Mindy Kaling The writer, producer, and showrunner on the status of Legally Blonde 3, cooking with Meghan Markle, and her new Netflix comedy, Running Point

The family in Running Point has shades of Succession. Was that show on your mind?

- ELIANA DOCKTERMAN

The new series, out Feb. 27, is about a family running an NBA team, with Kate Hudson playing a version of real-life Lakers president Jeanie Buss. Where did that idea come from? It was actually Jeanie who reached out because she liked The Mindy Project and The Office. So many people have written about her or made shows where she's a tertiary character. She was like, "I run this. I want to be a producer on a show about my own life."

Did Buss put any guardrails on her life story? She is so open. We consult her for real-life details all the time. There have been very specific players or very specific people in her personal life where she'll say, "Maybe we won't touch upon that," but she says that far less than any other person I've known. She gave us carte blanche on her life because she wanted it to be funny. She knew the realer it gets, the funnier it will be.