Why Kal Penn is Disillusioned with Democrats

Lemonada. That's how you know progress worked, because the needle was moved. To major network dramas, to the Obama White House, and then back to acting where he is playing a White House press secretary. And now to his latest project, a new podcast called Here We Go Again. So I sat down with one of my comedy heroes to talk about some of his craziest stories coming up in Hollywood. I hand him Joseph Gordon-Levitt's headshot, and he gets to Joseph's headshot and goes, what the f**k is this kid, Asian? And we got into his time in the Obama administration and his disillusionment with Biden and the Democrats over Gaza. And it was just incredibly, deeply disturbing that there was no room for a conversation. We also talked about his long friendship with Zoran Mamdani. I've known Zoran since he was 14, so just so proud of him. And his advice to Zoran supporters. He can't unilaterally, single-handedly get a lot of this stuff done that he wants to get done, but he absolutely can get it done in partnership with this sea of people who came out to support him. And he didn't come on here to promote his memoir, you can't be serious. But I will promote it anyway, because it's a guidebook. On how to succeed in Hollywood without being an a**hole. Yes, it's possible. Unless your name is Ronny Chieng. So the last time we saw each other, we were at Zoran's election night party. Dude, two weeks ago, right? Two weeks ago. Yeah. Two weeks ago. Legendary night. Momentous night. Yes. Two questions. Number one, how did it feel for you that night? Oh, man. So I'll tell you. I mean, it felt incredible, right? And for folks who don't know, I've known Zoran since he was 14. There's a whole backstory there. But we found out that he won when we were standing in line on the way in. And I worked on a film called The Namesake, written by Jhumpa Lahiri. The novel's written by Jhumpa Lahiri. Meera, Zoran's mom, directed the film. And it's my favorite thing I've ever done. And I'm standing with my partner, Josh, with Jhumpa, her husband, her son. Oh, Jhumpa was there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Jhumpa was there. So Jhumpa's the author of the. The novel. The critical, huge, massive hit. Pulitzer winner. So I'm standing with her on one side. And then Motaz, the photojournalist from Gaza, on the other side. And we all find out that he won. And it was just such an insane moment because it's somebody who I know intimately, whose work I admire, who I worked with. And then on the other side, somebody who's just such an icon for human rights right now. And to just be standing there was such an overwhelming. Feeling that I'm just, like, proud of him, you know? Yeah. Even politics aside, you're, like, proud of him. Yeah, it was a surreal moment. I couldn't believe it was happening. For sure. And it also was happening on a very, like, historic day. Dick Cheney dies, he wins. No, because usually the news is always, like. Yeah, yeah. White man wins. Right. Brown boy dies. Right. This was, like, the opposite, which is, like, brown boy's up, white man dies. I was like, this is, like, a whole flipping of the. It was a. Spider-verse. It was a generational, sort of, shift, maybe. Yeah. Right? Like, it was something. It was something. So you were there, I was there, Asif Manvi was there. Yeah. And Rami was there. Yeah. And then I pulled you and Rami to the side, and I was like, you two are New Jersey legends. That's right. And then what was so interesting was, I thought it was really beautiful that me and Rami gave you your flowers. That was insane. I couldn't believe that that was happening. Because I admire. Why was it so unbelievable? Because I admire you guys very much. You gave me the type of flowers that, you know, like. You're, both of you, at this, like, I hate to say peak, because it should just continue to go up, but at the peak of comedy career, at the peak of, like. And neither of you just tell jokes. You guys also, like, the soul of something meaningful and biting and a reflection of society, always led with joy, is such a rare trait that, like. I mean, I told you this that night. I've just started dabbling with stand-up comedy, right? Right. Finding my voice, it'll take years to figure that out. But that, the ability to craft all of that and to lead with joy is something I admire so much. So to hear both of you guys. I'm not good at accepting compliments. I'm telling you to hear both of you guys say this to me and give me those flowers that night. Yeah, bro, you think I'm lying? Fact check this, bro. Look. Look at this set. Oh, shit! This is seminal. These are all the things that made me. Oh, man. Bro, you think if I'm lying, I'm dying. Look at this. Oh, wow. The story that I told that night was, for both me and Rami, I was in college at the time. He was in high school at the time. Wow. So to go to a Cineplex in 2004 and to see this as the poster. Well, thank you. I mean, that movie really launched my career, right? Yeah. And I will say, you're right. So nobody saw it in the box office. It really underperformed. And back then, like, to your point about the poster, right, there were people in Hollywood who were like, we don't know. Can two Asian-American men open a studio comedy? Yeah. And the general consensus was no, right? Because it hadn't been done before. And we always thought, like, well, the script is so funny. I think what you're doing. What you're doing by saying two Asian-American men can't open a studio comedy is you're undermining a white audience. You're saying that white audiences are too racist and too stupid to enjoy just a buddy comedy. And I kind of rejected that. Then the movie comes out and it totally tanks in the box office the first two weeks. And for the next six months, like, I'm not getting any auditions. Really? Yeah, yeah, dude. Because your movie failed. Oh, interesting. And then it kind of softly gets launched on DVD, zero marketing budget. It ends up on HBO. And within a month, like, you can't walk down the street. Without people being like, dude, that movie is so funny. That movie is so funny. So when you hear me, Jon Cho, like, the writers talk with reverence about our love for the fans, it is truly because this movie wasn't supposed to take off. The fans found it on their own. They bought the DVD. They had watch parties in their dorm rooms. Like, and by the way, all over the country. Nebraska, Illinois, Alabama. It wasn't just the coast, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so it felt validating to know that, like, yeah, we were right. Audiences just want to laugh. Is it incredible? Is it incredible for you to see how far South Asian and diaspora cinema has gone since those moments and those early editions? 100%. It's incredible to see just the breadth of talent that's out there, the diversity. And not just on camera, not just racial or ethnic diversity, but, like, the diversity of stories that are being told. So there's such a difference between, like, I don't know, like any of the stuff that Mindy writes. Incredible. Really funny. Yeah, yeah. Compared to, like, the grit of, like, a Super Troopers or the grit of, like, your movie that's coming out. Right? Like, they couldn't be more different. Very different. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's so exciting. Also, there's so many executives now, people in the finance world who are looking for stories that are just interesting, period. Lily's movie that just came out doing it. Yeah. Really funny. Yeah, yeah. Feels good to see that. I kind of want to walk people through your reasoning as to why you joined the Obama White House. Sure. In 07. 