In Part II of GoldSea’s exclusive interview, actor Kal Penn (Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle, House) talks “vulgar and grounded” role in HBO’s Industry Season 4 and shares thoughts on the latest anti-Indian slur.
Romen Borsellino (00:00)
The next question is about Indian racism. There has been–
Kal Penn (00:04)
Like within the community?
Romen Borsellino
No, towards us.
Kal Penn
Okay.
Romen Borsellino
I feel like there has been an insane amount lately. Like I feel like there has been more anti-Indian racism than I have ever seen in my life. But you you’ve seen, you know, you’ve been around longer. You were just like so much older than me. You’re just like years, years older than me.
Kal Penn (00:23)
Yeah, right.
Romen Borsellino
So you probably have a you know better perspective on this are you feeling it? Are you feeling the Indian racism right now?
Kal Penn
Um, I am not feeling it right now. I, uh, I’m also not really on like, don’t have Twitter on my phone and, um, I don’t really read the kind of stuff that I have heard from people like, wow, there’s such a rise in anti-Indian racism. I haven’t personally experienced or seen it. The, the peak of when I sort of experienced it and saw it was when I was living in LA. And that’s from people who work in the entertainment industry, not from anybody outside.
So I know that today whatever’s happening seems to be from like the far right or just the right in general towards Indian Americans. Again, from what I hear, I’m not part of these conversations or anything, but from my experience, it was always from the left or at least the center left in LA, so I think it’s interesting. And those were like things that you actually experienced yourself, right? As opposed to right now.
Like, are you experiencing it in person or is this just stuff you’re reading online?
Romen Borsellino (01:25)
It’s mostly stuff I’m reading. It’s almost only stuff I’m reading online and not much of it is directed towards me, but like someone recently, this was a great one, someone on Substack responded to one of my posts calling me a “gopher-holer.”
Kal Penn (01:41)
That’s that. That’s fun.
Romen Borsellino
So I responded and I, first of all, I sent a very fun response because, you know, obviously like I ended the response by listing my pronouns in the message.
Kal Penn (01:56)
You’re rage baiting this person.
Romen Borsellino (01:56)
Yeah, 100%. And what’s fun, I think he was taken aback cause he gave, he just like gave me a one word response or a one sentence response on what it meant. Apparently gopher holder was —— a gopher holer was a reference to, Hamas tunnels that were allegedly constructed in Gaza under, under hospitals, according to, you know, what I was told. So that’s a, that was a new one.
Kal Penn
Interesting.
Romen Borsellino (02:25)
And it’s always fun to discover something new like that.
Kal Penn (02:28)
You know what, this may be problematic. Again, I have no context. I’m not on social media enough to see the insanity of these conversations. But apparently, one of the new I’m going to put slur in quotes because it means nothing to me is Jeet. Like people calling each other Jeets.
Romen Borsellino (02:45)
That was my next question. My next question was, what do you think of the term Jeet and have you heard it?
Kal Penn (02:51)
So as somebody who played a character named Taj Mahal, which is obviously not even a human name, it’s a character named after a building, I find being called a Jeet which is at least somebody’s name, I don’t understand why that’s offensive. And I fully get that to some people listening, I may sound like just an old person who doesn’t understand why something should be offensive, but…
Romen Borsellino (02:55)
Right.
Kal Penn (03:19)
I don’t know, man. It means nothing to me. I kind of laughed, to be honest. I was like, that’s a fun name.
Romen Borsellino (03:22)
I want, not only do I totally agree with you on that, I wrote this in a Gold Sea article within the past week. I might’ve edited this part out, but I mentioned that it doesn’t do much for me either. And I think maybe is like, it’s too new, it’s too fresh. It’s like when you get a baseball glove, you need to like wear it in a little bit before it’s effective. So just hearing Jeet for the first few times doesn’t mean anything to me. But maybe we’ll get to that point where, you know — it’s unearned. I think it’s unearned so far.
Kal Penn (03:49)
Mm-hmm. Sure, sure, I guess. Well, I just assume that it stems from like somebody knowing a dude named Jeet. So I don’t get it.
Romen Borsellino (04:04)
Yeah, so guess like Pajeet is, it’s apparently short for Pajeet. It is meant to portray because I literally right before this interview, I was Googling it to like get, I literally have a browser right now. I have a tab open that just says Jeet. And one of the first hits, Nick Fuentes refers to Usha Vance as “Jeet”.
What does it mean? It is a derogatory racist slur. It is apparently meant to convey the idea that Indians are filthy and dirty and don’t shower and excrement, etc. And that is, I know that’s very different from your experience of like institutionalized racism from when you’re coming up in Hollywood, but that’s something I have been hearing more of lately than I remember is this idea about Indians being unclean and not showering and not bathing and you’re not seeing much of that in a way that?
Kal Penn (05:03)
I mean, I have not come across that. When you describe all that, the first thing I think of is like Indiana Jones and Temple of Doom. Like I don’t see a legitimate thing.
