Kal Penn

**Kalpen Suresh Modi** (born April 23, 1977), known professionally as **Kal Penn**, is an American actor, comedian, producer, and former civil servant. As an actor, he is known for his role portraying Lawrence Kutner on the television program *House*, as well as the character Kumar Patel in the *Harold & Kumar* film series. He is also recognized for his performance in the critically acclaimed film *The Namesake*. Penn has taught at the University of Pennsylvania in the Cinema Studies Program as a visiting lecturer. He is one of the lead stars on *Sunnyside*, he is portraying Garrett Modi, also the executive producer and creator.

## Career

Penn's feature film debut came in 1998 in *Express: Aisle to Glory*. He has since appeared in *American Desi*, *Van Wilder*, the final episode of *The Lonely Island*, *Malibu's Most Wanted*, *A Lot Like Love*, *Dude, Where's the Party?*, *Love Don't Cost a Thing*, *Superman Returns*, *Epic Movie*, *The Namesake*, the *Harold & Kumar* series, and an uncredited appearance in *Deck the Halls*.

Penn says that he derived his acting name, Kal Penn, as a lark: "Almost as a joke to prove friends wrong, and half as an attempt to see if what I was told would work (that anglicized names appeal more to a white-dominated industry), I put 'Kal Penn' on my resume and photos." His audition callbacks rose by 50 percent. He has stated that he prefers his birth name and uses "Kal Penn" only for professional purposes.

In January 2007, Penn appeared in the first four episodes of the sixth season of *24* as Ahmed Amar, a teenage terrorist. Penn says he nearly turned down the role due to personal ethics:

Also in January 2007, he appeared in the spoof comedy *Epic Movie* as well as the television show *Law & Order: Special Victims Unit*. In May 2007, Penn received the Asian Excellence Award for Outstanding Actor for his performance in *The Namesake*.

In fall 2007, Penn joined the cast of the Fox medical drama *House* as a fellowship applicant. *E!* reported that Penn had signed on as a regular on the show along with Olivia Wilde and Peter Jacobson and this was confirmed in the plot of the episode "Games". Penn continued with the series through to the episode "Simple Explanation", which aired April 6, 2009. He made an additional appearance as Lawrence Kutner on the fifth-season finale, "Both Sides Now", that aired on May 11, 2009. However, due to his new job at the White House, Penn could not be present for the filming of this episode. The clip of him saying "Too bad it isn't true" was taken from a previous filming. Penn returned to the show for the series finale.

In addition to his role on the TV series *House*, he is best known from his role in *Harold & Kumar*, as Kumar Patel, a cannabis smoker who goes with Harold Lee (John Cho) to White Castle for a hamburger. Unlike his character, he does not smoke marijuana, claiming it is not for him, nor does he eat meat.

Penn had a recurring role on *How I Met Your Mother* for the seventh season of the show, in which he played Kevin, a therapist and later boyfriend of Robin Scherbatsky. Starting May 1, 2013, Penn hosted *Big Brain Theory: Pure Genius* on the Discovery Channel. In 2013, Penn joined the cast of *We Are Men*.

In 2014, he was cast in Ravi Kumar's film *Bhopal: A Prayer for Rain*, a film about the Bhopal gas tragedy, considered by many to be the world's worst industrial disaster. Penn played Detective Fontanelle White on the CBS comedy-drama *Battle Creek*, which was cancelled during its first season.

In October 2016, Penn began a regular role in the ABC drama series *Designated Survivor* as Seth, a White House speech writer who originally worked under the previous president's administration. Penn also served as a political consultant for the series. The show was renewed by Netflix for a third season which was released on June 7, 2019.

Kal Penn has expressed some interest in working in Indian cinema, particularly in Gujarati cinema.

On March 7, 2019, Penn was cast in the main role of Garrett Modi on the NBC comedy *Sunnyside* and the series was ordered on May 6, 2019.

## External links

* Kal Penn on IMDb
* Kal Penn on Wikipedia
* Kal Penn on Twitter