ORBITRA
Kal Penn

Acting

Kal Penn

Born Apr 23, 1977 · 49 years112 titles 53 movies · 59 TV
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Biography

Kalpen Suresh Modi (born April 23, 1977) is an American actor, author, comedian, and former White House staff member in the Obama administration. He is best known for his role as Kumar Patel in the Harold & Kumar movie franchise. He is also known for his roles as Lawrence Kutner on the television program House, White House staffer Seth Wright on Designated Survivor, Kevin in How I Met Your Mother and Nikhil Ganguli in the film The Namesake (2006). In early 2009, Penn was offered the position of Associate Director of the White House Office of Public Engagement and Intergovernmental Affairs, which he accepted, necessitating his character Lawrence Kutner being written out of the TV series House. In 2020, Penn wrote a memoir called "You Can't Be Serious". While promoting this memoir, Penn announced that he and his boyfriend of 11 years, named Josh, were engaged

Also known as

Kalpen Suresh Modi · Cal Pen

Born

Apr 23, 1977

Montclair, New Jersey, USA

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Photos

Profile images from TMDB · click to enlarge

4 images

Roles across career

Titles counted once; a person can act and direct on the same film (roles merged).

112

Acting credits

0

Directing

0

Writing

4

Other crew

Most critically rated

Highest TMDB score (min 100 votes)

Most commercially successful

Highest TMDB vote count (attention / reach proxy; not box office)

Career timeline

By release / first air year · movie & TV merged

Orbit ↑

1969 1 title(s)

1979 1 title(s)

1988 1 title(s)

1992 1 title(s)

1994 1 title(s)

1996 3 title(s)

1997 2 title(s)

1998 1 title(s)

1999 5 title(s)

2001 3 title(s)

2002 1 title(s)

2003 8 title(s)

2004 5 title(s)

2005 6 title(s)

2006 7 title(s)

2007 2 title(s)

2008 2 title(s)

2009 2 title(s)

2010 1 title(s)

2011 5 title(s)

2012 1 title(s)

2013 4 title(s)

2014 3 title(s)

2015 7 title(s)

2016 5 title(s)

2017 5 title(s)

2018 2 title(s)

2019 4 title(s)

2020 5 title(s)

2021 6 title(s)

2022 2 title(s)

2023 2 title(s)

2024 1 title(s)

2025 1 title(s)

2026 1 title(s)

Undated 5 title(s)