08. 09. Yeah. Where the country was at that time. Yeah. And where you were at that time. Because you were on House. I was. And then you decide to say, goodbye, Hollywood. Yeah. Goodbye, healthcare. Goodbye, air-conditioned trailer. Yeah, yeah. I'm moving to D.C. Yeah. So I had no intention of working in public service. Very happy to be working on House. Regular paycheck. Yeah. Parking spot with my name on it. Fucking amazing. Trailer. Incredible. Playing a doctor. A little respect on the family side. No accent? No accent. All-star cast. You, Olivia Wilde. Oh, incredible cast. Stacked. Hugh Laurie. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Hugh Laurie. I mean, stacked cast. Great cast. Yeah. And in October 2007, Olivia knocks on my trailer door and she's like, hey, I have a plus one to a Barack Obama campaign event. Do you want to come? And I was like, no, I'm good. She goes, but I saw you reading his book. And I was like, yeah, I also read a book about Dick Cheney. Don't need to meet Dick Cheney. You know, I just, I like to read. And she, basically this got to the point where she's like, it's an open bar. And I'm like, sweet, I'm down. So I'm like, all right, all these artists are going to ask great questions about like public arts funding and free speech and stuff like that. So I want to ask like a smarter question. Okay. I want to ask a question out of left field. I'm going to ask a question about climate change. I remember this foreign affairs article. I have like nine glasses of wine, which was a mistake. And then we meet Obama. Yeah. And I was like, sir, I have a, I have a question for you. You know, I was reading your website and I saw that you want to invest in corn for ethanol. That's just going to drive the price of corn up in developing countries. And Obama gives me this like. The look that everybody now knows is like cocky Obama look. Right. And he goes, well, if you read my, my website carefully, you would have seen that I'm investing in corn based ethanol as a bridge to cellulosic ethanol so that we can make biofuels from raking the leaves in your yard and grass clippings when you mow the lawn. Yeah. And then he gave me another smirk and he sort of walked off. And Olivia was just like, yo, you just got schooled by Barack Obama. Right. We both signed up to volunteer for his campaign that evening. Cause. like, all right, I can do an event for him. And then jump ahead, like, you know, 12, 15 months. So campaign ends. I'd been working on it for more than a year while acting. And you get this email if you worked on the campaign that said, if you'd like to be considered for a White House job or anything in the administration, there's a website called change.gov that has been set up. Upload your CV, your resume, a little cover letter, and somebody will call you if you're the right fit. So I did this. I didn't tell anybody except my manager at the time, my acting manager. And he was like, that's crazy. Why would you do that? Will you go work at the White House? And I was like, I doubt I'm qualified. But if I am, yeah, I think it'd be interesting to take a year off and serve. So he's like, all right, whatever. So months go by. This was in November. A couple of months go by. In January, I'm in DC for the inauguration. And you get to bring some people with you, my parents, my brother, my manager. And backstage, you get to say hi to the incoming first family. So Obama comes through. Hey, thanks for everything. All very cordial. Mrs. Obama comes through like 10 minutes later. I hadn't met her before. And she's like, Cal, thank you so much for volunteering for the last year, year and a half. I hope you stay involved. And I was like, yeah, me too. I would love to. Thinking like, that's just something Michelle Obama says to everybody. My manager, who's standing next to me, and was basically like every character from the HBO show Entourage in one person, says to Michelle Obama, well, you know he applied for a job, right? And I'm like, oh, no, no, no. This is not the place for that, please. She's like, what do you mean? He goes, yeah, he applied for a job. And nobody even called him back. And she looks at me and she's like, who did you apply with? I went to the website. I didn't want to bother anybody, so I uploaded my CV to the website. And she looked at me the way you look at somebody if they drop an ice cream cone on the ground on gravel and then pick it up and eat it. Like, what is wrong with you kind of thing. And she calls the president over and goes, tell him. Tell him what you just told me. I was like, well, sir, I applied for a job at the White House. Oh, who'd you apply with? And I was like, I uploaded my CV to change.com. And he was like a little amused, but he was basically like, are you serious? Is this really something you want to do? And somebody on his team reached out and said, actually, incidentally, we're looking, we only have the salary to pay for one White House staffer, but we need that person to cover youth outreach and engagement, Asian American outreach and engagement, and arts, arts outreach. Just arts in general. Outreach to the arts community. And I'd done all three of those in the campaign. And I also had just finished up teaching a semester at UPenn. In Asian American studies. So it was like the timing was kind of perfect. But the end of that, I was obviously deeply embarrassed. The real takeaway for me as actors, you're so used to having to go through your gatekeepers, your, your manager, your, your team, whatever, that I thought I was doing the right thing by just putting my resume out. And like, if I'm qualified, it'll rise to the top. So what it looked like to them was he's not serious. Cause if he was, if you worked for a startup at its infancy for a year, and then the startup got bought out twice and you have the chance to work for a startup, you're not serious. You're not serious. You're not serious. You're not going to work for that new company where your boss is in the leadership role. Are you just going to upload your resume? Or you're going to call your boss and be like, Hey man, I would love to help you execute on all these promises. That was a big lesson learned for me. It sounds stupid in retrospect. Like how dumb are you that you just uploaded your CV? So, you know, props to that. Well, also like we don't come from a culture of legacy admission. Oh, a hundred percent. Yeah. Of course. I'm going to go to website.com backslash apply. Yeah. The, the, I don't want to bother anybody. Backslash. That's the point. But the lesson here is that they don't fucking check that thing. Or did they know? Or did they know? They're like, no, no, no, we didn't. They didn't know. They didn't know. I mean, it's sort of like, like Zoran's website now, 50,000 applications to work in New York city government. Amazing. You know, but I doubt that just uploading your resume is going to. Damn. Yeah. There's so many people that uploaded the resume to that then. Yeah, for sure. When we talk about discourse around the Obama presidency, there's people that were like, he was a great president. There's people that are like, thanks Obama. You didn't do anything for us. As someone who worked in 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, yeah. But call balls and strikes. How was the Obama presidency