Singer Dia Frampton has a major case of stage fright.

The producers of NBC’s The Voice, a reality TV singing contest which Frampton narrowly lost last summer, definitely played up the Utah native’s shy personality, portraying her as a shrinking violet.

In many cases, reality TV is far from reality, but for Frampton it wasn’t that far from the truth.

“I probably went pee like every five minutes before I went on because I was so nervous,” says Frampton in a telephone interview. “I think it’s just recently come to the point where I don’t enjoy performing very much. It feels wrong to say that — I love songwriting, I love recording, but when it comes to performing I get so nervous it’s not fun for me sometimes.”

But the 24-year-old, whose father is Dutch and mother is Korean, says she is working on it. She’s started to take acting classes to help conquer her stage fright. “It’s getting me to take myself out of myself and it’s been really helpful,” she says.

She doesn’t have much time to conquer her fears since she’s set to go on a 26-date tour in January opening for country star Blake Shelton, who served as her mentor on The Voice. Frampton, once part of indie rock sister act Meg & Dia, will play songs off her solo debut album Red, released by Universal Republic in early December.

The doe-eyed singer collaborated with a number of notable names in the music industry for the album, including Mark Foster and Isom Innis of indie pop band Foster the People, and Isabella Summers of Florence and the Machine. On top of that, the first track off the album, “Don’t Kick the Chair,” features rapper Kid Cudi.

Frampton describes the music as pop, but with her signature. “It was kind of weird at first because I think pop is associated with bad things in a way,” she says. “When I think of pop I think of auto tune and people dancing around in their underwear, but I’m excited and proud. It’s pop done well and we tried really hard to keep what’s special to me.”

— Y. Peter Kang

Executive producer and star of the hit NBC series The Office, Mindy Kaling is taking over pop culture with a new blog, a new screenplay, a new TV deal, and her new book Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?.

ISSUE: Winter 2011-12

DEPT: Cover Feature

Photos Diana King

Hair Alex Polillo

Makeup Mylah Morales

Wardrobe stylist Karla Welch

Photo assistant Kevin Kozicki

Location WaterMarke Tower, Los Angeles Calif.

Editor Janice Jann

It’s hard not to be charmed by Mindy Kaling. For starters, the woman is hilarious. Ninety-nine percent of the things she writes, says, directs, and tweets makes you laugh. (Sample tweet: “I will never cheat on you but I may gain 100 pounds which is a different kind of betrayal. #unusual- weddingvows.”)

She’s also whip-smart. In her debut book, Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns), the Ivy League graduate, in her own words, “kind of killed it in college. You know that saying ‘big fish in a small pond?’ At Dartmouth College, I was freakin’ Jaws in a community swimming pool.” (Did we already mention she was hilarious?)

She’s thoughtful. She apologized profusely for constantly rescheduling our interview and called five minutes early so we would be able to chat longer. B.J. Novak, Mindy’s The Office co-exec producer, writer, star and friend, has said this about her: “Mindy has long been considered the best writer on The Office, and every actor on the show thinks she writes for them best. There is the extra little ‘smile’ that infuses her scripts, which is hard to quantify. As a person, she’s incredibly sentimental, more than anyone I’ve ever met, but she’s also incredibly sharp. She’s unabashedly both.”

These admirable traits have propelled Mindy into a force to be reckoned with in Hollywood. At only 32, Mindy has been nominated for an Emmy, published her first book, and sold a screenplay. She is developing a TV show, boasts more than 1.5 million Twitter followers, and relaunched her popular blog, TheConcernsofMindyKaling.com. About her packed schedule, Mindy simply says, “You make time for what you love.”

We chatted with the Indian American entertainer about everything from the audacity of having had a happy childhood to not getting stuck in a box.

Audrey Magazine: So Mindy, since I just finished your book last night and I pretty much know all about you, I guess we’re done with the interview.

Mindy Kaling: [Laughs] I’m glad you walked away feeling that way.

AM: Was it hard for you to crank this book out?

MK: At the beginning, it was very hard. I’m used to [writing scripts]. The book is very dialogue-heavy cause that’s my forte, but it was very daunting ‘cause I was thinking about all the great essayists. But no one has this expectation that I’m going to write this Joan Didion work of art — they want a book with fresh observations that’s funny and personal. That made it easier.

AM: Was it difficult for you to share so much about your personal life in the book?

MK: I’m a pretty open person in general, so I have the privilege of being open because my life isn’t full of tawdry details and wild stories. I can be very opinionated because I don’t have anything to hide. When I talk about my childhood, I had a very fun one. You get this weird problem where it’s like, nobody wants to read about someone with an idyllic childhood with great, responsible, fun parents. But that’s actually not true — people love to hear about that.

AM: That does seem to be going against the trend of what the current hot memoirs are about nowadays.

MK: There are a lot of female writers coming out [where] what’s intrinsic to them is a level of raunchy details, which I’m not all that interested in reading or writing. Hopefully, this book will appeal to people who don’t need that.

