Only two of us would get the gig. We had all been through lots of the same stereotypical Hollywood nonsense. Though we were competing, it felt like the end result would be a net positive for all of us. It was inspiring to be in a casting director’s waiting room with these other talented Asian American actors vying for parts we knew we each had a fair shot at. Maybe I’d be too tall or too short in the end, but what a luxury that would be. My race wasn’t a disqualifier or a knock against me. There was zero risk that the parts could go to some guys in yellow or brown makeup.
Ultimately, I was cast as Kumar, with John Cho playing Harold. I’ll tell you guys a little secret that not even Cho knows as I’m writing this. Of the three choices for Harold, I felt the least chemistry with John in the audition room. This is such a ridiculous thing to have felt in retrospect. At the time, I was so in my head, I convinced myself that if they were to favor John for Harold then they’d go with one of the other choices for Kumar （and vice versa if they first decided I was the clear front-runner）。 Just goes to show you how completely insane actors can be. It turned out, Cho and I had the best chemistry. To this day, I have such deep love for that dude.
When it came down to getting cast, it wasn’t just my audition being marginally better that got me the role of Kumar. I’m not trying to sell myself short here—I gave a great audition and worked like hell to prepare for it. But so did the other guys. Part of the reason the role went to me is because none of the other prospective Kumars had been cast in a studio comedy before. I was the only Taj Mahal Badalandabad, and therefore perceived as the more professional choice.
My agents, of course, had totally predicted this. That’s why they pushed me to audition for Van Wilder. It’s why they called back after I hung up on them, and it’s why they encouraged me to build up a résumé and fight for auditions—even distasteful ones （see Hadji）。 It’s what Sonia Nikore meant when she advised me to work at making scripts funnier, pay my dues, and build a career. All of that advice had been true. Do I wish I had a time machine with a magic wand inside that could make us live in a world where the industry was fair and equitable, and I didn’t have to make those imperfect choices along the way? Well, yeah, obviously （mostly because that would be sick as hell, a time machine and a magic wand）。 But that world doesn’t exist. Without Taj, I wouldn’t have been Kumar. I don’t regret playing my cards right.
A week before we began production on the film, Danny Leiner invited us to a debaucherous party at his house in the Hollywood Hills. A totally wasted young blond woman I’ll call Rebecca slurred her way up to me: “Hiiiiiiiiiiiiii. I’m Ruh-BECCA, one of Danny’s good friends, and I jussssss wanna say I’m so glad he cast you!”
“Thank you very much, Rebecca. I’m very excited about it all. Can I get you a water?”
“Shhhhhhhhhh look. I saw the final-round audition tapes and I told Danny, I said mmmmmake sure… mmmmmmake sure you hire the hot guy to play Kumar, he’s very attractive.”
“Thank you. I’m flattered.”
“Ya, I said Danny don’t hire the other guy. That UCLA guy from New Jersey? Don’t hire him, he’s definitely not good-looking enough.”
Finally, I had the luxury of not being hot enough! And I managed to get cast anyway.
* * *
Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle takes place in New Jersey and was shot primarily in Toronto. I landed at Pearson International Airport and hopped in a car with someone from the show’s transportation team who took me to the Minto Yorkville—an under-construction long-term furnished rental building in a fancy part of the city. That evening, as I unpacked my suitcases while listening to a Dr. Dre playlist （I make playlists for all my characters）， John Cho knocked on my door. “Hey. We’re supposed to be best friends. Let’s grab a drink.”
We headed over to an expensive-looking bar in our new expensive-looking neighborhood, where I ordered an expensive Amstel Light and John ordered some kind of scotch I had never heard of. We immediately hit it off.
“I’m really glad we’re making this movie,” he said to me. “I don’t know how you feel about it, but I’ve thought a lot about how there’s never been a film like this before. The script is so funny. And it’s got two Asian American leads. That’s two more than usual.”
“Dude, I know! I’m so glad you feel this way too! When I read the script, I told Jon and Hayden it wouldn’t get made unless someone financed it independently. But here we are.”
We ordered another round and continued talking. John told me about a litmus test he had imposed on himself: the Twelve-Year-Old Me Rule. “Basically, how would the twelve-year-old me feel about the job I’m about to take? We didn’t have anything like this movie when we were twelve. I think the twelve-year-old me is going to be pretty damn proud when it comes out.”
I knew exactly what he meant. I told him I had a similar metric to judge things. I called it “My Middle School Me Rule,” after those experiences getting called Apu and Johnny 5. How would middle school me feel today? Middle school me would have hated Van Wilder, but absolutely venerated Harold & Kumar.
“？‘My Middle School Me Rule’ has a better ring to it,” he conceded.
“But twelve-year-old me is more on point,” I shot back.
Our evening was going well. I started to order us a third round of drinks, when John stopped me. “Are you seriously getting a THIRD beer? You don’t like scotch?”
“I’ve never had scotch before.”
“You’ve never had scotch before?!”
He made it sound like I confessed to a very shocking crime.
John turned to the bartender and announced, “He’s never had scotch before! Forget his beer. We’ll have two more of these.”
When the scotches arrived, each poured into an ornate glass, I motioned to cheers John and do my shot. “NOOOOOOOOO! NO! NO!” he shouted, stopping me before the liquor touched my lips. “Jesus! This is not a shot! You drink it slowly.” He then proceeded to teach me to sip scotch. The eventual buzz was kind of nice. Light. I could see why gentlemen in magazines dressed in fancy clothing would properly consume scotches during flowing conversations.5
My first big movie and my first big scotch. I was all grown up.
* * *
Our instantaneous bromance also meant that John and I became more like siblings than work friends. We were together on set almost constantly for the entire two-and-a-half-month shoot. A lot of the movie takes place inside a car, and about half of that was filmed in front of a green screen in a windowless studio. The downside was that we’d often spend twelve hours a day sitting in a parked vehicle with no air circulation. The upside was that we could get out to stretch our legs every so often, since we weren’t actually on the open road.
Once, we were sitting in the car with our seat belts on while the camera guys adjusted something technical. “I’m cold,” John said. “Can I roll these windows up until you guys are ready to shoot?”
After a minute with the windows up, he said he started to feel stuffy. “I’m going to step out.” He opened his door and in sudden rapid succession: removed the keys from the ignition, loudly farted, jumped out, hit the power locks, and slammed the door, leaving me seat-belted inside his airtight fart machine, with no way out.