Actor, producer and civil servant speaks about striking a balance in his life
Actor, producer and civil servant Kal Penn
Kalpen Modi, better known as Kal Penn, is a young man with many feathers to his cap. Best known for his roles as Nikhil or Gogol Ganguly in Mira Nair’s The Namesake and as Dr Lawrence Kutner in the Hugh Laurie-starrer medical drama series House MD, he has also served in the Barack Obama administration as an associate director in the White House office of public engagement. “I’m truly thankful to everyone who has continued to watch and appreciate my work as an actor even with the sabbatical I took in between to serve in the White House. Acting and filmmaking will always be my first love, and so this really does mean a lot,” he says as he talks about straddling the worlds of politics and acting simultaneously over the years.
Ask him if he has always nurtured an interest in both fields and his response is immediate. “When I was in high school, my guidance counsellor once asked me what I wanted to do for a living. I remember telling her that I wanted to be an actor and filmmaker and also contribute somehow in public service. You can’t do both in life, she had said to me with crushing finality. You can’t have your cake and eat it too! And I had sat there wondering what kind of a guidance counsellor tells a 17-year-old boy that he can’t do what he wants to do?” he laughs and adds, “It actually had the opposite effect on me. I thought that if this woman is telling me that I can’t do something, then obviously I’m going to do it. Which is how things really did shape up for me.”
Kal is at present visiting India ahead of his next release, Bhopal: A Prayer For Rain in which he stars alongside Martin Sheen, Mischa Barton, Tannishtha Chatterjee and Rajpal Yadav as a tabloid journalist. Filming a fictionalised re-telling of a sensitive as well as familiar incident like the 1984 Bhopal Gas Tragedy must come with its own set of challenges. Where the writing and direction would have had to keep several things in mind in terms of making the narrative simultaneously engaging and tactful, did he also keep any considerations in mind while playing a character within that narrative? “Yes, I did. The character is loosely based on a real person and when I had asked my director to what extent he wanted me to make sure the two seem alike, he had said that he wanted Motwani to be almost entirely fictional.
The character goes from being this ridiculously larger than life tabloid journalist to someone who actually cares very much about his town and community,” he shares.
Talking about preparing for the role, since it is located in an entirely unfamiliar context for him, Kal asserts, “There is a certain universality to a tabloid journalist, and it was fun to play with that and embellish it a little as we also focused on the specific details. I rely a lot on research and also on talking to people like Rajpal (Yadav), who was very helpful on things like the dialect and also some of the customs.”
It is arguable that there is a thin line between the universal and the stereotypical. Was he apprehensive of slipping from the former into the latter at any point? “No, I wasn’t. The arc of the character starts out very broad, that’s true, but that is how the director wanted it to read.” The actor will be seen next in Vince Gilligan’s upcoming series Battle Creek. “It’s the first time I’m playing a detective, which is very different and fun,” he says.
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