Kalpen Suresh Modi (Gujarati: કલ્પેન સુરેશ મોદી; kəl-PAIN su-REYSH MOH-thee; born April 23, 1977), known professionally as Kal Penn, is an American actor, author, and former White House staff member in the Barack Obama administration.
As an actor he is known for his portrayals of Kumar Patel in the Harold & Kumar film series, Lawrence Kutner on the television program House, White House staffer Seth Wright on Designated Survivor, and Kevin Venkataraghavan, a psychologist and boyfriend to Robin in How I Met Your Mother. He is also recognized for his performance in the film The Namesake. Penn once taught at the University of Pennsylvania in the Cinema Studies Program as a visiting lecturer.
In April 2009, Penn joined the Obama administration as an associate director in the White House Office of Public Engagement as liaison for outreach to Asian Pacific Americans and arts communities. This necessitated that his TV character, Lawrence Kutner, be written out of House. Penn briefly left his post in June 2010 to film the third installment of the Harold & Kumar series, A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas, returning to his White House job upon the film's completion. In July 2011, he again left the White House to accept a role in the television series How I Met Your Mother.
From 2016 to 2019, he played Seth Wright in the political drama Designated Survivor, where he also worked as a consultant on the show. He also hosted the game show Superhuman. In 2019, Penn portrayed Garrett Modi in the NBC sitcom series Sunnyside. The following year, he hosted a political talk miniseries on Freeform, Kal Penn Approves This Message.
Penn was born as Kalpen Suresh Modi in Montclair, New Jersey on April 23, 1977, to Gujarati immigrant parents from Gujarat, India. His mother, Asmita Bhatt, is a fragrance evaluator for a perfume company, and his father, Suresh Modi, (Gujarati: સુરેશ મોદી) is an engineer. His father is from Kheda and his mother was born in Vadodara. Kal Penn regularly visited Gujarat as a child during vacations, and he can speak some Gujarati as well as some Hindi. He has stated that stories of his grandparents marching with Mahatma Gandhi during the Indian independence movement were a significant influence on his interest in politics.
Kal Penn attended Marlboro Middle School in Marlboro Township, New Jersey, where he played baritone saxophone in the jazz band. For high school he attended Freehold Township High School for all four years where he was enrolled in the International Studies Program the first two years. His Junior and Senior years he attended The Fine and Performing Arts Center (a magnet program) at Howell High School in the Acting program (FPAC is a part time program, so he was bused between schools). Both schools are part of the Freehold Regional High School District in New Jersey. He was active in the schools' theater productions and competed on the Freehold Township National Honor Society Speech and Debate team (formerly known as Forensics). He then attended UCLA, where he double majored in film and sociology, graduating with a B.A. in 2000.
Penn's 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, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel 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:
I have a huge political problem with the role. It was essentially accepting a form of racial profiling. I think it's repulsive. But it was the first time I had a chance to blow stuff up and take a family hostage. As an actor, why shouldn't I have that opportunity? Because I'm brown and I should be scared about the connection between media images and people's thought processes?
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 for his role in Harold & Kumar, as Kumar Patel, a pothead who goes with Harold Lee (John Cho) to White Castle for hamburgers. Unlike his character, he does not smoke marijuana, saying 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 canceled during its first season.
In October 2016, Penn began a regular role in the ABC drama series Designated Survivor as Seth Wright, a White House speech writer who originally worked under the previous president's administration. Following the death of the White House Press Secretary in the pilot episode and the acting press secretary walking out on the job, his character gets promoted to Press Secretary. 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.
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. The show was cancelled after eight episodes were produced.