Mindy Kaling got down to business on The Late Show Thursday.
Stephen Colbert told her he had "the most fun" ever when he guest-starred on her Hulu series, but The Mindy Project actress sipped her tea—literally and figuratively. "I'm glad you had fun. I'm glad you brought it up, because I wasn't going to," she told him. "I'm very fond of you, OK? I did not think you were very professional when you came on my show." Colbert, who had just wrapped The Colbert Report, said, "I was between gigs. I was just footloose and fancy free!"
Colbert played Father Michael O'Donnell in "Confessions of a Catho-holic." Kaling's character pretended to be Catholic in order to win his approval, as he was a longtime friend of her then-boyfriend (Chris Messina). "We have a scene where you had to give a eulogy for another priest and I thought you didn't handle it that well," Kaling told Colbert. "It's a very somber occasion."
Kaling showed footage of Colbert breaking on set. "Let's all bow our heads for one final prayer for Father Francis. I know that some of you called him 'a decrepit bag of bones, or the boring wizard...'" he said, bursting into laughter. After the segment ended, she reminded him, "A man died!" Colbert complimented her, saying, "Wait a second! It's your fault. It's your damn script."
"It was so funny that you couldn't take it," Kaling joked.
"Listen, you weren't the most professional person, either," Colbert said.
"What?" Kaling asked.
"It's your damn show and you weren't the most professional person either, because I brought a clip of my own. We did a scene where I'm not supposed to know that you're Danny's girlfriend, because you're not a Catholic. I come over to the house—the priest—because I'm a friend of Danny's from back in the day. I talk about a girl he's supposedly dating who's not a Catholic, who I didn't know was you. This is your reaction," Colbert said. "It was not in the script how you reacted, but I am describing you without knowing it and this is your reaction, unprofessionally."
Before the clip aired, Kaling said, "I have no recollection."
In the scene, Fr. Michael said, "I actually knew Danny's ex. She wasn't crazy. She had a huge rack." Kaling's character replied, "Really? I heard she was pear-shaped with small breasts." The issue? "At no place in the script did it say, 'Mindy scratches the priest's eyes out,'" Colbert said.
The Mindy Project returns Apr. 12 on Hulu.