For the next three years, thanks to my Panoch access, I racked up as many unpaid credits on my résumé as I could afford, with small roles in student films and microbudget independent projects. I became a Resident Advisor (RA) in the UCLA dorms for a while, which covered my housing and meals. I got paid $5 an hour as an extra on TV shows and movies when I wasn’t in class, mostly so I could observe how big-budget productions work (and so I could continue to fund the parking permit and gas). I also set aside enough money to get my first cell phone. I bought it at McDonald’s.
Look, there was nothing wrong with my pager—it worked fine, and it’s not like I was getting so many pages about auditions that I was pulling off the freeway to urgently find a pay phone that often. So, when DLC knocked on my dorm door holding a thin, greasy piece of tray-liner paper with a photo of a blue plastic Nokia flip phone on it, it took me a second to follow along. McDonald’s was running some sort of promotion. If you signed up for service through them, the phone was pretty much free. “Is it a toy phone, or real?”
“Real,” said DLC. “Looks like it could be a toy though. It’s pretty tite.”
The catch when it came to the free McDonald’s phone was that each minute cost a pricey fifty cents. I put the phone number on the top of my résumé so I would never miss the rare audition call. Everyone else could call my landline.
No matter what I did, I still couldn’t land an agent, which meant I had no professional credits on my résumé at all. Dennis Pennis and most of the other guys I hung out with were science majors, following a well-marked path. Many of them were headed to graduate school and knew exactly what the next seven years of their lives had in store. For me, it was hard to figure out what the right catalyst would be. How could I get more auditions? Lots of the other drama students at UCLA had already secured agents—it seemed they were noticed because of the prestige of our program. I too was in this program—what was the best way to get an agent to notice me?
I had become friends with actor Jenna von O? (who had recently wrapped the popular sitcom Blossom) through her roommate Jason, one of my UCLA theater department buddies. Jenna was super supportive of my passion and struggle, impressed by the hustle of the parking permit fiasco, and always eager to offer guidance and help. She offered to show her manager—who worked at a well-respected A-list company—some of the scenes I had shot in those student films. Maybe he’d agree to audition me and take me on.
When she got the rejection on my behalf, Jenna was both savvy enough to ask her manager why he didn’t want to meet, and thoughtful enough to ask me if I wanted to hear the truth. Of course I did. Whatever it was that her manager didn’t like, I wanted to know. Whatever it was I did wrong in those student film clips, I would immediately work to change so that I could earn an agent or manager just like so many of my classmates already had.
“First of all,” Jenna said, “he told me that he watched your tape and thinks you’re a really good actor. He’s always brutally honest. He wouldn’t have said that if he didn’t mean it completely.”
“Well, that’s good!”
“He also said,” she continued, with considerable hesitation, “that somebody who looks like you is never going to work in Hollywood. There just aren’t enough roles written for Indian actors. He felt like you might play a cabdriver once or twice, but it wouldn’t be worth his time and effort to represent someone who isn’t going to work regularly.”
Wow. I was very surprised that this manager was comfortable enough to straight-up acknowledge this intersection of business and bigotry. He could have made up any excuse he wanted about why he didn’t want to meet with me (“He’s too tall!” “He’s too short!” “He’s a bad actor!”), but he didn’t. In a weird way, racism-truth felt so much better than being lied to. I was thankful for Jenna’s true friendship and the accompanying willingness to tell me something so uncomfortable. Hearing it was both a slap in the face and a very welcome assessment of where I stood.
The quality of my performance in those student film clips wasn’t the underlying issue.
* * *
A few months later, I had saved up enough money to get a new set of headshots. “The photographer is supposed to be really good,” I remember telling the homies during one of our late-night food runs at Fatburger in Westwood. “I hope this time it’ll lead to getting an agent.”
My friend Marc Milstein spoke up: “You know what else might lead to an agent? A stage name. Did you know that Whoopi Goldberg’s real name is Caryn Johnson? Imagine if she went by that? No way would she be as memorable.”
The idea of altering my name was something I had casually thought about since Jenna’s manager said an Indian guy would never find steady work in Hollywood, but it’s not something I seriously discussed with anyone.
“Chevy Chase’s real name is Cornelius, man. Cornelius Chase. How tite is that?” said DLC. “You should come up with a stage name. I bet it would help.”
My real name is Kalpen Modi. Kalpen is what most of my friends and family call me. In high school, kids sometimes shortened Kalpen to Kal as a nickname, the same way that Joseph becomes Joe, Rodrigo becomes Rod, and Pushpa becomes Pussy.
Between bites of warm fat fries, the wheels started turning. If coming up with a stage name helped those actors establish themselves, it was a no-brainer—I would do it too.
So, what should my catchy stage name be? Should it be similar to Kalpen or totally different? Would a whiter-sounding name have persuaded Jenna’s manager to meet with me? (Should I go by Chad?) Anyway, what’s in a name? Wouldn’t a brown person by any other name still play a stereotypical cabdriver and be called a sellout by his peers? Maybe not! Maybe coming up with a name that sounded a bit more like the names that casting directors were used to seeing would make me a little more viable in their eyes. This was a serious consideration. My friends’ suggestions? Not so serious.
“What about Kal… Pacino?”
“How’s Kal Ripken Junior Junior?”
The puns went on and on. That gave me an idea. “I could just split my first name in half and add an extra n.”8 My nickname is already Kal, and “Kal Penn” seems less dramatic than Cornelius becoming Chevy. The suggestion was met with resounding approval. It was now two forty in the morning, but our homework procrastination over munchies had yielded magnificent results.
That weekend I printed up my new headshots and replaced Kalpen Modi with Kal Penn. Let’s see what happens, I thought, sending out the first of many more Wednesday batches to agents.
* * *