and how did it shape your view of the presidency? I'll say this in answering the question. Yeah. I hear all of that. And there's no gotcha. No, no, there's no gotcha. It's, it's, it's more of a, you walked the walk. Yeah. Yeah. It's the same way I feel about when people outside of whatever my domain of expertise is, which is very small. Let's say standup comedy. Well, but you have your ear to the ground or whatever, whatever that stupid thing is, or the, you know, the ticket master experience for buying comedy tickets. That's my, but I say that to say is, yeah, Hey, I know this deeply. Yeah. And I can talk to you about it deeply. You have the ability to do that outside of the op-ed page. Yeah. People just firing off page a eight. I think, I think what is, what will never cease to be fascinating to me 2025 right now, right? Yeah. The Obama years I was there was 2009 to 2011. You can't look back at 2009 with a 2025 lens and say, I'm not going to do that. I'm going to do that. I'm going to say this wasn't progressive enough. And I will tell you why is that of course, by a 2025 lens, Obama was not a progressive. That's how, you know, progress worked. It's a good thing. It's a good luxury to be able to look back and be like that moderate, that dude who droned people and didn't get healthcare passed the way that we wanted that that's a great ability to have in 2025, because it means that the things that he did get done are moderate by definition today, because the needle was moved. There were obviously plenty of things I disagreed with that the administration did plenty of things. I think he did right. That maybe he didn't get credit for. I think the big lesson looking back was seeing how like, you know, I haven't talked to the president about this, but the perspective I have of like the years I was there, everything was let's get it done legislatively. Let's not do executive orders. Let's not just unilaterally try to make something happen. Let's get the buy-in. And I remember don't ask, don't tell, for example, um, there were a lot of advocates on the, on the left who rightfully were like, we don't want to wait for Congress to pass something, sign an executive order right now that gets rid of don't ask, don't tell, which is something he could have done. The reason he didn't want to do that is any future president could easily sign an executive order, bringing back don't ask, don't tell. It's really hard if you do it with Congress, cause you have to get 60 votes in the Senate, however many in the house and then have a president's side. So it's almost, there's more levers that have to be pulled. It's very difficult to overturn something legislative. And so like those advocates were obviously livid. We had people chaining themselves to the White House gates saying Obama doesn't care about gay folks and you need to sign an executive order. Now in retrospect, using the 2025 lens, right, we would have had don't ask, don't tell back in effect today, easy if it wasn't legislatively done. So I think having the, the patience to look back and like take those lessons from it, I find really interesting, um, which is a little bit different than look, we, we live in a world where people want change to be like a light switch. Speaker 1: Yeah. Speaker 2: And democracy is designed to move slowly. So I think those lessons are important and interesting for sure. People have a right to be disappointed. People have a right to celebrate. Speaker 1: I mean, what I'd love your insight on actually is what's really interesting that you're saying here is, is there a case for establishment progressivism or should Barack Obama have been more wildly radical? Speaker 2: The problem with this question is that the reality was he couldn't be wildly radical, right? So even the affordable care act at the time, even though the initial point of it was actually like a conservative model, but even then he barely got the democratic votes to get it passed. And in retrospect, we're like, that's all we got. So like it's, of course I wish people had a magic wand. I wish everybody could have been more lefty and more progressive. But the, the, if you're looking at what a president can and can't do, you also have to look at like the, the political capital around it. Yeah. Um, and there were the way that the voter trading works, right? Again, I, I haven't had conversations with the president about this, but for example, I remember hearing, you know, he, he ran this campaign on, if I'm elected, I'm not going to trade favors. Like you can't, I'm not going to do a fundraiser for you in exchange for you vote yes. And I remember I was hearing stories that there were members of Congress who would call and be like, Hey, we need an invitation to play golf with the president so I can get a photo for my newsletter. And in exchange, we'll vote yes on the affordable care act. I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to vote yes on the affordable care act. And the white house was like, you should vote yes on the affordable care act. If you think your constituents need healthcare, this is the right path. But that's what I'm saying is if you're the, if you're the guy who ran on not doing the newsletter, right. And saying, this is how we're going to change the nature of politics. I think looking back and saying, should something have been different, it's also important to like, you know, take all of that into account. I think in a magic photo on an iPhone six in exchange for an exchange for a, no, but then you've got to deal with that person for three hours in a golf round. You know, you can hit them. You can hit them. You need to unsubscribe on the Yahoo email list, sir. Can I give you one example? Sure. Something that I think about a lot, right? I'm a, I'm way farther left of the establishment on things like national security on military industrial complex, all of that. And I would never make an excuse for it because I think it's wrong. The types of things I find interesting are things like, so Obama pledges to close Guantanamo, right? And one of the ways to do that is by making sure that Congress transfers detainees. So Congress almost unilaterally, like rejected Dems and Republicans rejected this because nobody wanted detainees in their own states. Yeah. So it's a, obviously the conversation is longer than that, but so Obama, but the argument is, is I'm not going to just harbor a terrorist and I know. So Obama fails at closing Guantanamo, which obviously is, is disappointing, but it's things like that that I look at where, and I especially think about this when it comes to like presidential elections, mayoral elections and any kind of leadership thing, we put everything in one bucket. But it's easier to target one person than it is for the full field. So anything that requires legislative action, we obviously don't live in that world necessarily now in a Trump administration. But like holding Democratic members accountable, like the boring ass person who represents you in Congress, who could use like maybe a protest in front of their office every now and then. Like that stuff is actually really important to get them to fall in line for something that somebody wants to do. But I cut you off. No, no, no. I think, was there a particular moment that you became disillusioned with at all? Was it perhaps the Merrick Garland decision? Were there moments where you were like, hey, playing nice doesn't work? Or do you feel like, no, this was the right move for