Romen Borsellino (05:10)
Yeah. Well,you are in the new episode. I know this is a very harsh pivot, but I promise I’m going somewhere with this. You’re in the new Industry, which is incredible.
Kal Penn
I am. Season 4,baby.
Romen Borsellino
I freaking loved it. ⁓ And I’m not just saying that because I’m biased.
Kal Penn (05:23)
Thank you
Romen Borsellino
It was just like, well, you and I have very similar senses of humor. Watching you get to say the most just vulgar things, I was like, he’s
Kal Penn
Vulgar and grounded.
Romen Borsellino
Yeah, exactly. He’s a kid in a candy store. Was it, was it written as any race, ethnicity? So you were, and this was the case with your House character, right? It was just like the best actor, the actor who best fits the role gets it regardless of.
Kal Penn (05:58)
Yeah, I mean, in the case of House, I auditioned and I remember there were, and I’ve talked to David Shore, who’s wonderful, he’s the show creator. My recollection is that when we went into audition, they were casting nine parts. And of the nine, three of us were gonna end up being series regulars. They just weren’t sure which of the three yet. So you had actors 18 to 80 reading for these nine parts.
And basically everybody, at least every guy, we all looked completely different obviously and they gave us all the sides of this Mormon doctor. So the scene you were reading and the character you were reading for was the part of a Mormon doctor. And from there, if they liked you enough, they offered you what they thought was the right character. I just thought that was really cool because it was truly colorblind casting. They just wanted the best actors. They gave you the same set of sides. It was sort of an equal playing field, men and women, et cetera. In the case of Industry, obviously cut to like 15, 20 years later.
Mickey and Conrad, the two guys who created Industry, were fans of the Harold and Kumar franchise and had seen some of the other things I did. So this, very gratefully, was they offered it to me and I read the script and obviously loved the character. So that’s how that came about. Yeah.
Romen Borsellino (07:12)
That’s great. And your character, I don’t quite remember the name. My guess is like Sanjay or Akash or something.
Kal Penn (07:19)
J. Jonah Atterbury.
Romen Borsellino
Right. That was my next. Did they give you any license where they like, if you want to change that to something Indian at all?
Kal Penn
No, never really came up, so I was happy to play what I earned.
Romen Borsellino (07:31)
I noticed that, so here’s where I was going with that question, is that the character is accused of having body odor.
Kal Penn
Yes.
Romen Borsellino
And a part of me wondered if there was any connection to like an Indian stereotype.
Kal Penn (07:40)
I don’t think so. I mean, they used to call me Jeet on set, but nothing on camera….
Romen Borsellino (07:52)
Only when the cameras weren’t rolling.
Kal Penn
No, you know, it’s funny. There was a journalist who asked the same question. In the original meetings that we had before we started shooting, you could do like your wardrobe fittings and meetings about the character and all that. The original comp for this character visually was Sam Bankman Fried. And so there are lot of pictures of him looking extremely disheveled. Like he may have had a $2,500 hoodie on, it looks like a $5 ratty hoodie. He hasn’t combed his hair, all of that. And in some of those initial conversations, wardrobe-wise, I felt like the less obvious version of that was more interesting to play. So he does have really nice shirts, really nice jackets. He enjoys.
Romen Borsellino (08:17)
Yeah, nice. Totally. It’s like hoodie and blazer, right? Great look.
Kal Penn (08:42)
Yeah, so we combine those two where I felt like Jonah would dress up because the subtext of his whole thing, his whole arc, especially in that first episode is about his insecurity with his appearance and by virtue of getting older. So like, is he still attractive? Does the power that he’s built through his business still make him attractive to women, even if it’s for casual sex? And so if he had that insecurity, I felt that that would mean that he’s trying to dress better.
I don’t think he would have that insecurity if he resigned himself to dress slovenly. So we changed the way he looks, but obviously there was no need to change the script because the script just is what it is. And this is a guy who’s hooked on drugs and alcohol and is in this downward spiral. no, there was no, at least no conscious merger between any of that stuff and the ethnicity that I brought to the character.
Romen Borsellino (09:37)
That is really awesome insight. I did not know that about who it was based off. Was the journalist who asked you that question Brown?
Kal Penn (09:44)
I… No, no, no, they were not.
Romen Borsellino (09:47)
So were offended at all? Like, “so you played a character who was like smelly and gross. Is that because you’re Indian?” Like, I can ask that. I can ask at least half of that. I’m half Indian.
Kal Penn (09:59)
I think it was asked with much more care.
Romen Borsellino (10:05)
Than the way I ask my questions.
Kal Penn
But also, I’m never mad at like, I mean, this is the low hanging fruit example, but people will ask, people will look at characters and plot points and think they mean something that they don’t. And that’s great if somebody wants to take that away from it. But if you’re going to ask me about like, what’s the real story behind it, I’ll obviously. You know, tell you how the sausage was made.
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