- [Barry] Okay, this is gonna go under your arms
and around your chest.
- Okay.
[Velcro crinkling]
- [Barry] Put this one here.
[suspenseful music]
[laughing]
[electricity sizzling]
[door slamming]
- [Interviewer] Is your stage name Kal Penn?
- Yes it is.
- [Interviewer] And you're known as Kumar
from "Harold and Kumar"?
- Among many other things.
- [Interviewer] Are you sick of being asked
if you're high right now?
- No.
- [Interviewer] Are you high right now?
- No.
- [Interviewer] Is that true, Barry?
- That's true.
[laughing]
- Damn, I should of shown up high.
[door slamming]
- [Interviewer] Let's start by talking about
[door slamming] your life.
You were born in New Jersey, is that right?
- Correct.
- [Interviewer] But you went to collage in California.
- I did.
- [Interviewer] Are you trying to distance yourself
from your family?
- No, UCLA was the best school I got into
that happened to be very far away.
- [Interviewer] So did you miss your family
while you were in California?
- I did, I missed the whole East Coast.
Obviously, including the parents and the family.
- [Interviewer] And you graduate from UCLA in 2000?
- Correct.
- [Interviewer] Were you at all concerned for Y2K?
- Uh, that's a good question.
I think we were all concerned, that's an interesting one
because you laugh about it now,
at least I laugh about it now.
Yeah, I think we were concerned.
I'm not a big like fear guy,
so I don't think I was terrified but I think concerned.
Yeah, well, your question was concerned,
yes, I think we were concerned.
- [Interviewer] Did you buy any emergency rations?
- I don't think so.
My recollection is that we had a flashlight
and like a bottle of water, just in case,
which is a pretty weak just in case.
It's hard to remember because I'm usually so high.
- [Interviewer] Do you remember where you were
the night of New Years Eve 1999?
[laughing]
- Oh, God.
I gotta answer this honestly.
Yes I do.
- [Interviewer] You do anything reckless that night?
- I, um...
I went to a New Years Eve party
at Hunka Bunka in Sayreville.
- [Interviewer] What's that?
- If you grew up here and listened to Top 40 radio
in the Tri-State area, you know what that is.
- [Interviewer] Did you play saxophone
in your middle school band?
- Yeah.
- [Interviewer] Were you any good?
[sighing]
- What a subjective question, I like that.
I was fantastic.
By 13-year-old standards, no, I was fine.
I wasn't in the honors band.
- [Interviewer] Do you still play?
- I don't, I still have the saxophone
but I have not played it in years.
- [Interviewer] Is it true that your mother
was a fragrance evaluator?
- Yes.
- [Interviewer] So do you always smell this good?
- Uh, I would like to think that.
She was able to bring samples of cologne
home from work often enough
that I definitely was like the weird 15-year-old
who sometimes had cologne on in high school.
- [Interviewer] What about now?
- I do have cologne on now.
- [Interviewer] Expensive cologne?
- It's not expensive cologne,
I um, I have Abercrombie and Fitch cologne on right now.
And along with Axe Body Spray,
I get lots of compliments for these two things.
And when I bragged to some friends about
getting compliments from strangers
about how good I smell,
they were very quick to point out
that that's probably because I reminded them
of old sexual partners.
But I'm still rockin' those two and I still get compliments.
- [Interviewer] So do you think you smell better than Barry?
- I did not get a chance to properly smell Barry,
so there's a very little control group going into this.
- [Barry] Avoidance.
- But that is, I will acknowledge
that that's avoidance 'cause he's at the controls.
- [Interviewer] You've taught film classes at UPenn,
is that correct?
- Yes.
- [Interviewer] You said on the Late Late Show
that you're a very strict professor.
- Early in my class I was, so early in the semester
I was very strict and then I loosened up.
'Cause I wanted to make sure that
people were taking my class for the right reasons.
Meaning that they actually wanted to learn
and that they did not get excited
because Kumar was teaching a film class.
And the first day I outlined the class
and talked about how it's impossible to get an A
unless you do all the reading
because 10% of grade is pop quizzes in the classroom
based on the reading for the week.
And so I think it was like
40 people dropped the class immediately.
- [Interviewer] Do you think you could of passed
your own pop quizzes?
- I could of passed the pop quizzes,
I could not have gotten an A in my own class.