that eight-year window at that period of time? I was only there for the two, right? I was, there were plenty of times I was disillusioned. Dude, there was a day probably like a month and a half into me being in the White House. Shared an office with like six other people. I can't remember what the decision was, but there was something the White House was doing that I thought was like, there was just no backbone. Here's the, here's what happens when a dramatic, like a drama queen actor is in the White House. Sure, yeah, yeah, yeah. You did a monologue. I printed, I almost did a monologue. I printed out a photo of a backbone and I put it, I stuck it to the wall. I'm like, people in this fucking building need one of these, right? And then I went off on a rant. Invisceration. Yeah. And one of my coworkers was like, let's go for a walk. And she schools me on the strategy. The strategy behind what I thought was not having a backbone. Now, it didn't change my mind. I was still frustrated. So there are plenty of moments like that. And there are plenty of moments that were like an example of something I thought that we did right. Opening up relations with Cuba, right? So my friend Ben Rhodes, who now hosts Pod Save the World, he was in charge of negotiating secretly with the Cubans on like the Major League Baseball deal and cultural diplomacy and things like that. This was after I had left the White House, but I was working on an arts policy committee at the time. So we did. We did the first ever cultural delegation to Havana after this. I thought that was the right decision. The way of engaging with Cuba since the embargo started hadn't worked. Not everybody agreed with that. Obviously, both Trump and Biden rescinded all of this and sort of kept it locked. I think Biden opened it up like a day before he left office or whatever. But so those are those are choices that the president took a lot of heat for that. I thought he did right. There are plenty of things that I was just really disillusioned and bummed out about. You know, I didn't mean to joke about it. The. Drone stuff, but foreign policy, unilateral stuff against Palestinians again. You know, there's all of that that I just think that's the Democratic Party line. That's a real bummer. So I have a bit in my previous special where I basically say being a fan of a president is like being a fan of a national bank. Yeah. Like walking around. It's very funny. You know, Wells Fargo. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I'm like, they're going to disappoint you for different reasons, but they will disappoint you. But I'm just being a comedian. Throwing spitballs from the back of the class. You've actually really engaged with the process. What is a healthy relationship that one should have with the presidency, meaning someone who is a voting citizen, someone who is a volunteer and maybe someone who bought the T-shirt? Sadly. Yeah, the T-shirt of the band. I think a healthy relationship is. Like understanding from the beginning that you're you should not agree with 100 percent of what this person is. Saying or doing like if you do, that's insanity. That's just then you get into sycophantic stuff. And there's plenty of sycophantic. There was plenty of sycophantic stuff around Obama at the time. There's so much sycophantic stuff around Zoran, for example. And I think the healthy thing to do is be like, I don't agree with everything this person is doing. But is the net part of that something that I feel like this is a step forward? And in any healthy democracy, the fact that people disagree means you're never going to get 100 percent of what you want. So are you going to? Burn it all down because you're not getting everything you want? Or are you going to be OK with getting 20 percent of what you want, 40 percent of what you want and view that as a victory that you have to build on? And I know it sounds like fucking talking points, but really, like, that's how I mean, look, when it came to the issue with Gaza, you went out and you condemned the administration. Yeah, and that's that must have been tough for you. You know, a lot of people that work in the administration. These are friends, colleagues, people that have your cell phone number. Yeah. So it's not just like a dunk. On a Instagram post or whatever you are, some of that political capital that you have built in the friendships that you've built, you've you're calling those people out. How did you navigate that? That was one of the most disappointing and frankly, naively now, in retrospect, surprising things. I remember thinking to myself and there were a group of us that would text about this. And I remember, like Ben Rhodes, for example, who's been very outspoken, you know, chatting with him, chatting with other people who worked in the National Security Council in the Obama White House, who are more aligned with what? Like? Like a Rhodes or I believe in our view kind of thought, OK, before I, like, go out there and tweet about something, I have these relationships, like, let me let me call them, let me send a note to, like, Blinken and Kamala. Like, this is the whole point of having these relationships is, hey, I'm really. You had Anthony Blinken's email. I sent I sent it to an aide. Yeah. Wow. And made sure he saw it. Like, yes, the secretary seen this. Great. And these are these are letters that just. Not as an actor, not that there's no shade to that, but like primarily as, hey, I was Obama's youth guy. Here's what I'm hearing. Biden never had a youth liaison in the public engagement office. So I'm like, you guys don't have one. I was the last. Sorry, that's not true, because there were others after I left the White House. But our administration was the last successful youth outreach administration or at least somebody who had that job. So I'm putting all that out there. And I had phone calls with some of these people. And it was just incredibly, deeply disturbing that it. That there was no room for a conversation about anything. And so I you know, the the national security, cultural diplomacy stuff that I do is mostly rooted in inhuman rights and cultural diplomacy within human rights. So it was just a real bummer, frankly. But I thought that before I saw what you're probably referring to are some of the tweets or posts that I made or fundraisers for like Doctors Without Borders. And what the hell are we doing here? But the starting point for that for a good six to eight months was still believing. That that that private pressure would work. And obviously, you know, it didn't, which is a bummer. What now that you know that. Yeah. What do you do with that information? I think like a lot of people, I. I don't know who you support nationally with the Dems right now. I think we'll have to see what they decide to do. Meaning I'm not a single issue. Voter. But in the next presidential election, people are going to have to be held accountable about how do they feel about the universality of human rights? I just know a lot of people that were at the DNC in Chicago that were part of this movement called Undecided Voters. Yes. And they were protesting the war. Yeah. And the United States is involvement in the war. Yes. And the way the city planning was, is that you had the United Center and they were sent miles away. Yeah. And I remember as a young kid being at the mosque and having. Local congressman, you know, my dad tried to plug the community in any which way and some sort of civic activism. And