Even Mindy Kaling’s 5-month-old daughter seems to understand that being in the presence of Oprah Winfrey requires being on your best behavior.
On “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” Monday, Kaling recalled the time she and her daughter, Katherine Swati, were invited to Winfrey’s house for a special film screening. (The movie of choice was “A Wrinkle in Time,” in which Kaling and Winfrey co-starred.)
Unfortunately for Kaling, Katherine had been “really fussy” while en route to the screening. However, that changed once the mother and daughter arrived at Winfrey’s palatial estate in Montecito, California.
“We walked into the door, and her eyes went wide, and she stopped crying. She knew she was in Oprah’s house,” Kaling told host Ellen DeGeneres. “And then she was just coyly smiling and being adorable for the next four hours.”
The “Ocean’s 8” star also revealed that she’s not particularly looking forward to turning 39 on June 24.
“There’s something about a ‘9’ that is hard to handle. Like, I’d rather be 40 for two years straight than 39,” she told DeGeneres. “I feel like when people ask your age and you say 39, you feel like clinging to your 30s in this really lame way.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Kaling and DeGeneres snapped a selfie, which Kaling then sent to a text chain of her “Ocean’s 8” cohorts Sandra Bullock, Cate Blanchett, Anne Hathaway, Rihanna, Awkwafina, Helena Bonham Carter and Sarah Paulson.
As expected, the stars’ responses were magical ― and, in some cases, profoundly hilarious.