- [Interviewer] Did anyone get an A.
- Yeah, yeah, a lot of people did.
And then I failed two students.
They tried to pass off other people's papers on their own,
there was a whole plagiarism thing.
- [Interviewer] That's harsh, man.
- Yeah.
- [Interviewer] You ever check your rating
on ratemyprofessors.com?
- No, do I have one?
- [Interviewer] I looked it up
and you don't seem to have one.
[sighing]
- Oh, okay, thank you.
Well that's good.
- [Interviewer] Were you expecting a good rating?
- I-ah, I remember the course evaluations that came back
and they were, and they were mixed.
- [Interviewer] Did that hurt your feelings?
- No, not really, I think it was, you know,
the class wasn't for everybody
and also I'm not a traditional instructor.
But I was terrified when you just asked me that question
'cause I'm like, oh man, I hope I don't have
a Rate My Professor.
- [Interviewer] Let's move on to your career.
[door slamming]
Would you say your breakout role
was playing Taj in "Van Wilder"?
- Probably yeah, well, yeah, probably.
"Harold and Kumar" was definitely a bigger leap
but my first real credit on a studio film
was "Van Wilder", definitely.
- [Interviewer] Did your parents watch the film?
- Uh, yes, it's a, you know,
it's a late '90s, early 2000s party movie,
so the tone of, it's not Shakespeare.
But I remember bringing them the script,
they read it and I remember my mom saying,
in a very shocked voice as she turned a page,
"Oh my gosh, this is pornography!"
And I was like, oh no, here we go.
And then like we're talking about
what is and isn't pornography,
which was horrifying but I was glad that we did it
with the script so that they knew what to expect.
And more importantly, knew not to call
all of their friends proudly to say,
you guys should all go see this movie with my son.
- [Interviewer] Do you think that was
the first time you talked about
pornography with your parents?
- Oh definitely, yeah, yeah.
I hope that checks out 'cause otherwise
I've got some memory issues.
- [Barry] Oh yeah.
- [Interviewer] Was this man, Ryan Reynolds,
easy to work with?
- What a handsome man, can we just show our friends
who are watching, is there camera behind me,
or do need to hold this up?
What a handsome man.
He was not only easy to work with
he was a lot of fun to work with.
I'm a huge fan of this guy.
- [Interviewer] Did you see Deadpool?
- I did see Deadpool.
- [Interviewer] Did you see Deadpool 2?
- Is there a Deadpool 2?
I've been really busy, you guys, so, you know.
Is there a Deadpool 2?
- [Interviewer] Let's talk about the big one,
"Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle".
Is it true you don't smoke weed?
- Uh, Yes.
- And you also don't eat meat?
- Correct.
- So is it safe to say you were acting disingenuously?
- No, acting is, as Meisner said,
"Is living realistically under imaginary circumstances."
You didn't know I was this much of a nerd.
It's kinda what I loved about the movies
is I'm not a stoner in real life
and I try to eat healthy.
I say this having just eaten fast food
before I walked in here before you get to that question.
So I hate answering the question on the street,
like, hey, do you want to smoke a joint with me,
which happens often.
Embarrassment of riches, stoners.
I used to be honest and say, sorry, I don't really smoke
and they would be really devastated,
not just disappointed but like they felt wronged.
So now I have stopped saying I don't really smoke weed
and I've started just saying, oh I'd love to
but I've got a thing, I gotta run to a meeting,
or I gotta run to a thing.
Or like how about a high five instead?
- [Interviewer] So you don't wanna
smoke weed with me after this?
- No, we can do that.
- [Interviewer] Are you and this man actually friends
or is that a lie, too?
- Ah, yes.
John Cho is a brother to me.
Also, look at how twinky I am, look at that,
what happened?
So yes, we were friends during the movie
and we're still very good friends in real life.
- [Interviewer] You'd say he's a classy guy?
- He's a super classy guy, yes.
- [Interviewer] So as a real friend,
he'd still let you wear that puka shell necklace?
- Mm-hmm, yeah, he gave it to me,
he gave me the puka shell necklace.
- [Interviewer] Is that true?
- No.
- [Interviewer] You're the star of the new show,
"Sunnyside" right?
- I am.
- [Interviewer] The character you play, Garrett,
his career's ruined by drug charges?
- Yes.