he said, I remember he's now passed away as a congressman named Vic Fazio. And he was like, you know, the problem with you people is. And I was like, I'm a little offended by the fact that you call us your people. But he's like, you guys don't get involved. The moment you get involved, we as your representatives will have to hear you. Yeah. And I saw just all these people protesting in the park. These are people that you send your kids to high school with that go to fucking DePaul University. We're talking about pre-med majors. These are just like regular people. Yeah, yeah. Not this kind of stuff that gets hijacked by the discourse. Yeah. Just normal, everyday Americans protesting this war. And they were sent miles away from the DNC. You couldn't hear them. Yeah. That signaled to me, I don't want to hear it. Correct. I don't want to hear you. Yes. I don't want to see what you have to say. Right. And I'm not going to create a path for you to even communicate with us. That's right. It was 96 straight hours of people talking at the DNC. We're not going to give you a slot to speak. Not even one slot. Yeah. So for me, again, as like a comedian, satirist, all that sort of stuff, I can't tell people what they should do with their vote. Yeah. Because I witnessed with my own eyes people that were trying to engage. Yeah. I help out the college Dems. I'm on their advisory board. And at some point, I can't remember the month, but I saw that they wrote, this op-ed that was very critical of Harris and Biden in the Washington Post around Gaza and around youth vote in Gaza. And I called them and I was like, hey, I'm super curious about what the meetings were like with the White House that led you to the place where you, as college Dems in their own party, felt the need to publicly write that letter. Fantastic letter. I'm so glad you guys wrote it. But what was the conversation like before? Because I've been having conversations with them too, and they go nowhere, right? And it's clear they're not interested. What was it like for you? And they said, we didn't have any conversations with them. They wouldn't even reach back out to us to have a meeting. Right. So Biden and Harris refused to even meet with the college Democrats of America, one of the backbones of youth engagement on college campuses when you're trying to win an election and even in off years. Yeah. And it led them to have to publicly write a letter to the Washington Post. The Democratic Party needs a real realignment of its core values and looking at what young people actually care about. And multiple things can be true. We can stand up for for human rights and against anti-Semitism. These false conversations that are being created around it are shocking, I think, to a lot of people. And so your example of that is spot on, and it's what I experienced in talking to a lot of these folks who were organizing. It's like you said, the people at the DNC were just put-- - Yeah, I saw it with my own eyes. And so it was one of those things where I go, I can't in good conscience tell anybody how they should vote. - Yeah, I think that's right. - Because those people were doing, like I said, everything they tell you to do in civics class, actively engage, peaceful protest, write your member of Congress, offer up a channel of dialogue. It was all just outright rejection. - I mean, you saw this with Zoran, too. Schumer didn't even endorse him, right? Like mainstream Dems, Hakeem endorsed him, what, like three days before? - About three minutes before. - Unenthusiastically? - Three minutes while you were in line. - Right, right, right, right. So it only matters, only support the nominee if it's the right-- - Right-looking nominee. - So you personally know Zoran Mandani. You personally know his family, both his father and his mother. What does this Zoran moment mean? And as someone who has now worked in politics, how should we meet this moment as citizens of the city of New York? - I think the best way to meet this moment, this love affair that New York City has, either with or against him, if you're a Zoran fan, the things about city politics, the support he's gonna need from the governor to get certain policies through from the city council. Like, know who your city council rep is. Make sure you write them letters, send their office emails or phone calls if you agree with something that the mayor is trying to do. Like, this all now requires actually using the political capital that Zoran earned by getting people out to vote for him and to canvas for him and turning that into real political action. It's one of the things that both helped and hindered, depending on the extent of it, during the Obama years. Any presidency, right? So that's like key, number one, is looking at those things and being like, yes, I need to show up and call this person to say, I need you to allocate this money just like the mayor wants, that kind of thing. - How do people show up for that? What do you mean specifically? - It's a great question. - For example, with like, freeza rent, free buses. How do people show up for that? - So a couple of the basic things are like, just know who your city council rep is, know who your state assembly rep is, right? Just know who all these people are who support you. They might be very boring or they might be interested. Just know who they are, maybe follow them, and get a sense of whether they're on board with the things that the mayor is trying to do. They're also, you don't have to do this alone. There are organizations that do this. Zoran's a democratic socialist, so you could follow DSA for all of that. You don't have to. There are think tanks. There are great groups like Make the Road New York, if you're an immigration advocate, if you care about immigration rights. Like, follow a lot of these just on social, and you'll see, there are stories like, what are they organizing around, why, what's the margin by which you need people to show up? It's like all the marches that people had, like the No Kings thing, right? So imagine a No Kings march, but there's an actual deliverable hard goal at the end of it. Like, there's a bill that's up for a vote, or you need the governor's support for something. So it's like a march like that, but with an actual immediate deliverable. So that's the kind of thing that I think we need to be mindful of. - How are the expectations similar or different between, say, the president and then, say, the mayor of New York City? How are you looking at it? - I'm looking at it differently. I didn't know Obama before volunteering for his campaign. I've known Zoran since he was 14, so that's a little bit surreal also. It's just so proud of him. - Right, right, right. To know him as a person. - To know him as a person and being so proud of him. But I do think the people who, he got people who'd never been involved in politics to register to vote to knock on doors. That's a big moment, and it's a real, special time for the city, for his administration, and then beyond. Most people who are finally registered to vote will continue to register to vote, or continue to vote, right? But it's knowing that all of us need to continue to show up. - So you have a lot of amazing anecdotes in your book. You can't be serious. - Thank you, thank you. - What Harold and Kumar was to me, describe what Mississippi Masala was to you. - Oh, man. So Mississippi Masala is a film that Meera Nair directed, Denzel Washington, "Saritha Charo 3," I think it was one