BJ Novak Presented Mindy Kaling With Her Hollywood Walk of ...

I mean, of course BJ Novak was the one to present Mindy Kaling with her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Of course he kissed her affectionately on the head. And, of course, he joked about her being “superficial” in his heartfelt speech to her. This is the kind of friendship that dreams are made of.

“Mindy respects and understands this in a very intuitive way,” Novak joked in his speech, per CNN. “Because in addition to being a brilliant and wildly successful showrunner, an incredible mother of three, a deep and caring daughter, and a friend and mentor to so many, Mindy is also, in her spare time, I assure you, very superficial.” He continued, ”Mindy, as I look around and see all these people from your life who have believed in you from the beginning, I’m just sorry that none of us doubted you, because I know how much more fun that would make this for you.”

Kaling, who is 45, responded to her friend with a few jokes of her own, wisecracking, “I’m as starstruck by [Novak] now at age 29 as I was when I first met you at 24.” She also called Novak “such an important and integral part of my family that sometimes I forget the reason that I know him is because we work together professionally.”

Mindy Kaling and BJ Novak, like their characters on The Office, which is where they first met, had an on-and-off-again romantic relationship for years that eventually settled into a decades-long best friendship, which they still joke about from time to time today. As presenters at the 2022 Emmys, Kaling joked, “To all the nominees we want to say, Congratulations, you lazy sons of bitches. How are you getting away with it? We did 22 [episodes] a year. It would take up your whole life. [There] was no time for other projects and no time for a social life. You had no choice but to form complicated relationships with your costars.”

And in 2023, when Novak presented Kaling with the Norman Lear Achievement Award at the Producers Guild Awards, he touched on their early dynamic in his speech. “We were in love with each other, and we were reckless idiots, and the two of us would argue about all of these things forever.” In her acceptance speech, Kaling responded, “He’s remained my closest friend throughout my entire career. He’s seen all the ups and downs, and it just means the world to me.”