- [Interviewer] Is this something you can relate to?
- Garrett's life is more disrupted by alcohol charges,
so he gets pulled over for walking on the BQE
here in New York for being drunk
and then tries to bribe a cop.
In the original script of the pilot,
he's also doing coke with some hookers
but that got cut because we're on NBC.
Bribery is perhaps the biggest thing.
So thankfully I have not, to my knowledge, bribed anybody.
- [Interviewer] Have you ever been pulled over
and used your celebrity status to get out of a ticket?
- Uh,
yes but it has not worked.
So, I was riding with a friend who was speeding
and we got pulled over and I didn't know
if that kind of thing works or not.
But then I was like, as he was writing the ticket
and got his license and went back to the cop car,
I was just like, well, at least like say hi.
Maybe he does like your movies
and he can make the ticket go away.
So when the cop came back, I was like,
let me thanks the officer,
so I like leaned forward and I was like,
"Thanks officer, sorry of the trouble."
And the cop was like, "Oh my gosh,
"I didn't know you were in the car.
"You should of said something earlier,
"I already put the ticket in the system."
- [Interviewer] Too bad, why don't we move on to
[door slamming] pop culture.
Is it true that your first agent was Barbara Cameron,
the mother of these two child stars?
- Yes!
My first agent was Barbara Cameron,
mother of these awesome child stars.
- [Interviewer] Did you get to meet them?
- I did separately, years later.
So I met Candace Cameron in Barbara Cameron's office
once when I was first starting out.
And I met Kirk Cameron a couple years ago
on like some talk show
that he was doing a different segment of.
- [Interviewer] Did you ever meet anyone else
from the cast of Full House?
- I don't think I've met anyone else from Full House.
John Stamos would be cool to meet,
Lori Loughlin is in jail, I hope.
The others are around but haven't the privilege.
Yeah, one day.
- [Interviewer] You've taught both film and politics courses
at reputable universities, right?
- I have.
- [Interviewer] So do you consider yourself a film buff?
- Uh, I consider myself a film buff
that doesn't mean I am one.
I have huge holes in things that I've seen
and then I've watched like obscure, random things
that people don't think I watch.
- [Interviewer] So in your scholarly opinion,
would you say Once Upon A Time was Tarantino's best movie?
- Uh, no.
- [Interviewer] So, according to Reddit,
you met couple backpacking in the Himalayas
and invited them to join you in L.A.
- Partially true, the general sense of the story is true.
I was shooting a movie in the Himalayas a couple years ago
and there was a couple that lives,
literally lives around the world
and we all became friends.
And I said come visit me, not just in L.A.,
I think it was Toronto that they visited me.
- [Interviewer] So they followed up?
- Yeah, they followed up, we're still in touch.
- [Interviewer] You ever seen the movie "Taken"?
- Is that Liam Neesen?
- [Interviewer] Oh yeah.
- Yeah, a long time ago.
Aren't there multiple Taken's?
- [Interviewer] Yep.
- Okay, yeah, I think I've seen "Taken".
- [Interviewer] In retrospect,
was it wise to trust these strangers?
- Okay, does it, did it worry me that I would get kidnapped?
I felt like there was enough of a vetting
'cause we were in the Himalayas for almost six weeks.
I felt like my ability to vet them for creep factor
was pretty strong, so it didn't cross my mind
that they might kidnap me.
But it does cross my mind generally that somebody might.
- [Interviewer] Sometimes I worry about that, too.
- Yeah.
Like here, for example, yeah.
I don't know any of you.
- Yeah. [chuckling]
That's right.
- [Interviewer] At any point during this interview
did you lie and we didn't catch you?
- No.
- [Interviewer] Barry?
- [Barry] He's right.
- Ah, I wanted to kinda lie just to see
if it would pick it up, but...
- [Interviewer] This is quite serious.
- No, I know, that's why I'm not trying
to make a joke out of it.
It's weird, I immediately got nervous
when I strapped this on
'cause you watch a lot of movies where this is on.
And then I noticed this is like
a super old school lie detector test,
at least it looks like one.
It's in a suitcase, which is even more intimidating.
The only suggestion I would have
to make it even more intimidating
is if you rocked a monocle.
- Maybe I'll get a monocle.
[laughing]
- That's the only thing
that could make this more intimidating.
[door slamming]