Kal Penn Revealed Why He Waited Until Now To Publicly Come Out and The Racism He Faced In Hollywood
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On today's episode of BuzzFeed Daily, we broke down the top pop culture headlines AND discussed Kal Penn's new book, You Can't Be Serious. You can listen below or scroll down to read more about the interview!
So let's dive right into it! Recently we talked to Kal Penn about his memoir, how he met his fiancé, the ways Hollywood has failed him, and more. Here's some of what we learned:
BuzzFeed Daily: So your new memoir came out last week. It's called You Can't Be Serious, and it covers everything from your childhood to your acting career, to your political career to your romantic life. Usually, people start an interview like this by asking "Why did you want to write this book?" But I'm sure that's already been covered, so instead, I'm going to ask, "What did you learn about yourself while writing this book?"
Kal Penn: Oh, that's such a better question. You know, a lot of the stories that I tell in the book, I tell in a way that I want the reader to feel like I'm having a beer with them because that's generally how I've told the stories to friends who know me well. And the first couple of chapters have to do with early life, middle school, kind of typecasting in Hollywood — some of those early life frustrations. And I'm so used to verbally telling those stories in a way that is funny to my friends. In the first draft I turned in to my editor, those early chapters were super dark and I did not anticipate that they'd be that dark, right?
And I mean, look, first of all, I'm an actor. So any time I remember a story, I feel the story and I'm feeling these stories of typecasting and going in on auditions. I told the story about being on an episode of Sabrina the Teenage Witch and just how awful those producers and the director were. And it's like coming off the page. It was so dark. And part of me was like, "Dude, it's been like 15 years. And that was a credit on a resume that helped you get another job. What is the deal?" You know, I'm used to writing screenplays and making up characters, not writing autobiographical short stories. So [I think the biggest thing I learned] was figuring out how to properly tell those stories in a way that was more authentic rather than just visceral.
BuzzFeed Daily: A lot of the book covers your acting career — particularly the early parts of your career. You were talking about when Hollywood wasn't very inclusive towards people of color, and sometimes flat-out racist. And we've come some way since then in terms of representation. But I'm curious from your personal experience, what do you think about the changes Hollywood has had and the changes it still needs to make?
Sabrina the Teenage Witch! Man. We got INTO it about why he had to have an accent. I'm laughing about it now but they were such dicks 😂
BuzzFeed Daily: Near the end of the memoir, you write about your experience creating the TV show Sunnyside in 2019 and how much it meant to you to tell that story. But unfortunately, the series was canceled a few months after it premiered. What were some of the lessons you took from that experience?
KP: That was a really tough chapter to write, and I was glad I could end the book with it. I mean, on the one hand, it was like, "OK, this just happened to me. I am way too close to have any sort of perspective, right?" So it is kind of an emotional story. But then on the flip side, it was like I thought it was important to tell because it's an example, I think of everything I love — all the opportunity that I feel about what we do and then also all the frustrations, all in one story. So it was everything that I had talked about in the book up until that point. I was and remain so thankful that I had the chance to create what at that point was the most diverse show on network television to date with the most diverse writers' room. The show wasn't necessarily about that. We just wanted to make everybody laugh. And the big reveal, I mean, I'll ruin it a little bit, but obviously, it's a long chapter, so you'll get more out of it. But you know, the big reveal was after we got canceled the advertising magazine Ad Age ran a piece where they desegregated NBC's ad spend data and found that the network had spent something like 3,300% less on our show than they did on the far less diverse offerings that they had on the same night. And the reason that was so shocking — and maybe it shouldn't have been — but the reason that was so shocking is that the networks used the Nielsen ratings as their benchmark of measuring the success and failure of a show. And undoubtedly, we were the lowest-rated show, so of course, we had to get canceled. But if you're using one metric to measure the success of every show, but you're not investing equally in those shows, then you're setting up the performers of color to fail. And I think that's endemic to network TV because they're competing in an ad-driven model. They're competing against streaming platforms that don't have to worry about ad revenue. So the streaming ones inevitably are going to be investing more in these really diverse stories. And so that whole thing putting it together, on the one hand, it was like, I definitely still had a chip on my shoulder. But on the other hand, how do you tell this story in a way that contributes to the overall subtext of the book, which is systems do change and they can change, and they only change when we kind of get into them and do what we love to make things a little bit better? So I'm glad you asked about that chapter was definitely a tricky one to write.
BuzzFeed Daily: Your memoir has already received a ton of positive feedback because it's a very good book, but people are also really interested in it because it's the first time you've spoken about your sexuality in a public way. You also included your engagement announcement to your fiance, Josh, which, by the way, congratulations. Now, you've said that you've never hidden or lied about your relationship, but what made you want to talk about it publicly at this point in your life? And why did you choose the memoir as the way to do it?
KP: I'm very excited to share the story about how Josh and I met because it's, I'm told, quite ludicrous. Josh is a very quiet person. He grew up in rural Mississippi. He doesn't love attention. And so I write about the story about how we met, which was that I was working at the White House at the time. He comes over for Sunday — I should preface this by saying we met when I lived in DC, and Sundays were the only days that White House staffers really have time off, and you're supposed to do your laundry and run your errands and all that and maybe squeeze in a date.
