Dreaming of 'Don': Hollywood actor Kal Penn speaks about early influences, wish to work in India

Jaipur: As a child visiting his grandparents in Mumbai’s Dadar in the 1980s for summer vacation, Kalpen Suresh Modi would look out the window and be mesmerised by the process of Hindi film posters being hand painted on a massive billboard.

Looking back at his 10 or 12-year-old self, American actor Kal Penn, one of the first Indian-origin actors in Hollywood, cherishes the dream of working with Indian actors like Amitabh Bachchan the poster of whose blockbuster “Don” adorns the walls of his office in the US.

“‘Don’ is such a classic, and I have a massive poster, an original poster of ‘Don’ in my office. It's huge,” Penn, 47, told PTI in an interview.

“The Namesake” actor was in the city to attend the 18th edition of Jaipur Literature Festival.

“I have these memories of looking over and watching them paint these huge billboards. So even those kinds of iconic images are burned into my brain with the best childhood memories of staying with your grandparents at Dadar over the summer and watching people paint movies,” he said.

In a session on January 31, Penn had shared his dream of wanting to remake “Don” with himself as the lead, set in Ohio.

Talking about Indian actors and filmmakers, he shared that he would love to work with filmmaker Zoya Akhtar, who appeared as a guest on late-night talk show “The Daily Show” last year.

Others on his “want to work with” list include Bachchan, Hindi cinema star Alia Bhatt, and filmmaker Karan Johar to name a few. He also talked about working with Oscar-winning producer Guneet Monga in the 2018 film “The Ashram”.

“And then there are tons of Indian-American actors. Obviously, I would love to work with Priyanka (Chopra Jonas) on something that'd be incredible. She's a genius and what a gifted artist,” he said.

With characters ranging from a self-conscious Gogol in “The Namesake” to a carefree college-goer Kumar Patel in the “Harold and Kumar” franchise, Penn is not bothered about the genre he works in.

“I love the cross-section of what you can do with the art form. So I would love to continue to work here, too.” The only condition for him to work in India is "a two-months heads-up" to get his Hindi right.

“I'm open to anything. Send me scripts, I'm open to coming here to work,” he said.

A self-acclaimed fan of the Indian soap opera “Saath Nibhana Saathiya”, Penn last year appeared at the sets of long-running sitcom “Taarak Mehta ka Ooltah Chashmah” and splashed some pictures on social media.

Breaking into a laugh, Penn remembered how the show’s creator Asit Modi reached out to him on Instagram and invited him to visit the show on location in Mumbai.

“I was like, ‘Oh man!’ And he said, ‘I would love to have you visit the set sometime. I was like, ‘I 100 per cent would love to stop by’. It's one of the most watched shows in the world and they've been on the air,” he said.

“I was asking him ‘How come you only have one season?’ He said ‘It's because we have been shooting a new episode every day for the last 17 years’,” said the actor without trying to hide the incredulity on his face.

The interaction jokingly led Penn to comment: “I would love that kind of job stability because in the States, you get a maximum of 24 episodes a season.”