Photo: Courtesy of FOX.Before The Office and The Mindy Project, Mindy Kaling was just another young showbiz hopeful looking for her big (or little) break. That break seemed to come when a network offered Kaling and her writing partner Brenda Withers a sketch-comedy show. But, there was a catch: They had to audition for the roles — roles that were essentially the pair playing comedic versions of themselves — and neither got the part.
"We were not considered attractive or funny enough to play ourselves," Kaling told The Guardian. It was a stumbling block that she called "humiliating," and it wasn't helped by the fact that she later auditioned for Saturday Night Live and was offered a job writing but not as a cast member. By that point, however, she was writing and acting on The Office and would go on to create and star in her own show while the unknown network that wouldn't let her play herself went off the air. We can only imagine its old offices today, serving no other purpose than to house Kaling's vintage VHS collection of rom-coms.
Karma, man. It's real. (The Guardian)