So I was like, "Yeah, just come over, we'll have a couple of beers in the afternoon." And this dude rolls into my apartment with an 18-pack of Coors Light and turns on a NASCAR race on my TV. And I was like, "Oh, I know how this is going to end. It's going to end in 20 minutes when he leaves with 16 of those beers because we have nothing in common." So while I was putting the memoir together, I was like, "Hey, can I tell that story?" Because our friends obviously know the story and think it's hilarious. We've been together for 11 years. But I wanted to be respectful of his privacy as well. And the fact is that he, like my parents and my brother, really doesn't love the limelight.
The best example of this I would give is the third Harold and Kumar premiere. You know, we pack the car, everyone's going together. And as soon as we pull up, my parents, my brother, Josh, and several of our friends, they all get out of the car. It's a very big car and they go through the side entrance of the theater. They're like, "We're going to grab popcorn and sodas and we'll see you at the seats in an hour." I'm like, "Wait, what?" And they're like, "You go do the red carpet thing you have to do". I'm like, "You guys don't want to at least take one picture with me?" They're like, "No, we love you and support you and we'll see you inside the show."
I just mostly have wanted to be respectful of their privacy and their wishes and and in putting this book together and said, you know, there are two really joyous stories that I want to tell. One is how Josh and I met, because through the NASCAR of it all, by the way, the whole point of that was that we both we both grew up camping. You know, he grew up in rural Mississippi, didn't have a lot of money there. Family vacations were to campgrounds and NASCAR races. And for me, I was, you know, the son of immigrants. My dad moved to America with $12 in his pocket. We also went camping because it was a cost effective way to spend time with the family. So that story meant a lot to me, and the story of my parents. The fact that my dad did move here with $12 in his pocket in the hope of a better life, or things that I wanted.
I wanted their permission to tell and I wanted to make sure I told them as a matter of fact, and in as right a way as possible. You know, my dad grew up in a tenement in Mumbai. There were six of them in one room. There was no running water, no toilet. If you wanted to use the bathroom, you had to walk all the way down to the end of the building, and it was a literally communal holes in the ground. And all of those stories make me who I am today. And so I'm really excited to share them with people who are reading the book or listening to the audiobook. And that's kind of what went into all that.
BuzzFeed Daily: I've just got to ask about the Twitter exchange with Cardi B. I mean, you're going to have to have her officiate the wedding, right?
First, why didn’t you say hi! Second, I’m licensed to do that sooo……..let me know. https://t.co/NTGvVdacFY
BuzzFeed Daily: OK, so I do want to move on to your time in politics because I love talking about your time in politics. In the book, you write about how your grandparents marched with Gandhi and how much that story influenced your values. Obviously, we all know about your time working for the Obama administration, and you're clearly a very political person. Have you ever thought of running for office?
KP: No, I don't think so. Look, I loved working in the administration. The story of how I got there was incredibly unlikely. I did not think it was ever something I was going to do. In fact, the whole reason I even got roped into an Obama campaign event was Olivia Wilde, who was on House with me at the time, said she had a plus one to an event and was like "You want to come with me?" And I said, "Nah." And she said, "Why not? I saw you reading Obama's book" and I'm like, "Yeah, I read his book. It's a good book doesn't mean I want to meet him or go for anything." And this is, by the way, when he was like 30 points down in the polls before the primary, right.
I did end up going mostly because it was an open bar event and I really think that one of the biggest takeaways, you know, I was a junior staffer, right? So most of the stuff that I was working on wasn't vitriolic or sexy enough to end up on Fox or MSNBC or CNN or anything. But it was stuff that was deeply meaningful. So working on the outreach teams around something like the Affordable Care Act or the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell or doubling the Pell Grant for higher education or really, really meaningful things. And I left that experience with a deeper sense of, I think, what we all know, which is that the system is sort of designed to make you feel complacent and to make you feel like, "Well, my voice doesn't matter."
But the more we feel that way, the more we stay home, and the more nothing changes. And so I met people who definitely vehemently disagreed with Obama. Maybe people who thought that he was too liberal or too conservative, and they made me feel better about the fact that people still have discourse and people are still willing to make their voices heard in a way that isn't just sending a nasty tweet to somebody you don't like (which, by the way, feels amazing). It doesn't necessarily move the needle on policy, right? Government moves slowly for a reason, and I just wrote a book, and I wrote about all the ways I put my foot in my mouth in the book. But the biggest takeaway from that was, I think, just feeling like there's a lot of good that everybody can do.
We also talked about how Hilary Duff shared a photo of her infant daughter's pierced ears despite knowing she'd receive backlash.
She posted the photo on her Instagram story, with the caption, “Yes! I pierced her ears today. Can’t wait for the internet to call me a child abuser….again. lesss go.”
Hilary’s caption refers to when people called her out for piercing her older daughter’s ears when she was a baby. Numerous commenters called the decision quote “abusive” because her daughter couldn’t consent.
Plus, Eternals star Brian Tyree Henry recently shared that he had some reservations about joining the MCU.
During a press conference, Brian revealed that when director Chloé Zhao and producer Nate Moore first approached him to play Phastos, he asked how much weight he’d have to lose.
He said that Chloé told him they wanted him just as he was, adding, “To be a Black man, to have someone look at you and say, ‘We want you exactly the way you are,’ is unlike anything that I’ve ever felt.”
