‘They Can’t Be in High School Forever’: Mindy Kaling Says it Makes Sense to End ‘Never Have I Ever’ at Fourth Season
- The Netflix series premiered in April 2020 and follows Indian American teenager Devi Vishwakumar as she navigates the ups and downs of high school life.
Mindy Kaling, the co-creator of the Netflix coming-of-age series “Never Have I Ever” believes that the upcoming fourth season is the right time to end the popular show. “Four seasons for a high school show felt like it made sense,” Kaling told ET in an interview last week. “They can’t be in high school forever. We’ve seen those shows. Like, you’ve been in high school for 12 years. What is going on here?” She also noted that “the actors get older and it starts looking insane that a 34-year-old is playing a 15-year-old.”
The series premiered in April 2020 and follows Indian American teenager Devi Vishwakumar (Maitreyi Ramakrishnan) as she navigates the ups and downs of high school life. The second season kicked off with an exploration of Devi’s increasingly complicated love triangle, and in March, the streamer announced that there was more fun to come. Netflix said that season 3 is scheduled to return this summer, and the fourth season will premiere in 2023.
In its most recent season, audiences saw Devi navigate her feelings for popular jock Paxton Hall-Yoshida (Darren Barnet) and her former nemesis Ben Gross (Jaren Lewison). By the season 2 finale, the story was officially brought full circle and she ultimately chose Paxton over Ben.
In a statement released last month, Bela Bajaria, Netflix Head of Global TV, said the streamer is “thrilled” about the dramedy’s next chapters. “It’s everything we want in a Netflix comedy series: authentic, specific, funny, and full of heart. I love that a story I relate to so deeply – about a young, Indian American girl – hits on so many universal truths that resonate with just about everyone,” Bajaria said in the statement, according to People magazine. ”We’re eternally grateful to Mindy, Lang and the wildly talented cast. And we can’t wait for everyone to see the final two seasons.
Kaling recently made many heads turn with her svelte look. The 42-year-old, who recently lost weight, spoke to Entertainment Tonight about her weight loss journey. Stressing that she “didn’t really do anything differently,” Kaling said she eats what she likes. “If I do any kind of restrictive diet, it never really works for me. I just eat less of it.” Wishing that “there was something more juicy or dynamic” about the way that she” lost a little bit of weight,” she told Entertainment Tonight, “but that’s the way I’ve done it.”
After the birth of her first child, her daughter Kathrine, Kaling had to shoot a movie two months later, and pretty much ate “grilled salmon and sautéed spinach,” for three months to lose the weight. However, after giving birth to Spencer, Kaling didn’t “have those pressures” to face as quarantine continued. “It was this almost extended maternity leave,” she told Entertainment Tonight. “I wasn’t going to be on camera, the studios were shut down,” she said.
In an interview with People magazine, she admitted to feeling “really scrutinized” during her first pregnancy.”I think that it was such a joy to spend the last seven months of my pregnancy under the cover of just nobody was out, nobody was taking photos.”