Kal Penn. (Photo by Jheff Mathis)
A Hollywood star, who paused his career to get involved in politics, went back to entertainment and became a writer.
Kalpen Suresh Modi, 45, known professionally as Kal Penn, is an American actor, producer, and writer who put his career on hold to be a White House staff member during the Barack Obama administration.
Penn attended an event held by the Indian Center at the University of Central Florida Sept. 26, where he read passages from his memoir “You Can’t Be Serious,” and shared some of his life experiences.
Penn says he dreamed of being an artist but telling that to his family was a challenge since Indian families have high expectations of their child’s education and success. An art career was out of sight for them, but Penn faced that challenge and started following his dreams early in high school.
Grandson of Gandhian freedom fighters and son of Indian immigrants, Penn dragged prominent UCF attendees to the event, such as the University’s president, Alexander Cartwright, a native of the Bahamas, who laughed a lot and seemed delighted with Penn’s stories.
“Attending this event allows us to see different experiences,” Cartwright says. “Many of our students whose family or themselves immigrated here may have a similar experience, and it’s good for them to see how people go about and persevere. It was incredible to hear how he continued pushing forward despite the adversities.”
Cartwright continued and said how his classmates would talk about American culture, but he did not know anything when he arrived in the United States from the Bahamas. Even speaking English, he struggled like most immigrants.
Finding a group sharing similar interests and traditions took work.
Penn says he did not see many people like him or his culture on U.S. television while growing up. He felt the lack of representation and wanted to be that change in the industry.
“To be invisible,” Penn says, “makes your possibilities seem like they might be limited, but they are not.”
In 1995, he moved to Los Angeles to study at UCLA’s prestigious Theatre, Film and Television School. While in L.A., he realized that the glamorous Hollywood world was different from what he had imagined.
The biggest struggle at the begging of his career was the prejudgment of his look — Indian — bordering on the impossible of finding an agent to represent him in one of the most competitive industries in the world.
The actor says an agent’s comment hit his feelings hard. The agent told Penn’s friend that he “would not represent the artist because someone like him — his appearance — would never work in Hollywood consistently enough for it to be worth the hassle of management.” Penn said this statement enlightened his mind, and he understood that the problem was not him but something enrooted in society — racism.
Some years later, Penn became a celebrity seemingly overnight with his role in the 2014 comedy “Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle,” in which he starred alongside John Cho. This movie changed the course of Penn’s career and opened doors to many other roles including the award-winning “The Namesake,” “House,” “How I Met Your Mother,” “Designated Survivor,” “Sunnyside” and the recently released horror film “Smile.” Penn also reteamed with his “Harold & Kumar” partner Cho for two sequels.
Penn says the industry has made tremendous changes since he started in the business and highlighted the importance of streaming platforms, which offered vast opportunities to actors of different backgrounds. However, he said these incidents still happen and hopes that someday the system comes to a total change of mindset regarding stereotyping.
Rishi Bagga, a UCF alumnus, who is running for the state House of Representatives for District 35, attended the event, too.
Bagga immigrated to the United States when he was 10 and says Penn’s movies were one of the first ones he watched when he was a UCF student. He believes representation is a solid societal value and that Penn’s story inspired him.
“Seeing an Indian American character on the screen was revolutionary,” Bagga says. “It allowed me to see that some issues and difficulties I dealt with weren’t unique to me. There were other people out there in my boat, too.”
Bagga says Penn’s voice in media added depth to Indian culture and enlightened their story.
Looking to do something impactful, Penn shifted gears and decided to work for the government, joining the list of entertainers who went from working in Hollywood to working in politics, and what led him to this unexpected change was nothing outrageous.
“The fact is that I don’t like politics,” Penn says. “I like public service.”
Penn worked for Obama’s campaign in 2007 and 2008, and after that, he saw an opportunity to continue public service and applied for a full-time staff position. Later, he joined Obama’s administration as Principal Associate Director in the White House Office of Public Engagement.
Penn had the chance to do a lot during his time in politics, but there were specific moments when even the humble actor felt proud of himself.
“I had the chance to put together an executive order that the president signed to reinstate the White House initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific islanders,” he says.
The executive order signed in October 2019, addressed Asian American and Pacific Islander community issues. It benefited Vietnamese American fishermen, who received federal resources after the catastrophic BP oil spill, the largest marine oil spill in history and ignited by an explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico.
Penn worked for two years in the office of public engagement, focusing on connecting with both groups, another experience he shared in his book.
Something else Penn shared in his memoir, which made headlines in 2021, is that he is a gay man and has been in an 11-year relationship.
Penn says their first date was different than he expected. He said he was shocked that his future partner arrived at his apartment with an 18-pack of Coors Light and instantly switched the TV on to watch NASCAR.
“I thought, ‘oh, no! It’s not going to work,’” Penn says.
But here they are, almost 12 years later, happy and engaged.
Penn is keeping busy with two big projects premiering this fall. First, he joins the cast of “American Horror Story” for its 11th season, subtitled “New York City” as Mac Marzara, premiering on FX Oct. 19.
He will also join the team for the Disney+ miniseries “The Santa Clauses,” set to premiere Nov. 16.
“It was amazing to work with Obama,” Penn said. “But it feels great to be back.”
