You may have seen Poorna Jagannathan during this week’s episode of Big Little Lies, or even in The Night Of. It’s obvious that HBO loves her, but do you know who else does? Mindy Kaling.
Kaling has hired fellow Indian-American actress Jagannathan in Kaling’s forthcoming Netflix comedy series, according to Yahoo News .
The series is co-created, co-written and executive produced by Kaling and her The Mindy Project co-executive producer Lang Fisher. The project is inspired by Kaling’s childhood so if you’ve read any of her books, you know the series will be hilarious.
Kaling and Fisher will executive produce the Netflix comedy, along with 3 Arts’ Howard Klein and David Miner as well as Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt ‘s Tristam Shapeero.
The show will follow the life of Devi, a first-generation South Asian American girl played by Maitreyi Ramakrisnan, according to The Hollywood Reporter .
Her character is an overachieving high school sophomore with a short fuse, reports Yahoo.
Jagannathan will play Ramakrisnan’s mother in the series.
An opening casting call for Devi drew 15,000 responses, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Ramakrishnan, who hails from Toronto, was eventually cast in her first role. At the time of her casting, she had no representation.
Netflix gave a straight-to-series order for 10 episodes of the currently untitled show, set to shoot in Los Angeles.
Jagannathan has previously been cast as Safar Khan in The Night Of and Katie Richmond, Nicole Kidman’s lawyer, in Big Little Lies. Her next HBO project will be on Share , Pippa Bianco’s feature film adaption of her 2015 Cannes Film Festival and SXSW hit.
Kaling recently departed Universal Television after more than a decade at the studio, according to Variety .
She signed a six-year overall deal at Warner Brothers Television in February. Under the deal, Mindy will develop, write and produce new television projects for all platforms, including broadcast, cable channels and streaming.
The Warner Brothers deal stands to make Kaling more than $8 million a year, Variety reports.
The diverse talent is currently working on a series adaptation of Four Weddings and a Funeral for Hulu.
Kaling’s movie, Late Night — f0r which she wrote, executive produced and stared — co-starred Emma Thompson. The motion picture debuted to acclaim at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival and was later acquired by Amazon Studios for $13 million.
Many other celebrities have left major companies to partner with Netflix, including Ryan Murphy and Kenya Barris. In addition, Shonda Rhimes left ABC for the highly-successful streaming network.
Remember that open casting call for me and @loulielang’s upcoming @netflix series!? WELL everyone…meet Maitreyi Ramakrishnan! She was cast out of 15,000 people, you guys ??? Thank you to every single one of you that auditioned ?? https://t.co/9mbbhnKJNN
— Mindy Kaling (@mindykaling) July 10, 2019