Mindy Kaling Goes From ‘Cooking With Kamala’ to Hosting Her Convention

In late November 2019, as her once promising 2020 presidential campaign was faltering, Kamala Harris appeared in a cooking video with the actress and comedian Mindy Kaling. A week later, Ms. Harris quit the race.

On Wednesday, Ms. Kaling will trade a kitchen for a stage as she hosts the third night of Ms. Harris’s nominating convention in Chicago.

Ms. Kaling is the third of four boldfaced names to fill the role, which entails delivering remarks and introducing speakers. The actor Tony Goldwyn was Monday night’s host; Ana Navarro, a Republican commentator, was the emcee on Tuesday; and the actress Kerry Washington will do the job on Thursday.

Ms. Kaling is best known for her roles as Kelly Kapoor, a vain and ditsy employee on “The Office,” and Mindy Lahiri, a gynecologist, on “The Mindy Project,” which Ms. Kaling wrote and produced.

One of the most prominent Indian women in Hollywood, Ms. Kaling often writes and plays characters who contend with what it’s like to be Indian American and the daughter of immigrants, a heritage and background she shares with Ms. Harris.

Ms. Kaling’s parents hail from the same region in the south of India as Ms. Harris’s mother, who moved to the United States to attend college at 19. In the 2019 YouTube video supporting Ms. Harris’s presidential campaign, Ms. Kaling and Ms. Harris prepare masala dosa, a South Indian dish of flatbread and potato curry, and discuss growing up in Indian American households.