Some of our most memorable shows and revered artists have utilized brownface. Most people know about Peter Sellers （1968）， Fisher Stevens （1986）， and Hank Azaria （today）。 Less-obvious instances, like Harvey Jason in Jurassic Park （1997）， Max Minghella in The Social Network （2010）， one hundred extras in Aladdin （2019）， and Rob Schneider in a bunch of stuff, make you go, “Oh right. This is still a thing.” The practice is still common enough today that I couldn’t write this chapter without mentioning it. Given the widespread, systemic nature of it, it was impossible to hold personal beef against every actor who showed up in brownface. It made me angry, yes. Livid. It also made me feel lonely, with a decisive lack of support from the Indian American community, and the reality that every actor is just looking for a gig. The philosophy seemed to be: It’s super competitive out there. You do what you gotta do.
For example, my standin on House M.D. was a really really nice guy who predated me on the show （he was a standin for other characters in seasons before I joined the cast）。 So, once I was in the picture, he was told to paint his face brown every morning by our cinematographer, who cited lighting as the reason he needed the brownface.6 Back in the good old days （2009）， this was just accepted.
As I sat across from the white dude in brownface in the Van Wilder audition waiting room, my head buzzed with the same questions I had in other similar waiting rooms. Did the other actor—in this case, let’s call him Facey McPainty—put on his brown makeup at home before he left for the audition? Or maybe this dude got here hella early and locked himself in the bathroom for twenty minutes to get his brownface on. Was he rocking the makeup on his chest and hands in case they made us run a shirtless scene? Did any of this increase his chances of getting pulled over by the cops on the way there? I was super intrigued!
I also started to get a little angry. Facey McPainty could audition for ninety-nine percent of the other roles out there—he had so many more opportunities to get a supporting lead credit on his résumé than I did. I knew what I had to do. I stood up proudly and walked—slowly and with purpose—into the bathroom. I decisively opened up my backpack and began to put on brown makeup too. Just kidding. I ran to the bathroom and composed myself. Take all of this anger and channel it toward comedy, toward drive. Don’t let this distract you. Use the fury as motivation.
“Kal?” Barbara Fiorentino said with a welcoming smile. “Come on in, we’re ready for you.” I noticed the grand exposed-wood beams and hipster brick walls that lined the industrial loft as I walked into the audition room. It was longer than it was wide. Along with the lively novelist-turned-director Walt Becker, two young writers and a handful of producers were there. Including the casting team, there were probably twelve people in that room.
Ryan Reynolds was immediately super gracious （Are you nervous?）， hilarious （Don’t fuck it up!）， and encouraging （Hey, you’re funny! Let’s improvise a little on the next scene）。 Walt asked us to play around with the material and color outside the lines a bit. The improvisation with Ryan was fun because I felt like I was being creative with an old friend—clearly we had chemistry, and because of that he just felt like my people. I was immediately put at ease. We even had a fulfilling conversation about Taj’s story arc—the kind of discussion I hadn’t had since I auditioned for the part of Kumar Zimmerman. I wasn’t expecting everyone to be so young and approachable. I went home knowing I did everything I could to get this job. Sorry McPainty.
I should probably acknowledge that while the reservations I had about potentially playing a character named Taj Mahal vanished once I saw that my competition was a white dude in brownface, other misgivings had not. （If I landed the part, would everything work out like Barbara Cameron and Sonia predicted? If it didn’t, would I get typecast moving forward?）7
The waiting period that evening was agony. I knew they were going to make a quick decision, so each passing hour felt like a week. I tried to distract myself （TV, reading, email; nothing could take my mind off this）。 When Barbara Cameron finally rang around 8 p.m., we talked over each other from the start. “Hel—”
“You booked it!”
I felt all the feelings—elation, joy, relief. And pure excitement. It was going to be me in this supporting lead role. It wouldn’t go to some uncle and auntie’s premed son or a white dude in brownface. I was going to be Taj Mahal Badalandabad.
* * *
After I officially booked the part, I made a checklist based on my conversation with Sonia: identify the ten most cringeworthy parts of the script and come up with funnier alternatives. I pored over the scenes. I replaced some existing formulaic lines that seemed basic （mostly tropes based on race or skin color） and tried to turn them into real jokes grounded in the character. A couple of weeks before shooting, I took a deep breath and planned to bring my concerns to the writers and director during rehearsal.
* * *
The day before that rehearsal, the producers asked me to meet with a dialect coach. “We want to make sure your Indian accent is authentic.” I was very amused that people who decided to name an exchange student something as unrealistic as Taj Mahal were concerned enough for his accent to be right. In preparation for the audition （and now the role）， I’d already been talking to plenty of Indian immigrants with real accents （cousins and friends mostly）。 But if the producers were paying for lessons with an Indian dialect coach, I figured I might as well take advantage of it.
I drove to a house in the Hollywood Hills and was greeted at the door… by a white dialect coach named Nancy. Jesus, I thought to myself, first I had to creatively eviscerate Facey McPainty and now White Nancy is going to teach me an Indian accent? We started the work session and as it turned out, Nancy was actually really good! She had lived in India most of her life, was trilingual, and had a PhD in South Asian linguistics from Princeton, so her command of language was really quite impressive. I’m kidding. She was just some white chick from LA whose Indian accent was as bad as Peter Sellers’s. I politely sat through the first session and then went home.
I canceled the remaining dialect coach meetings via email and instead prepared for the next day’s rehearsal with the writers and director.
* * *
Thankfully, Walt and his writers （Brent Goldberg and David Wagner） were as nice in our conversation as they had been at the audition. They were all about finding deeper humor, were receptive to my thoughts about the script and character, and agreed to change a few of the more cringeworthy things: a few lines with the irrelevant religious references, the lame jokes about different foods, stuff like that.
Originally in the script, Taj was supposed to wear traditional Indian clothing. In the real world, most young exchange students try extra hard to assimilate, not double down by wearing ethnic attire. I pitched the idea that something like a collection of ill-fitting sweater vests was more realistic and therefore more charming and grounded. While Walt and the writers were agreeable to this, one of the producers was furious. He ranted with a bizarre combination of bravado and sass. Sassy Producer carried on about how he had been to India （once, in the early 1980s） and was therefore an expert on all things Indian. Taj had to dress in traditional Indian clothes, because the people Sassy Producer saw in India in 1982 were wearing traditional Indian clothes. End of story. I got the sense that this strange behavior was far more about his own ego than the best way to ground my character.