Zooey Deschanel, Mindy Kaling, Amy Poehler & Allison Williams Cover ELLE February 2014

Women on TV – The February issue of ELLE US celebrates women on television with four of the funniest women on the small screen right now. Zooey Deschanel, Mindy Kaling, Amy Poehler and Allison Williams each get individual covers, all photographed by Carter Smith. The new issue of Elle hits newsstands on January 14th.

Zooey Deschanel on how growing up in Hollywood affected her:
“Definitely none of the kids I grew up with would have ever thought, Zooey will be on television and have her own show.  I wasn’t the world’s most popular child, which gave me built-in tenacity.  Nothing has ever come easy for me, and I think that’s a really good thing.  I learned at an early age that you have to work hard for what you get.”

Allison Williams on why she tends to wear high-end, American designers on the red carpet:
“I wanted to establish a baseline: Here’s what I look like, I have long brown hair, I wear this kind of dress, this is the deal.  You can count on it!  Look at Jennifer Aniston: she’s America’s sweetheart for a reason.  You know what she’s going to look like when she shows up to something, and there’s something so comfortable in that.”

Amy Poehler on the conflict between being a comedian and being a grown-up:
“Now that I have kids, I’m up at 5:30AM no matter what.  Sleep at this point is just a concept, something I’m looking forward to investigating in thefuture.  But I’d like to say that I maintain that same sense of play and creativity and spontaneity – of being able to get into a room with people and say, ‘Let’s waste some time.’  When you’re a creative person, even when you’re in a position of power, you still have to be able to straddle both worlds.”

Mindy Kaling on how the The Mindy Project getting green-lit served as a desperately needed distraction from her mother’s death:
“Any person that’s been in the business knows they’re so lucky to have their show picked up – it happens to such a small fraction of shows.  But I was lucky personally, because I needed a distraction so badly from my grief.  Still my thoughts flutter toward her in scenes that I’m doing, every night before I go to bed, and every morning when I wake up.”