Mindy Kaling has been honoured with the Norman Lear Award at the 2023 PGAs.

During the PGA Awards held on Saturday night, The Office star was presented with the Norman Lear Achievement Award, handed by her co-star BJ Novak.

In her acceptance speech, she acknowledged the significant role her parents played in her life and credited “luck” for being her secret weapon.

“Like most people, everything goes back to parents. I’m a child of immigrants and that unexpectedly became my secret weapon,” she said in her acceptance speech, via Deadline. “I owe it to my parents but also to luck. I won the lottery in mentors with Greg Daniels and Howard Klein the producers of The Office.”

Mindy recalled Greg let her write and edit the show despite her lack of experience at the time, joking, “I wasn’t even one of their nieces or someone who could potentially become one of their second wives.”

The actress thanked “groundbreaking icons like Norman Lear who paved the way for all kinds of people”, and shared it was “so exciting” to give artists of colour opportunities “and watch them get poached by Marvel”.

While presenting Mindy with the award, BJ recounted working on the “ill-fated American version of The Office”, when Mindy “cared so much” about details including “Beyonce versus Rihanna” and “the correct tempo at which to sing Happy Birthday.”

The actor also remembered the pair’s “boundary-less, romantic, toxic mess” of a relationship, saying, “We were in love with each other.”

BJ and Mindy met in 2004 on the set of The Office and dated casually until 2007. Mindy later named BJ as the godfather of her children – Katherine Swati and Spencer Avu.

– Cover Media