Fans of The Office might be surprised by this one. Although Kelly Kapoor and Ryan Howard had a wildly unhealthy relationship from the first time they met on the show, no one ever expected that to lead to actual violence, right? Well, maybe some of us did. In a new interview with Variety, Mindy Kaling said she thinks Kelly and Ryan’s romance may have ended in murder. Say what?
When asked if she’d be interested in doing a reboot of the sitcom, Kaling told Variety, “I think that anything [Office creator] Greg Daniels decided to do, I would watch and love and want to help him with.” However, she admitted she wasn’t so certain about how her character, Kelly Kapoor, would factor into a new show.
“There is not an insignificant part of me that thinks that Kelly might be in jail,” she admitted. “Crime of passion? The character just kept getting a little bit more and more unhinged.” Although Kelly and Ryan reunited in the series finale after years of a tumultuous relationship, Kaling said she wasn’t sure they got a happy ending in the long run. “I don’t want to say that she murdered Ryan, but I am also not convinced that he’s still alive in the world of The Office,” she said. “It’s been 11 years, right?”
Where is Kelly Kapoor now? Mindy Kaling weighs in: "I don't want to say that she murdered Ryan, but I'm also not convinced that he's still alive in the world of #TheOffice" https://t.co/8wYmaZ9l9T pic.twitter.com/2wWPoICFWt
— Variety (@Variety) January 23, 2019
Aside from exploring the potentially dark path of her character post-Office finale, Kaling also addressed how her career has changed as a woman of color, both in the writer’s room and on-screen. She told Variety, “The way that writer’s rooms look now versus when I started at The Office in 2004 is night and day. I was the only woman of color on our staff for the entire run of the show, I think, but things have changed a lot since then. We are just demanding more inclusive storytelling. We want to see ourselves reflected. When I was coming up, I didn’t even think I was owed that.”
She also noted that the success of films like Crazy Rich Asians and Black Panther is leading the way for better on-screen representation. “There used to be a sense of obligation — of being shamed into having a token person of color to prove that you weren’t racist,” Kaling said. “Now people are realizing it’s actually valuable to have different perspectives. It’s actually a better way to make money and to reach more people.”
Although an Office reboot doesn’t seem to be in the cards for now, Kaling has plenty of other projects to keep her busy. In addition to being a single mom, she’s also the producer, writer and star of the new film Late Night, also starring Emma Thompson, which is partially based on Kaling’s own experiences being a woman of color in a writer’s room. It will premiere at this year’s Sundance Film Festival.
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