of Denzel's first movies. It came out when I was probably 13, 12, 13, something like that, eighth grade. And I went to see this movie with my parents and my cousin, and it was the first time that I had seen brown characters on screen, played by brown actors, who were fully, fleshed out and flawed. Like these people were, it's family. The family was like struggling, successful, racist. Denzel and Saritha have sex. Like things that people actually do in life that aren't one note. And I walked out of there going, if this woman Meera Nair can do this, then like maybe I can too, right? This form of art. And it was one of the big catalysts on deciding that I wanted to pursue film and TV. And acting. - In the book you talk about Captain Moneybags. - Oh yeah. - Who was Captain Moneybags? - So you've noticed I've changed some of the names in the book. - Sure. - And I've given them all names about how I felt at the time. - Yeah, yeah. - So one of my, probably my longest internship in LA in college, very difficult to get an internship in LA, unless you knew somebody. I didn't know anybody. So after like a year and a half of applying through like the UCLA internships, I got a phone call or an email from like this guy who said that he ran a production company at one of the big studios. And I meet with him and it's like on the back lot of one of the studios, like meet for coffee. And he's selling hard. He's telling me about all these amazing things he's producing. - Yeah. - And I'm falling for all of it. - Sure. - And he's like, I can hire you tomorrow if you can start. I'm like, yes. So I was gonna be a script reader and I would like answer phones and do his emails. And I walk into his office, it is one room, probably about this distance. - This is in Studio City of Sherman Oaks? Where is this? - In one of the studios. - Okay, got that. Okay. - Maybe Culver City. - Sure, maybe. - So he, it's very clear there's like one desk in the corner. - Yeah. - And then two like mini desks for his interns who he's not paying. - Okay. - Reason I called him Captain Moneybags is it turned out he was a trust fund kid. - Yeah. - Whose dad was one of the big execs at the studio at the time. So he had gifted his son a production company with a first look deal and I learned more about how not to produce movies from working for this guy for a year than I ever did in any of the other like internship things. - Tell me about the casting process that you went through with him where you had to give him a bunch of head shots. - Yeah, that's right. - What happened? - So, one day he goes, we're casting this high concept, low budget horror film. - Yes. - And I need to find a lead actor who's like, he loved using the word pops. He's like, who's about to pop? Who's the lead actor that pops? - Give me someone who's about to pop, hasn't popped yet so I can afford him for very little money, but who's about to pop. - And you hand him a photo of Joseph Gordon Levitt. - I hand him Joseph Gordon Levitt's head shot in a little pile and he gets to Joseph's head shot and goes, what the fuck is this kid, Asian? And I'm like, I don't know, why? He goes, because I'm not trying to cast fucking Asians in my movie, Cal, bring me good white American actors and then we move on through the pile. I'm like, well, this is a weird thing to say because obviously he knows I'm an aspiring actor and he can see what I look like. So it's very bold and just to be fair, I always appreciate just the straightforward answer. Don't fucking sugarcoat your racism, I wanna know exactly how you feel so I can find another way in. - Now, did Captain Moneybags even know that India is in the continent of Asia? - I don't know if Captain Moneybags knew much beyond his BMW and his house in Malibu. - Okay. - But, so I'm gonna say no. - Got it. - Right? So I walked with him. - But you're like, be straightforward. Just give it to me real. - Just tell me what you, right. But then I was like, I need to learn because if this is how blatant shit is. So I follow him to his car at the end of the day and I was like, hey, can I ask you a question? What was the deal with not wanting Joseph Gordon-Levitt in this movie because you thought he looked Asian? And by the way, he's not Asian, not that it matters for this conversation. - Sure, yeah, yeah. - And he goes, oh, it's simple, Asians don't see movies. - He said Asians don't see movies. - Asians don't see movies. Asians don't watch movies. - They don't watch film. - Correct, that was his take. - Understood. - And I said, well, I'm Asian American and I watch plenty of movies and everybody I know across a multicultural spectrum all watches movies. This feels ludicrous. So I'm like, I'm gonna leave it alone. I stayed late that night and I went through, you have access to all this like studio demographic data. - Sure. - So the nerd in me was like, I gotta find this data. - Oh God, you went to DataVis. - The data under Asian American and Hispanic at the time had an asterisk next to it. But that's not because Asians don't see movies. It's because they don't ask Asians what movies they see. So it was only black or white. Then I pulled census data about spending money, like what's it called, disposable income. - Sure. - And when he comes in the next day, I'm showing him all of this data. I'm like, dude, actually Asians have purchasing power on parody with the group that has the most purchasing power in America. Hidden asset here, you actually shouldn't cast Joseph Gordon-Levitt. You should cast an actual Asian American actor in this role and your movie will pop. - Yeah. And he goes, "No, Asians don't see movies." the data in front of him right he actually was looking at this going no i know better i know better asians don't see movies so it's just like that bravado like we all know producers like this yeah yeah uh thankfully there are less of some version of some yeah so that was what was wild about about that story is i just kind of walked away from that going all right the the the like glass ceiling is so like you you just can't there's no way that you're i mean it's not even made of glass it's steel you're not getting through the fucking steel but i'm i'm glad he was honest and learned you know i learned a lot about what did you take away from that moment like did it either empower you or were you like look i cannot change someone's preset biases so why even try it was there's two potential paths here but it was both both things were true right i was a i was livid yeah and i was i was mad because i'm like oh this is what i'm up against yes right it's like it's one thing to like oh you put a screen name you go from gulpin modi to cal penn on your resume because you think it might open a few more doors and maybe it does maybe it doesn't but those are the things you have control over you but then what this guy was showing me was that that didn't even matter for like guys who were who were like that then on the flip side it was like you're you're illustrating to me that the the standard way of doing things isn't going to work right so i have two choices i can be a bitch and lament and whine about how this isn't going to work out or i can strategize about a different way in right and so both of those things were true you are one of the nicest people in hollywood i have never heard a bad story about you oh thank you why are people i've heard a lot of bad stories but no i'm just kidding i mean you you can you've heard them you've read them they're they're at the