Known For: American actor and civil servant (born 1977)
Category: Actors
Occupation: actor, film producer, film actor, television actor, politician
Country: United States of America
City: Montclair
Date of Birth: Saturday, 23 April 1977
Language English
Kalpen Suresh Modi, known professionally as Kal Penn, is an American actor, author, and former White House staff member in the Barack Obama administration. As an actor he is known for his portrayals of Lawrence Kutner on the television program House, White House staffer Seth Wright on Designated Survivor, Kevin, a psychologist and boyfriend to Robin in How I Met Your Mother, and Kumar Patel in the Harold & Kumar film series. He is also recognized for his performance in the film The Namesake. Penn once taught at the University of Pennsylvania in the Cinema Studies Program as a visiting lecturer.
| BirthPlace | Montclair |
| Education | Q174710, Q41506, Q5921736, Q5500918 |
| Wikipedia | Kal_Penn |
| kalpenn | |
| X (Twitter) | KalPenn |
Penn was born as Kalpen Suresh Modi in Montclair, New Jersey on April 23, 1977, to Hindu Indian immigrant parents from Gujarat. His mother, Asmita Bhatt, is a fragrance evaluator for a perfume company, and his father, Suresh Modi, is an engineer. His father is from Kheda and his mother was born in Vadodara. Kal Penn regularly visited Gujarat as a child during vacations, and he can speak some Gujarati as well as some Hindi. He has stated that stories of his grandparents marching with Mahatma Gandhi during the Indian independence movement were a significant influence on his interest in politics. Kal Penn attended Marlboro Middle School in Marlboro Township, New Jersey, where he played baritone saxophone in the jazz band. For high school he attended Freehold Township High School for all four years where he was enrolled in the International Studies Program the first two years. His Junior and Senior years he attended The Fine and Performing Arts Center (a magnet program) at Howell High School in the Acting program (FPAC is a part time program, so he was bused between schools). Both schools are part of the Freehold Regional High School District in New Jersey. He was active in the schools' theater productions and competed on the Freehold Township National Honor Society Speech and Debate team (formerly known as Forensics). He then attended UCLA, where he double majored in film and sociology, graduating with a B.A. in 2000.
