Bottom line: It was super exhausting. When the movie wrapped, I went back to LA tired and frustrated. But I also had enough cash in my bank account to cover rent for a few more months.
* * *
With Son of the Mask mercifully behind me, I reconnected with John Cho back in LA. In addition to being an enthusiastic scotch drinker and talented farter, John is an avid reader. During production on H&K, he was horrified to learn that I hadn’t read Jhumpa Lahiri’s Interpreter of Maladies. He gave me a copy, and, of course, I loved it.
Lahiri’s book won the Pulitzer Prize—especially impressive because it was the first she ever published. It’s a moving collection of short stories, most of them set against a backdrop of immigrant challenges, her beautifully crafted characters living with one foot in two worlds.
Her next book, The Namesake, came out shortly after, and John and I read it around the same time. It’s an emotional coming-of-age story about an Indian couple and their American-born son in Boston. It easily became one of my favorite novels. I loved The Namesake for the same reason I loved Catcher in the Rye—I wasn’t a rich New England boarding school kid, but Salinger’s writing was so vivid that I felt like I was Holden Caulfield.11 Gogol, the lead character in Lahiri’s novel, was written so beautifully, so intimately, that I needed to play him in a film adaptation of the book.
John and I tried to get the rights to turn The Namesake into a movie, only to find that someone else had beaten us to it. And that someone was… director Mira Nair. Mira Nair, you’ll remember, was the woman behind Mississippi Masala, the film that pushed me toward a career in the arts in the first place. She’s who I stood in line to see on UCLA’s campus one day, so I could hand her my headshot and résumé.
We couldn’t have been happier at the news: Who besides Mira Nair could do justice to a beautiful book like The Namesake? Adapting novels into films is a time-consuming process, so I made a mental note that she had the rights and figured I’d hear from my agent whenever the movie was casting.
Just a month later my mom called. “Kalpen, I read an article in India Abroad that Mira Nair is in preproduction on The Namesake—you should audition to be Gogol! You’d be perfect! Call Dan.” How rad, Mom telling me to call my manager and go in for an audition.
I followed my mom’s sound business advice and began an aggressive campaign to get cast in the role of Gogol. Dan was surprised to find that they had rather quietly been searching for actors; this project wasn’t on his radar either. He called Mira’s office several times. No one called him back. In Hollywood, as in dating, if they don’t return your phone calls, they don’t want you. That was frustrating. I had to have a shot at this role. I just needed to figure out how to break through to them.
At my manager’s suggestion, I decided to go rogue, sort of like I did when I directly mailed a note and audition tape to Barbara Fiorentino, the Van Wilder casting director. The difference was, with Van Wilder, I was desperate for a résumé builder. For The Namesake, it was about the art—the story. I composed a platonic love letter, holding nothing back. I told Mira that her movies were a massive influence on my life. They were funny, poignant, and empowering. They had opened up a world to me where pursuing storytelling as a craft was an actual possibility. I told her how inspired I was by seeing Mississippi Masala in high school, how powerful it was to see people who looked like us on-screen for the first time. Now she was directing a film adaptation of my favorite novel. She had to let me audition. Had to. A part like this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I was unabashed: I told her that playing a role like this—my Catcher in the Rye—directed by her, was the reason I became an actor. It was all true.
A few days after I sent the letter, Mira called Spilo asking that I fly to New York to audition. This was my big chance! Hands shaking with excitement, I hastily transferred some money from my savings account to my checking account and used my debit card to bid on a plane ticket on Priceline.com. I was at the airport a week later. Getting the chance to audition for Mira Nair was a dream come true, and I was happy to spend some of my Son of the Mask money on it.
As I walked into the bright, lofty office just off of Manhattan’s Union Square, her assistant greeted me: “Hi, Kal! I’m Ami.” Oh, hell yeah, Mira has a badass Indian American woman working for her! This is incredible! “Can I get you some water or chai?” Holy moly, Mira Nair’s badass Indian American assistant just offered me chai. This is exactly how this sequence played out in my dreams. Focus. FOCUS!
“I’m fine, thank you,” I said. I took a seat in the waiting area and looked over the audition scenes one last time.
A few minutes later, Mira came in and hugged me warmly. “Your letter was so lovely, Kal, thank you so much. Did Ami offer you some chai? Ami, did you offer Kal some chai?” What was happening? I’m used to walking into auditions and being told “Wow, you’re so articulate! Thicker accent, louder!” and here I am being offered chai? Twice?! Is this what it’s like for white people every day of their professional lives?!12
Now that I was standing in front of her, post-hug, I was eager to tell Mira about the time I handed her my headshot at UCLA. No time for that.
“Kal,” she said, “I have to tell you two things. First, my thirteen-year-old son Zohran is a huge fan of yours and wanted to meet you. He’s in school until two thirty. Can you stick around until then? He’ll come say hi.”
It had never occurred to me that Mira Nair’s son could be a fan of mine.
“Of course. I’d love to meet him!”
“The second thing you should know is that the role of Gogol has already been cast. But your letter was so beautiful, and you said that I had to let you come and audition anyway, so here we are.”
What? Damnit. Okay, calm down.
I was going to have to talk myself off a ledge quickly. You’re not getting this part, but you said it yourself, you wanted a shot to read for this project, and for her. You still would have used part of your savings account to buy a ticket to audition. Count your blessings. Focus. And crush. This. Audition. Anyway. She’ll have other projects in the future, so still give it your all. Focus on your work and impress her.
I read the first scene. Mira looked worried. I read the second scene. She looked even more worried. Third scene. Mira put her head in her hands. I was confused: If I was doing a good job, why didn’t Mira Nair look happy? She spoke up. “I wish I had auditioned you before I put an offer out to someone else. You’re fantastic.”
Was she just being nice, or did this cinematic icon actually mean that she wished I had auditioned sooner?
“Look,” she said. “The other actor, you should know, has the offer for Gogol but has not closed his deal. He might have a problem doing some of the sex scenes. If you were cast, would you have the same problem?”
“Oh, that would be no problem for me,” I said, remembering being lit on fire in my Van Wilder sex scene and boning that anthropomorphic bag of weed in Harold & Kumar.
Mira brightened. “You are really fantastic. I’m glad you wrote to me.”
It turned out it wasn’t just my letter that got me the audition. For the previous several months, Zohran and his friend Sam, both huge Harold & Kumar fans, had been lobbying her to audition me. The two of them dragged her over to a computer, where they showed her scenes from the Harold & Kumar DVD, insisting, “You have to audition Kal Penn for the part of Gogol!”