was decisive because the product was good.
- And remember the personal power.
That is to say, your character,
the nature of your character which is built
on every action of every day.
The nature that is your willpower.
And that's the power that really counts
and is what will get you through life.
- How do you handle rejection and stay confident
in yourself especially in an industry
where you hear no way more often than you hear yes?
How do I handle rejection?
Very poorly, actually.
And it's something that when you feel it enough
you get more used to and it sort of feels less bad.
The other thing that has helped me
with handling rejection is I'm always working
on several different things that I care a lot about.
So, at any time, if I feel a rejection
in one thing, I'm like okay, it stings
and it never doesn't sting but I have other things
that I'm working on that I feel equally passionate about.
- I've had some rejections of work
that have been genuinely I would say quite damaging
in the sense that they've made me feel
I'd better not do this anymore better not do this.
But I think Mindy's right.
If you're creative and something's been rejected
you must then turn and just start again.
Bit like getting back on the horse isn't it?
- Mhm.
- Not everything you do will be good.
However good you are, not everything you do will be good.
And also, failure is a vital importance
to your development as a creative person
or as any person, really.
- What's that great saying that you learn
more from your failures than from your successes?
That is so true.
- It's very true.
What advice do you have for people trying
to navigate an office romance or relationship?
Don't.
Mm mm mm.
Just don't because it will end in tears.
It'll end with you in the boxroom
wherever you keep the computer cartridges, sobbing.
- Now you famously married your co-star.
- That's not an office relationship.
I'm not shoved, well that's like
okay yeah fair enough, I did it twice.
But the first time didn't work out so well, did it?
No, so shush.
- How do you go about breaking up
with friends when the relationship has turned toxic?
- That's a good one.
I think the way that I've learned
that I used to be young and dramatic
and need to have a big talk and we need
to stop hanging out and what I realized
was that drifting away is the way to do it.
I think that having a confrontation
is probably the least helpful because it makes
it more dramatic and more heightened.
And you feel like you're inextricably drawn
together because of the passion of the fight.
So, I find that when I'm with a toxic friendship
that I just have to stop showing up for things,
canceling plans but always being cheerful
and happy about it while I slowly inch away.
- And I think as someone who's very old,
it might be useful for you all to know
that not all friendships last.
That friendships like books or words
or feelings, they are sometimes are appropriate
for a particular time in your life
and then they become inappropriate.
And if you're anything like me,
you think, I've gotta do everything
I can to save this friendship because you feel bad.
And actually, you don't have to do that.
You can look at the friendship and say
what was this person bringing to me.
Are they making me happy in any way?
And if they are, well then, you work out where to meet.
If they're not, because you were asking
about, particularly about toxic friendships
then you need to just drift away.
- Like Molly's character in Late Night,
a lot of women slash women of color
are one of few, if not the only ones
in their office, how do you navigate
being in a room where no one looks like you?
At least in TV comedy writing world it's growing
less common which is nice than it was once.
It's you can't change anyone really.
You can't change the people you're with.
You can only learn from the experience you're in
and then hope that in success
you can create a different one.
I was the only woman and the only person
of color on a show but that was a place
where people were very open minded.
But that won't always be the case.
The real way to get through something like that
is to work hard separately on your own thing
so that you can succeed and create a different environment.
- I mean I did it for years when I was doing comedy.
I was the only woman and all the boys thought
that was fantastic for me 'cause I got all the
attention. - Attention.
And so was I made to feel bad about the fact
that I had no one else who was like me in the room.
You have to be quite self-reliant actually.
So, in a sense I suppose you can look at it
in quite a creative space in the end
because you really are forced to develop yourself.
What advice do you have for someone
trying to be an actress coming from
a family that's telling you
to do something more realistic?
You can just pretend that you work in retail
and then just carry on doing your auditions.
And say, you know, it's really great
in the shoe department in Macy's and that'll shut them up.
You don't have to tell them everything.
You know, sometimes, being creative is
if you're surrounded by people going,
oh for heaven's sake, get a grip
you're never going to earn a living,
you can just sort of lie.
- The great thing about people who are successful
as actors is I would say a majority of them
did not have people supporting them.
- I feel like we should send out machetes
with some of these responses.
God, sorry.
- I'm currently stuck in a cycle
of perpetual destruction.
- Oh, what do you mean?
- Any advice on how to get out of this
creative slump and start writing again?
I'm inspired by terrible things
so what I like to do, is when I'm feeling
creatively, humdrum or whatever,
is I like to just go see a terrible movie
and I feel this instant inspiration.
- Go to the disaster zones.
I pictured her in the Mozambique
going well you know, nothing can be this bad.
Wait, I've got a really good idea.
- Maybe that would work.
No, not that kind of terrible.
I like to see things that are bad
because it makes me feel like,
I can do that so much better and I find it very inspiring.
- Reading any magazine about the creative
endeavor that you're involved in
just don't ever do that because you always think
everyone's making much better things than you
and there's way too many films being made
and why are you even bothering.
So, it's good to avoid that, I think
to keep yourself creative, you kind of have
to go and walk the streets.
How do you get over a breakup especially
when the breakup wasn't your decision?
- Arson.
Burn that house down immediately.
- Or if there are curtain rods,
take off the ends and push prawns
into the space and they will never ever
be able to get rid of the smell
or know where the smell is coming from.
(happy music)