{"id":421147,"date":"2026-02-12T04:32:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-12T04:32:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/421147\/"},"modified":"2026-02-12T04:32:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-12T04:32:08","slug":"up-against-white-actor-in-brownface","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/421147\/","title":{"rendered":"Up Against White Actor in Brownface"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tOne of Kal Penn<\/a>\u2018s breakout roles was playing the character Taj Mahal Badalandabad in the 2002 comedy hit \u201cNational Lampoon\u2019s Van Wilder<\/a>.\u201d At the end of the audition process, Penn was up against one other actor that ended up inspiring him to work hard to win the part. Penn recounted the story on the Feb. 11 episode of the podcast \u201cHasan Minhaj Doesn\u2019t Know<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI knew at the end, it was like, \u2018All right, it\u2019s me and another actor,’\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m like, \u2018Which brother is it?\u2019 I\u2019m excited that one of us is gonna get this. I open the door and it is a white dude in brownface who\u2019s already in the waiting room. And my beef is generally not with other actors. Actors are desperate. We\u2019ll do whatever it takes to get a part, right? But I was so fascinated. I\u2019m like, \u2018Okay, did his agent tell him to paint his face when he left? Did he do it at home or did he do it in the bathroom? If he did it at home, did it increase his chances of getting pulled over by the cops?\u2019 All of these thoughts going through my head.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tDespite his surprise, Penn said that he actually made small talk with the actor that day and hung out with him a few times afterward. But he also said it motivated him more than ever to get the role.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cTelling it now, you\u2019re like, \u2018Oh my God, people did brownface,’\u201d Penn said. \u201cLike the new \u2018Aladdin\u2019 a couple of years ago had brownface with a bunch of extras, right? So it does still happen, obviously in a totally different way, but it was common enough, right? But I do remember looking at him while we\u2019re making small talk and in my head just saying to myself, \u2018He is not allowed to get that part.’\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWatch the video podcast below.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One of Kal Penn\u2018s breakout roles was playing the character Taj Mahal Badalandabad in the 2002 comedy hit…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":421148,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[6491,96,155149,56,54,55,155150],"class_list":["post-421147","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-kal-penn","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-van-wilder"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421147","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=421147"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421147\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/421148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=421147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=421147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=421147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}