Kal Penn
American actor, author, and former White House staff member in the Barack Obama administration
Kalpen Suresh Modi (born April 23, 1977), known professionally as Kal Penn, is an American actor, comedian, and political activist.
Quotes
edit- I have a greater appreciation for how change actually happens. If something could change with the flip of a switch, it would have been done before. By the same token, there's always going to be a bit of a disconnect. Whether you're a Democrat or a Republican, if you're under 35, you're for marriage equality, you want to raise the debt ceiling, and you want better access to health care and entrepreneurship. But the average age in the senate is 62 or 63. Like most people who turn on the news, I think, OK, the members of congress are out of touch.
- On the time he worked for the Obama Administration in Washington, D.C. in “The GQA: Kal Penn” in GQ Magazine (2011 Nov 1)
- “I said, ‘This going to perhaps sound cheesy, but two of the things I love the most are making people laugh and America,’…I like patriotism. There is an underlying theme of patriotism in all of the Harold and Kumar movies for example. I love that feeling because it’s very much my sense of humor, which is sort of aspirational as opposed to cynical.
- On what inspired him to co-create the show Sunnyside in “Kal Penn Talks Putting A Twist On Immigration Narrative With ‘Sunnyside’ & Chances For Another ‘Harold And Kumar’ Movie” in Deadline (2019 Sep 26)
- I mean no disrespect to any of our current climate at all, but I have been an actor for almost two decades now, and this is a dream come true to be able to create a network comedy that just makes people laugh…What I love about comedy is that, like music, sports and food, it brings us all together.
- On his show Sunnyside in “Kal Penn Talks Putting A Twist On Immigration Narrative With ‘Sunnyside’ & Chances For Another ‘Harold And Kumar’ Movie” in Deadline (2019 Sep 26)
- Through that process, I was just working on the outreach team, but because of that I was meeting people who were undocumented, people whose families were impacted by it, and obviously huge advocacy organizations. That stuff stays with you. It was, of course, the basis for some of the characters and some of their stories and the lives that they live…
- On how he applied his time working for the Obama Administration to Sunnydale’s creative process in “Kal Penn on why Democrats are losing and what constitutes a patriotic comedy” in Salon (2019 Nov 7)
