Acting career 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 has expressed some interest in working in
Indian cinema, particularly in
Gujarati cinema. and the series was ordered on May 6, 2019. The show was cancelled after eight episodes were produced. On May 9, 2020, Penn was cast as a lead on the 2021
CBS thriller drama series
Clarice, a sequel to
The Silence of the Lambs. On December 2, 2021, Penn was set to produce and star in the biopic
Superfan which depicts the story of
Nav Bhatia. In 2022, he was cast as Simon Choksi/Santa on
The Santa Clauses, for which he received a nominations for the
Outstanding Supporting Performance at the
2nd Children's and Family Emmy Awards. In 2023, Penn guest starred in the Netflix animated series
Scott Pilgrim Takes Off.
Political activities 's Nyumburu Cultural Center|alt=A man giving a speech. He wears a white shirt with a dark label pin. In front of him, there are two microphones. Penn was an advocate for
Barack Obama's
presidential campaign in 2007 and 2008 and a member of Obama's National Arts Policy Committee. He appears in the
Barack Obama-supporting 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, Penn was offered the position of Associate Director of the
White House Office of Public Engagement and Intergovernmental Affairs, which he accepted. This necessitated his character Lawrence Kutner being written out of the television series
House. In his new role with the Obama administration, Penn served as a liaison with the Asian-American and Pacific Islander communities. He went back to using his birth name, Kalpen Modi. Having made a commitment before his employment at the White House, Penn left his post as Obama's associate director of public engagement on June 1, 2010, to return to his acting career. Penn was a co-chair of Obama's
reelection campaign. On September 3, 2012, he hosted coverage of the
2012 Democratic National Convention in
Charlotte, North Carolina. Penn's speech at the convention encouraged young people to register to vote and defended Obama's record. On November 18, 2013, Obama appointed Penn to serve on the
President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities. On February 28, 2014, Penn served as the Master of Ceremonies for the
White House Student Film Festival. Penn publicly supported
Bernie Sanders for the
2016 Democratic nomination. He campaigned for
Hillary Clinton after she became the nominee. In August 2017, Penn and the other members of the President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities resigned in protest of President
Donald Trump's
remarks about the Unite the Right rally in
Charlottesville, Virginia. During the
2020 Democratic presidential primaries, Penn expressed interest in the messages of
Pete Buttigieg,
Bernie Sanders, and
Elizabeth Warren. He later expressed support for
Joe Biden after he became the nominee. Penn also supported the
2024 presidential election campaign of Democratic presidential candidate
Kamala Harris. During the
2025 New York City Democratic mayoral primary, Penn appeared at rallies for candidate
Zohran Mamdani, whose mother
Mira Nair directed Penn in
The Namesake. Penn later appeared alongside Nair and Mamdani in posts celebrating
Diwali during the lead-up to the
2025 New York mayoral election.
Other ventures In 2008, Penn served as a visiting lecturer in Asian American Studies at the
University of Pennsylvania. His course was titled "Images of Asian Americans in the Media". In 2014, Penn was working on a graduate certificate in
international security from
Stanford University. On January 2, 2017, Penn won the "MasterChef Celebrity Showdown" and donated the $25,000 cash prize to
UNRWA, a United Nations relief and human development agency that supports
Palestinian refugees. On January 28, 2017, following a racist comment from a user on Penn's
Twitter feed, Penn crowd-funded a fundraiser for
refugees of the Syrian Civil War and raised $813,533. This occurred during President
Donald Trump's
Executive Order 13769, which banned immigration to the United States from
Syria,
Yemen,
Sudan,
Iran,
Iraq,
Libya, and
Somalia regardless of
visa status. ==Personal life==