Kalpenn Modi
Born	April 23, 1977 (1977-04-23) (age 32)
Nationality	American
Political party	Democratic
Alma mater	University of California, Los Angeles
Profession	Actor
Religion	Hindu

Kalpenn Suresh Modi (born April 23, 1977) is an American film actor and politician who is serving as the Associate Director of the White House Office of Public Engagement in the Barack Obama administration.

 

Early Life
Modi was born as Kalpenn Suresh Modi in Montclair, New Jersey, to a father who worked as an engineer and a mother who worked as a fragrance evaluator for a perfume company. Both of his parents are Gujarati immigrants from India. He has stated that stories of his grandparents marching with Mahatma Mohandas Gandhi for Indian independence were a significant influence on his interest in politics.

 

Education
He attended middle school at Marlboro Middle School in Marlboro, NJ and played baritone saxophone in the jazz band there. Modi attended The Fine and Performing Arts Academy (a magnet program) at Howell High School for freshman, sophomore, and junior years; he transferred to Freehold Township High School for senior year; both schools are part of the Freehold Regional High School District. He was active in the schools' theater productions. He attended UCLA, where he double majored in film and sociology.

 

Career
Modi's feature film debut came in 1998 in Express: Aisle to Glory. He has since appeared in American Desi, National Lampoon's Van Wilder, Malibu's Most Wanted, A Lot Like Love, Dude, Where's the Party?, Love Don't Cost a Thing, Superman Returns, National Lampoon's Van Wilder: The Rise of Taj, Epic Movie, The Namesake, and the Harold and Kumar series, and an uncredited appearance in Deck the Halls. Penn was featured in the The Lonely Island's rejected MTV comedy pilot for Awesometown.

Modi 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. Modi has stated that he prefers his birth name and uses "Kal Penn" only for professional purposes.

In January 2007, Modi appeared in the first four episodes of the sixth season of 24 as Ahmed Amar, a teenage terrorist. Modi says he nearly turned down the role due to personal ethics, stating, "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, Modi received the Asian Excellence Award for Outstanding Actor for his performance in The Namesake.

In fall 2007, Modi 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". Modi continued with the series through to the episode "Simple Explanation", which aired April 6, 2009. He made an additional appearance as 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, Kal Modi could not be present for the filming of this episode. The clip of him saying "Too bad it wasn't true" was taken from a previous filming.

 

Political interests
Modi was an advocate for Barack Obama's presidential campaign in 2008 and a member of Obama's National Arts Policy Committee. He appears in the Barack Obama video "Sí Se Puede Cambiar" by Andres Useche and appeared with comedian George Lopez on January 18, 2009, at "We Are One: The Obama Inaugural Celebration at the Lincoln Memorial".

In early 2009, Modi was offered the position of Associate Director of the White House Office of Public Engagement in the Obama administration, which he accepted. This necessitated his character Lawrence Kutner being written out of the TV series House.[1][12][13] In his new role with the Obama administration, Modi serves as a liaison with the Asian-American and Pacific Islander communities. He has gone back to using his birth name, Kalpen Modi.

 

Personal life
In spring 2008, Modi served as a visiting lecturer in Asian American Studies at the University of Pennsylvania.[5][16] He taught two courses, "Images of Asian Americans in the Media" and "Contemporary American Teen Films."

Modi is currently working on a graduate certificate in international security from Stanford University.

 

Filmography

Films

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1998	Express: Aisle to Glory	Jackie Newton
1999	Freshman	Ajay
2001	American Desi	Ajay Pandya
2002	Hector	Kendal Cunningham
	NationalLampoon's Van Wilder	Taj Badalandabad
	Badger	Sanjay
2003	Cosmopolitan	Vandana's fiancé
	Love Don't Cost a Thing	Kenneth Warman
	Malibu's Most Wanted	Hadji
	Dude, Where's the Party?	Mo (Mohan Bakshi)
2004	Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle	Kumar Patel
	Ball & Chain	Bobby
2005	Dancing in Twilight	Sam
	Son of the Mask	Jorge
	A Lot Like Love	Jeeter
	Sueño	Raj
2006	Man About Town	Alan Fineberg
	Bachelor Party Vegas	Z-Bob
	Superman Returns	Stanford
	Deck The Halls	Amit Sayid
	National Lampoon's Van Wilder: The Rise of Taj	Taj Badalandabad
2007	The Namesake	Gogol/Nikhil Ganguli
	Epic Movie	Edward
2008	Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay	Kumar Patel
	Under New Management	Wheeler	in production
2010	Bhopal: Prayer for Rain	TBA	completed
	A Very Harold & Kumar Christmas	Kumar Patel	In Production

 

Television roles

Year	Title	Role
1999	Brookfield	Kumar Zimmerman
	Buffy the Vampire Slayer	Hunt
2000	Sabrina,the Teenage Witch	Prajeeb
	Spin City	Buddy
2001	Angel	Fez Boy
	ER	Narajan
	NYPD Blue	Solomon Al-Ramai
	The Agency	Malek
2003	All About the Andersons	George
	Tru Calling(Haunted)	Steven
2004	Homeland Security	Harrison
2006	The Danny Comden Project	Max
2007	Law and Order: Special Victims Unit	Henry Chanoor
	24	Ahmed Amar
2007-2009	House, M.D.	Dr. Lawrence Kutner