Kaling devised her stage name after discovering while doing stand-up comedy that emcees would have trouble pronouncing her last name , Chokalingam , and sometimes made jokes about it . She toured solo as well as with Craig Robinson before he was on '' The Office . '' In August 2002 , Kaling portrayed Ben Affleck in an off-Broadway play called '' Matt & Ben '' , which she co-wrote with her best friend from college , Brenda Withers — who played Matt Damon . The play was named one of '' Time '' magazine 's " Top Ten Theatrical Events of The Year " and was " a surprise hit " at the 2002 New York International Fringe Festival . Initially , Withers and Kaling had , " for their own entertainment , mockingly pretended to be the best friends Matt Damon and Ben Affleck ; that pretending spawned '' Matt & Ben '' , the goofy play that reimagined how Damon and Affleck came to write the movie '' Good Will Hunting '' . " Kaling wrote a blog , '' Things I 've Bought That I Love '' , which reemerged on her website on September 29 , 2011 . The blog was written under the name Mindy Ephron , " a name Kaling chose because she was amused by the idea of her 20-something Indian-American self as a long-lost Ephron sister . " In 2004 , when '' The Office '' producer Greg Daniels was working to adapt '' The Office '' from the BBC TV series of the same name , he hired Kaling as a writer-performer after reading a spec script she wrote . He said , " She 's very original ... If anything feels phony or lazy or passé , she ’ll pounce on it . " When Kaling joined '' The Office '' , she was 24 years old and was the only woman on a staff of eight . She took on the role of character Kelly Kapoor , debuting in the series ’s second episode , " Diversity Day . " In a 2007 interview with '' The A.V. Club '' , she stated that Kelly is " an exaggerated version of what I think the upper-level writers believe my personality is . " Kaling directed '' The Office '' webisode '' The 3rd Floor '' . She directed the Season 6 episode titled " Body Language , " which marked her television directorial debut . Her contract was set to expire at the end of Season 7 . On September 15 , 2011 , she signed a new contract to stay with the show for Season 8 and was promoted to full executive producer . Her Universal Television contract included a development deal for a new show ( eventually titled '' The Mindy Project '' ) , in which she appears as an actress and contributes as a writer
New York International Fringe Festival
New York International Fringe Festival
Mindy Kaling