Kal Penn tweets old TV scripts showing offensive Indian stereotypes

Kal Penn, an actor perhaps best known for his starring role in the 2004 stoner comedy “Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle,” took to Twitter Tuesday to share with followers his experiences with typecasting in Hollywood.

“The 39-year-old actor shared a slew of photos of old audition scripts for shows like Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Smart Guy and King of Queens to highlight his experience with stereotypes in the industry,” People magazine reported Wednesday.

Mr. Penn also tweeted his recollections of experiences screen testing for TV roles in which he was asked to sport an accent. When asked by a director, “[C]an you make his accent a little more AUTHENTIC?” it “usually meant they wanted [me to sound like] Apu [from the Simpsons]” he explained in one tweet.

While the New Jersey-born son of Indian immigrants has played various roles as accent-free, American characters — such as Dr. Lawrence Kutner on Fox’s “House” and currently as White House aide Seth Wright on ABC’s “Designated Survivor” — Mr. Penn often played rather stereotyped characters earlier in his career.

In 2002’s National Lampoon movie “Van Wilder,” he played nerdy, sexually frustrated foreign student Taj Mahal Badalandabad, a role he reprised in a 2006 sequel, “Van Wilder: The Rise of Taj.” 

In 2007, Mr. Penn played teenage terrorist Ahmed Amar on the sixth season of Fox’s “24,” a role he defended in an interview with New York magazine.

“I have a huge political problem with the role. It was essentially accepting a form of racial profiling. I think it’s repulsive,” he complained. “But it was the first time I had a chance to blow stuff up and take a family hostage. As an actor, why shouldn’t I have that opportunity? Because I’m brown and I should be scared about the connection between media images and people’s thought processes?”

An outspoken liberal who campaigned for former President Barack Obama’s and Sen. Bernie Sanders’s presidential campaigns, Mr. Penn served in the Obama administration in two separate White House posts during the president’s first term, and as a member on the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities in the second term.

For all his complaints, Mr. Penn also praised some writers and producers for avoiding easy stereotypes, according to People.

“He praised writers behind sitcoms like The Steve Harvey Show, Angel and Buffy the Vampire Slayer for the ’creative people who didn’t have to use external things to mask subpar writing,’ ” the magazine reported.