“It almost felt too good to be true,” director Nisha Ganatra says of getting the greenlight on her new film, “Late Night,” a workplace comedy starring Emma Thompson and Mindy Kaling, who also wrote the screenplay. “It almost felt like, who’s going to let two Indian-American women write and direct a movie? It was sort of that sneaking feeling of someone’s going to come and shut this down, right?”
Thankfully, those were delusions, and the film—which draws inspiration from “Working Girl,” “Tootsie,” and “Broadcast News,” but is also something entirely its own—got made. And not just made: It made history with the largest-ever acquisition for a domestic movie at Sundance, scoring a record $13 million purchase by Amazon Studios. The story centers around Molly Patel (Kaling) who goes to work at a late-night talk show with the legendary but cold-as-ice Katherine Newbury (Thompson). In doing so, she helps the failing series recapture its glory.
“When I read it, I just thought, Wow, this is my story,” says Ganatra. “When am I ever going to meet another Indian-American working in comedy who had similar experiences? I think it’s kind of everyone’s story in a way, but the specificity of moving to New York and trying to break in and not knowing anything about this world and having no connections to it but really wanting to be a part of it—all of that really resonated with me on so many levels.”
READ: Emma Thompson & Mindy Kaling Help Us Imagine a Female-Led ‘Late Night’
Ganatra got her start in Hollywood 20 years ago with the critically acclaimed “Chutney Popcorn.” “Late Night” similarly afforded her the opportunity to imbue the film with a cultural commentary unique to the storytellers’ own lived experiences. “I wanted to both model and show how women have to support each other and how this idea that there’s only room at the table for one of us is not only a false idea that was never true but is hurtful to everyone.”
Ganatra recalls conversations with Kaling about the privilege of belonging—and what you don’t get with that privilege. “I can’t walk into a writers’ room in jeans and a T-shirt the way a guy with a pedigree and family history of comedy writing can. And neither can Mindy. Mindy had to dress really nice every day when she went to work on ‘The Office,’ not just to display her worth, but to feel her own worth.”
Asked about what she looks for in an ideal actor, Ganatra doesn’t hesitate: “I look for vulnerability and honesty. I always say I don’t care what the movie looks like if I don’t believe in what this actor is saying. I’ve been spoiled for life now having directed Emma Thompson. I don’t think it’ll ever get to that level of pure artistry again. She is joyful and intelligent and thoughtful, but she makes her choices and is willing to play and try anything on set. There’s no defensiveness. I look for a bravery that [says], ‘This might not be the right way to go, but sure, let me try,’ and we’ll find it together.”
Ganatra wraps our interview by meditating on the current efforts toward diversity in Hollywood—in particular, whether the lip service of recent years is sparking change. In short: “Late Night,” a studio film led by two Indian-American women, is a step in the right direction.
“There’s still very real, systemic problems and institutionalized mechanisms that keep diversity out, but anecdotally, I can say that I’m heartened by what I’m seeing,” she says. “I’ll never be satisfied with the depth at which it’s being talked about in the workplace. I think we can always do better to have more complex conversations and to make inclusion not just a thing everybody feels that they should do but have it be a natural choice. We’re on our way there.”
This story originally appeared in the June 6 issue of Backstage Magazine. Subscribe here!
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