top of the google charts they're there still you didn't wipe them there's nothing you can do nothing you can do cal i'm kidding you're one of the most liked people in hollywood thank you why are people such assholes i don't know i don't know what do you think their incentive is i'm gonna tell you this and i'm not trying to flip it and i'm maybe i'm leaning into the stereotype of me being too nice there are so many filmmakers who just want to work with nice people and who like like they want to work with with with good folks i i have i'm not saying this to plug it it's true sure i'm on season four of industry which comes out in january uh mickey and conrad the guys who created that right you don't know what you're getting walking into a show that already exists and and has that much critical acclaim all right and you walk in and people are like like immediately having artistic conversations and you're like oh my god i'm gonna do this and i'm with you it's a no bullshit zone mike sure is the same way he ep'd uh my show sunny side a couple years ago for nbc like there's this whole caliber of people who by the way to me assholishness is insecurity that's why people are such dicks sometimes yeah you know like like if you're oh you're you're you're masking something you're masking your insecurity you're overcompensating 100 you're insecure as opposed to like somebody who is kind and collaborative and knows what they want like if you have it doesn't undermine your artistic vision to be kind it just brings out everybody's artistic vision to be kind and it doesn't undermine your artistic vision to be kind and then you're the director you still decide at the end of the day but that's been my experience is that is that dickishness is just pure insecurity or entitlement you know you have had to uh craft a path where you're kind of like in the jungle and you have a machete and you gotta clear the brush out there is no path set for you yeah in the book you can't be serious you talk about your story auditioning for van wilder yeah it honestly feels like a piece of fiction it feels like something that was literally made up you cannot do this today right who are you testing against in the film van wilder for your role so in the final callback for van wilder in which i play a character named taj mahal taj mahal so he's not even named after he's named after a building yeah also uh fun tidbit his last name is barda lundabad yeah yeah which i enjoyed i thought that was so so taj mahal is first name middle name first name middle name and then barda lundabad that's his last name all right which basically means like big cock big dick yeah uh so i knew at the end is like all right it's me and another actor i'm like which brother is it like you know i i'm sure sure sure yeah and i'm excited that one of us is going to get this you feel like you're gonna open the door you're gonna see asif manvi right somebody somebody yes yeah so i open the door and it is a white dude in brown face who's already in the waiting room and i'm like oh my god i'm gonna be like oh my god i'm gonna be like oh my god i'm gonna and my beef is generally not with other actors actors are desperate we'll take we'll do whatever it takes to get a part right but i was so fascinated i'm like okay did his agent tell him to like paint his face when he like did he do it at home or did he do it in the bathroom if he did it at home did it increase his chances of getting pulled over by the cops like all of these thoughts going through my head and but he was full trudeau he did the whole thing full full full arms and is it a he's not an actor no he's not an actor anymore oh okay um he i think moved back home somewhere in the midwest i did look him up when i was writing the book sure i thought maybe there's a fun quote or did you guys do that thing where you like before you test you're like hey man what's going on yeah yeah oh you small talk fully dude full small talk full small talk we even hung out a few times after that hey it's julia louis dreyfus from 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go to mill.com slash wiser for an exclusive offer that's mill.com slash wiser happy hosting you didn't mention the shoe polish did not mention that okay also it wasn't uncommon in those days so i realized telling it now and it's only been 20 years yeah telling it now you're like oh my god people did brown face right like the new the new aladdin a couple of years ago had brown face with a bunch of extras right so like it does still happen obviously in a totally different way but it was common enough right right um but i i do remember looking at him while we're making small talk and in my head just saying to myself he is not allowed to get that part you're the only one who's allowed to get that part you're like you're like i have to do this i have to do this and i had questions about whether i wanted to do if i got the part anyway right you talk about this in the book and it represents this kind of divide that is also common in political discourse yeah number one do i stick with my principles 10 toes down zero compromises right or number two do i compromise some things to benefit a larger goal later on yeah you went with the latter i went with the latter why is that important so i i'm never going to throw shade on people who choose the former because a lot of people do and they're very successful in their own right i chose the latter at that particular time you know early 2000s at that point in my career yeah because the advice that i got not just from my agent at the time but there was a wonderful woman named sonia nakor who is no longer in the business but she was the only indian american casting executive at nbc at nbc yeah and i had a general meeting with her and she was like if i can ever offer advice give me a call i had no reason to call her until this and i was like there's this movie called van wilder it's a supporting lead um if i get the part but he's named taj mahal he's an exchange student they want like a stereotypical accent i don't know what to do she goes well a couple things here one if you get the part it is true that your agent will be able to pitch you for things that require you to have had a supporting lead role on your resume that's just true doesn't matter the nature of the role but number two like how many things in the script are like cringeworthy i was like i don't know like 30 she goes okay okay so a lot so you you need to pick 10 all right pick 10 things in the script that you think are cringeworthy and and then if you get the part you talk to the director about them and i interrupted her and i was like oh shit i didn't know this was the thing i could do she's like i'm not done you need to come up with 10 things that are funnier than what the writers came up with if you're going to do this because you have to understand that nobody is making this movie and writing that character with the purpose of offending somebody or promoting a stereotype they think it's funny they think it'll make money and they think it'll make audiences laugh period so it was the first time somebody showed me how i could have agency in the conversation so i'm like fuck it let's see what a gem though to be like to be like you need to come up with a better idea yes you have to that's your job literally she's like that's your idea you can't just be like i'm not doing that no i'm shutting this down you have to exceed what is on the page here and that hadn't always worked