In Part III of GoldSea’s exclusive interview, actor Kal Penn (Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle, House) fills us in on his new podcast iHeart Radio “Here We Go Again” and shares his dream guest.
Romen Borsellino (00:00)
The other big project you’ve been in lately is your new podcast, Here We Go Again. Please tell me about that.
Kal Penn (00:04)
Yes.So about a year ago, Ed Helms, who’s obviously hilarious, he and his company reached out to me and said, “we have this concept for a podcast and we’re trying to find the right person to partner on it.” He obviously has his company, Snafu, and does history podcasts. And they said, we want to look at the past, present, and future of specific topics. How do you feel about that? And I was like, that’s actually…
That sounds very cool to me. I’ve never done a podcast of my own, mostly because I enjoy listening to other people’s and I just don’t feel the need to replicate what other people are doing wonderfully already out there. And this was a space where nobody was really doing the past, present, future of pop culture, history and politics in a way that wasn’t political. Obviously I am, like, we have our own political opinions, but what was more interesting to me was if you can do a show like this that looks at specific topics in a way that makes the reader feel, especially in this hell world, like, you laugh, you learn a little bit, and then you leave the podcast feeling like you have a little bit understanding of what this particular issue was about without somebody yelling and screaming or without having to doom scroll.
And so I’ll give you a few examples: Our first episode was with Bill Nye. Everybody loves Bill Nye. And I’m a big space nerd, so I wanted to bring him on to talk about the space race.
And in the 80s, the space race primarily, 80s and before, is between the US and the Soviet Union: Who could launch a satellite first? The Russians beat us to it. Who could land on the moon first? We beat them to it. And then cut to now, the space race, at least in the news, is between billionaires and the private sector. And who can do what first in that realm? So I talk to him about how that happened, the evolution of that, and then what the future of the space race is like.
So there’s like, tons of topics that are like that, that I just think are fun and interesting. We had Alok Vaid-Menon on. Hilarious performer, stand-up comedian, and they kind of walked us through the way that fashion and gender have evolved or devolved as the case may be over time and kind of where we go from there. I thought that was super interesting. Usually whenever you come across that in a bubble online, it’s either people shouting at each other or…
understandably supporting each other in a way that isn’t necessarily accessible to an audience member who doesn’t already understand some of those issues. So it was like a really fun opportunity to sit down with them and kind of go through all of that. So I’ve been having a great time doing it and I hope people like it.
Romen Borsellino (02:33)
It is, it’s super fun, it’s super entertaining. It feels like a tall task to make history not boring, to like take certain explanations that, you know, can be kind of dense, but still make them fun and funny. What’s your like key to doing that?
Kal Penn (02:52)
I think, well first of all we have an amazing team from iHeart, from Snafu, a couple of, it’s a team of like 12 people and they’re all so good at what they do and the research that they do is, I couldn’t walk into this and just like turn on this microphone and start doing that. So you really rely very heavily. They’re tremendous and I’m very grateful. And then the second part of that is because they’re so great at guiding me, because I’ve never hosted a podcast before obviously.
Very different hosting the Daily Show and hosting a podcast. And there’s no real time limit podcast-wise. It’s like, roughly an hour, because you want to have a nice conversation and you cut out the parts that maybe lagged a little bit.
This is not meant to be a pejorative, but instead of journalists or academics, ideally, I want the primary source person. if we’re doing, for example, if we’re doing an episode on infrastructure, which is obviously a very boring word, and nobody should ever say that they’re doing a podcast episode on infrastructure, but it’s basically like, are bridges falling apart? How did the American highway system get built? How come if your plane lands early, there’s never a gate ready? So instead of calling up any of the incredible journalists who covered these issues, I’m like, what about the former Transportation Secretary, Pete Buttigieg? Like, what if he comes on? So Pete comes on, we had a great conversation for an hour. Some of that, though, he’s so good at what he does, and he’s adept at being a politician. But, like, I also kind of, you know, like, my job is to also bring out some of the lighter stuff, which, of course, Pete is great at.
So it was like that. Like, I’ve really enjoyed bringing that part out, is that you can be both funny and stupid and serious at the same time in the same pod. And I think our target audience are people who enjoy all those things.
Romen Borsellino (04:32)
Are there any dream guests you want on the pod that you’re like, “I would love to talk to this person?”
Kal Penn (04:35)
Ooh.
I think it’d be interesting to, I’d love to talk to like Shane Gillis, who I’m a big fan of, on the evolution of free speech in comedy and what that means today, because I think he’s really smart about it, both in his comedy and in his interviews, and he’s also just a very funny guy. You know, it’d be cool to have an astronaut on, especially one of the astronauts who were kind of stuck in space a little longer than they were planning on being there. Not from the policy perspective as much as just what’s that like when you aren’t sure when you’re coming home.
Romen Borsellino (05:12)
Yeah, yeah. I feel like this podcast is just like a front to like find out and talk, find out cool shit and talk to all, like you could very well, there could be no podcast. It could just be you like talking to these people and you don’t care who else listens to it. Cause like these are your interests.
Kal Penn (05:34)
Yeah. Yeah, I think that’s right. I think that’s right.
Romen Borsellino (05:38)
And then I guess maybe one final question is, so in your new expertise as a podcast host, how would you say that I am doing as a podcast host?
Kal Penn (05:49)
I think, I think you’re doing great. Cause you had me on. So, you know, that’s.
Romen Borsellino (05:55)
Sweet, thank you.
And to our viewers, there was a longer, more disparaging answer from Kal, but I edited out the parts that I didn’t like because that is the key to it.
Kal Penn (06:06)
I just called him Jeet a bunch of times.
Romen Borsellino (05:55)
Well, you don’t know what that means.
Anyway, thank you so much for joining us and our viewers should definitely check out Here We Go Again and catch you on Industry this season.
Kal Penn
Yes, thanks man. Thank you for having me on.
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