Actor, author, and former White House staffer Kal Penn, known to many for his work in both film and public service, was the latest guest at Express Adda, a platform for candid conversations hosted by The Indian Express Group. In a conversation with Anant Goenka, Executive Director of The Indian Express Group, Kal opened up about his early days in Hollywood, revealing a moment in his career that he still looks back on with mixed feelings: his role in the 2002 teen sex comedy Van Wilder.
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“You know, I did this movie, Van Wilder, one of my first films with Ryan Reynolds, he was fantastic,” Kal recalled. “But I played a fairly stereotypical Indian exchange student. It’s a very classic, like, early 2000s teen sex comedy, right.” Kal shared how, at the time, he was navigating a deeply limited and often stereotypical landscape for actors of Indian origin. He recounted how his agent excitedly called him about the role, believing it could be a major break in his career. “Like any other profession, any other job, and put yourself in the late ’90s, early 2000s in Hollywood, you need credits on your resume in order for anybody to take you seriously for that next job,” he explained.
His agent emphasized the rarity of opportunities for South Asian actors back then. “She said, ‘It’s really hard if you’re not white or Black, at that time especially, because there are very few credits you can get on your resume. Nobody’s going to go out of their way to cast you unless a role was specifically written Indian or Indian American, and those were few and far between.’” Kal was initially sceptical. When told the character’s name was Taj Mahal, he immediately hung up the phone. “She called me back. ‘I had a feeling you were going to hang up,’” he said, laughing. “I was like, look, I can tell you without reading the script exactly what this is about to be, and I don’t really have an interest in it.”
Despite his hesitation, Kal Penn ultimately auditioned and took the role, trying to steer the character away from crude ethnic caricature where possible. “I worked with the writers and the director on trying to find jokes that weren’t just based on the guy’s name or where he’s from. And really, it’s a teen sex comedy, right? So most of the jokes are not based on identity. And identity jokes tend to be the most boring anyway, you know, 20 years ago and even today.”
Express Adda with Kal Penn
Though he admits he regrets doing Van Wilder, Kal acknowledged that the film did help open doors for him. Reflecting on how one project often leads to the next, he said: “But I get this question a lot when I do these interviews with college kids: ‘On a scale of one to 10, how much do you regret doing that project?’ And I’m just like: first of all, you’re welcome.” He continued: “Had I not done Van Wilder, I would not have had the chance to do Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle. And the reason for that is that there was no shortage of Indian-origin actors to play Kumar. They auditioned people in L.A., New York, London, Toronto, Miami. One of the reasons that I got that part, ultimately, was I think I was the only one on the shortlist who had a credit, a studio film credit, on his resume, because I had done Van Wilder.”
Express Adda is a series of informal yet thought-provoking conversations hosted by The Indian Express Group, bringing together public figures from diverse fields. Past guests have included Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, philanthropist Bill Gates, and Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta, among others.