right and it hasn't since but so and then you know to walk in and see the dude in brown face sure i was like decision made if i get this part i'm taking it yeah i'm taking this part i need the credit and uh and then i got the part i mean this segues a little bit into harold and kamar if you want like the longer version of the story let's do it so and and ryan rannells was wonderful we improvised in the audition i did talk to the writers there were 10 things they dropped that i added right um all of that was was fine and it was what it was a couple of years go by and the audition for the movies or harold and kamar go to white castle comes up there's no shortage by the way of brown actors to play kumar they audition people in la montreal london new york sydney everywhere yeah and one of the reasons I got the job is because I was the only guy who had a supporting lead role on my resume because I had done Van Wilder. You had done a big studio comedy. Right, and so that really moved the needle forward and it took a couple years for me to fully realize that. And had I not done Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle, I would not have had the chance to do The Namesake because, so Mira Nair, right, mentor of mine, even though she didn't know it since I was in middle school, I see that they're doing The Namesake. John Cho actually recommended Jhumpa's first book. We read it together, read The Namesake together, tried to get the rights to it, found out Mira Nair beat us to it. So I had my agent beg for an audition for The Namesake, for the lead, and they can't get me in the room. So I hand wrote her a letter and I mailed it that was basically like, you've been a mentor for years, you're one of the reasons I decided to be an actor, you have to let me audition for The Namesake. You know very rarely this works, right? Of course, I had done it before and it doesn't work. Yeah, this is the equivalent of sliding in the DMs. Yeah, exactly. But way more work, by the way. What, that it's handwritten? Yeah, it's handwritten and you gotta put Creative Arts Agency, you gotta do the whole thing. You gotta do the whole thing. So I send this off and a week later, my manager calls, hey, Mira called and you gotta fly out to New York, you have an audition for The Namesake. And I get there and she goes, look, the biggest reason you're here, I got your letter and for the last six months, my 14-year-old son Zoran has been telling me that I should audition you for the, the lead in The Namesake. And he's shown me clips from Harold and Camargo to White Castle. And I just thought this is the most puerile thing I've ever seen. You're clearly the wrong choice to play Gogol, the lead in my independent drama. But then I got your letter. And so I'm happy to have you audition. And if you wouldn't mind sticking around to meet my son after the audition, that'd be great. Like what a, what a world, right? So this is what I'm telling you full circle moment. So, so for me as a 19-year-old and for him as a 14-year-old, for Zoran as a 14-year-old, how seminal this was. It was, I mean, and I'm telling you the crazy business story behind it, right? The question about whether to be a purist and say no to things or whether to do what you hope is an investment. So had I not said yes to Van Wilder, would not have gotten, I mean, maybe I still would have gotten Harold and Camargo, who knows, but probably would, may not have gotten Harold and Camargo. Hadn't done Harold and Camargo, certainly would not have gotten in, in the door for The Namesake. Or maybe I would have, because Mira wouldn't have seen the clips. Like you never know. But, but that was the trajectory of what that meant. And The Namesake is my favorite thing I've ever done. You have two new podcasts. I do. I don't know why you have two podcasts, but you have two podcasts. You have one, which is Ear, Say the Audible, and iHeart Audio Book Club. Yeah. Which you co-host with Ed Helms. Yeah, I do. And then of course you have Here We Go Again, an interview podcast that lets you just nerd out about politics, science, and culture. Yeah. So you have a book club and you have your own podcast. Yeah, let me do my own podcast first. Sure. Let me plug this. I did not. Why two podcasts? The second one is just because I'm a book, a reading audio book fan. And iHeart was like, hey, can you, can you host this thing on the side? This like book podcast with Ed? Yeah, sure. So I think it's like eight episodes. Really fun. Okay, got it. But it's very literary. Okay, got it. And was kind of an offshoot of Here We Go Again. Yeah. I didn't, I also, by the way, didn't think I was going to host a podcast. You know how crowded the space is. Yours is phenomenally successful, but everybody has a podcast and they're not always like the most, you know, they don't often peak. So I was a little self-conscious about that. I'm like, until I have an angle or a story that I really want to tell, I'm not good at like, for politics, I'm not good at like going on cable news and screaming at people. That's not what I do. Maybe because I'm too nice, like you said. And so Ed's company reached out and was like, hey, we want to brainstorm a podcast about pop culture, history, and politics, but why cycles keep repeating itself. And a lot of this was like our conversation about Obama, Zoran, all of that, right? How do you look back at things? What do you learn from? And I'm like, this is fun for me because it can be uplifting. It can be funny. And you can, without being preachy, you can kind of learn something from it. So like our first guest was Bill Nye to talk about the space. Legend. Right? My questions for him were, in the 80s, space race was US versus the Soviets because we were trying to kill each other. Now it's like, which billionaire has the biggest dick is like the new space race. So talk me through that. Where are we going from here? It's basically that kind of a thing for different topics throughout pop culture and history. And then the book club is just a book club. Book club's a book club with like really fun audio books. Like, and the narration is great. Like Kerry Washington did one of the, and Ed is very, very funny. So to talk to like, there was one, one about Mark Ronson or for Mark Ronson's new book, audio book that, that he narrates. The musician Mark Ronson. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And Questlove was our guest for that because they know each other really well. So it's kind of like, if you've listened to this audio book to get like a real angle into, into the making of it and the story behind the story. For Thelon Kumar. Yeah, dude. Let's fucking go. Let's go. They made a deal with the writers. They're working out the deal with myself and John. Okay. Obviously, I wouldn't want to make it. I hope so. We don't have like a signed contract. I'm super down. John's in. John is in, as far as I know. Yeah. Okay. You need to do a cameo. Call me for whatever. All right. I'll do it for Dayrate. Oh, they might ask you to. This is great. Thank you, man. Thank you for having me. Of course. Have you subscribed to Lemonada Premium yet? You can listen completely ad-free and get access to exclusive bonus content you won't hear anywhere else. Like my discussion with Malala on how therapy changed her life, or my convo with Mel Robbins on how her let them theory applies to parenting. Tap subscribe on Apple Podcasts or head to LemonadaPremium.com to sign up on any app. That's LemonadaPremium.com.