AM: You talked about a great childhood with your parents. What’s your relationship with them like now?

MK: When I first moved back to L.A., I was so homesick I would visit my parents once a month. Then I became not so homesick and I would still visit them once a month. My parents are all-stars. I get so much out of our relationship, I’m just taking it for granted.

AM: Would you say you had a fairly untraditional Indian upbringing?

MK: One of the things that made it an untraditional Indian upbringing was that my parents didn’t meet in India — they didn’t have an arranged marriage. Another thing is they don’t speak any common Indian language so the only language they speak with us is English.

What was so great was when my parents were both younger, they had parents who kind of already decided what they were going to be and steered them that way. With my brother and myself, there was none of that. They saw that, at a very young age, I loved acting and writing and they kind of let me do that — not only let me do that but encouraged it a lot. Especially my dad. He was very encouraging of me following that path.

AM: In your book, you talked about a period in your life where you pretty much lived like a starving artist in New York City. How did your parents feel about that?

MK: They were slightly anxious. But in college I had done so much theater that they had seen and loved, and I would show confidence. I don’t know where that came from. I was so confident and I expressed that to my parents. They were like, “Great, she’s so confident about it, why wouldn’t we be?”

AM: Did you always feel like you were destined to become a writer-performer?

MK: As confident as I feel, it takes an almost comically confident person to be able to say that they were destined to be in movies and television. I don’t think I was destined, but I think I am of the personality type where the rejection or odds of something doesn’t scare me. Maybe it was because my mom moved to Africa at 20 by herself, but there’s a certain fearlessness that runs in my family for things where there’s absolutely no reason to believe that it should work out. I get that from my parents.

AM: You got your big break when you wrote the critically acclaimed play, Matt & Ben, spoofing Matt Damon and Ben Affleck. Have you ever met either actor?

MK: I’ve never met Matt nor Ben. They seem like pretty smart, cool guys. We did no research on them when we wrote that play so I have no idea what their personalities are like at all. Our portrayals of them were not based on anything real. It was definitely an absurdist play.

I bet they don’t even really know or remembered that this play existed. They’re both movie directors and famous actors. [Laughs] They just seem like nice guys.

Part of the draw of the Hall Pass is the fantasy of it all (while the other part is having sex with other people). The grass is greener and all that. Isn’t that why every couple eventually has a what-if talk about their celebrity hall passes? You know, where you each choose five celebrities that you’re allowed to sleep with if the opportunity ever presents itself. But, of course, it’s never supposed to happen. If anything, the celebrity hall pass is a device by which a couple can gauge how much they love each other. For example, let’s just say that Anne Hathaway was all like, “Take me, Paul. I know I’m on your celebrity hall pass list because I read Audrey.” I would have to politely decline and say, “I’m far too happy with my girlfriend to recreate my favorite scenes from Love and Other Drugs with you, Anne.” Because I choose my partner and because I value living.

And vice versa, how would I feel if my girlfriend met Ryan Gosling at a party and he saved a puppy from a burning tent and then asked her, “I need to work on my incredible abs that even men can’t resist. You in?” I mean, at first, yeah, I’d be flattered that Ryan Gosling had the same taste in women as me, but then, I’d be like, “Wait a second ….”

The celebrity hall pass is supposed to be a hypothetical that never comes to be. It’s a game. Otherwise, Hollywood celebs would have celebrity hall passes, too, right? Actually, I just checked TMZ, and I suppose it kind of seems like they do. They call it “dating.” All right, new rule. I’m only talking about us regular folks.

Here’s the thing, though. I know married couples secretly do want a Hall Pass, of some kind anyway. How do I know this? Easy. I’ve been to a little place known as Las Vegas, the Hall Pass Capital of the World. At bachelor and bachelorette parties, do you know the craziest, rowdiest bunch? It ain’t the bride or the groom or the strippers, I’ll tell you that much. It’s the married folks. This is their vacation from marriage. Even if their lives are perfect with a giant home, perfect job, darling little kids, there’s something that becomes pent up inside of every good husband, wife, father and mother. Behind every puking bachelor/ette is a married person that wanted to get their drink on and party like they were single again. I’ve seen it. It’s terrifying.

As I lean over the toilet bowl, my hair grazing the rim, I catch a glimpse of my reflection in the water. “Who is this puke-strewn girl, bleary-eyed and green-faced, with her pajamas on backwards, staring back at me?” I think to myself. I mutter, “Never again, never a—,” before nausea sweeps in.

There have been many morning afters like this in the years I have been drinking, each time steeped with more regret than the last. Most of my peers have stories like mine. Many laugh, “Who hasn’t gone through it?”

As normal as binge drinking has become, new studies indicate that Asian American women may want to hold off on that second cocktail the next time they drink for reasons more than just avoiding the toilet bowl the next morning.

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