Mindy Kaling plays a bold but inexperienced comedy writer trying to revive a stale, culturally monochrome talk show in the hilarious new trailer for Late Night. The film hits Amazon Studios on June 7th.
The clip opens with Katherine Newbury (Emma Thompson), the “first female late-night talk show host on a major network,” fielding questions from reporters about a lack of gender and ethnic diversity on her creative team. “Funny is funny,” she says — but a journalist interjects, “as long as you’re white, male and from an elite college, like your writing staff.”
Desperate to hire a female writer, Newbury impulsively brings on Kaling’s character, Molly Patel, a chemical plant efficiency expert from the Philadelphia suburbs. As rumors build of the network firing Newbury for a younger male host, she works with Patel to make the show funnier and edgier — or, as the new writer puts it, a little less “old” and “white.” Meanwhile, Patel fights for her place in the industry: “I will not be marginalized because no one here looks like me,” she says.
John Lithgow, Max Casella, Hugh Dancy, Denis O’Hare, Reid Scott and Amy Ryan co-star in the film. Kaling also wrote and produced the project, and Nisha Ganatra (Transparent, Better Things) directed.
