I was sitting at the desk in my dorm room a couple of months later when my blue McDonald’s phone finally rang. “Hello, is this Kal Penn?” the lady’s voice said. “Yeswho’sthis?” I said quickly.9 “My name is Laura. I’m calling from Barbara Cameron and Associates. We received the headshot and résumé you sent in. We’d like you to audition for us, if you’re still looking for an agent?”
I played it cool, but inside I was screaming, YES OF COURSE I AM STILL LOOKING FOR AN AGENT!! Maybe I even did say it out loud, I can’t remember. FINALLY. It had been years of Wednesday-morning walks to the newsstand, three years of money spent printing at Kinko’s and mailing packets at the post office, so many random audition inquiries sent, and finally, an agent might be interested in me! I scrambled to find a pen and wrote down the agent’s address.
What motivated her to call, why now? Was it those new headshots I had saved up for? Was it my new catchy screen name? Was it because the new catchy screen name was less ethnic-sounding and was attached to those new headshots I had saved up for? I didn’t know, I didn’t ask, and I didn’t care.10 It was time to focus!
I prepared for the audition by rehearsing two of my favorite Shakespeare monologues, putting all my energy into making sure I impressed this agent, whatever her reason for calling me. Three days later I grabbed my Panoch bag and drove out to her office in West Hills, at the far end of the San Fernando Valley. The whole way there I was running through my monologues: “Thou dost thy office fairly. Turn thee back. And tell thy king I do not seek him now…” I pep-talked myself, I am Henry the Fifth!
The address for Barbara Cameron & Associates turned out to be a small guesthouse-turned-office behind a suburban home in a completely residential neighborhood. My excitement switched to anxiety. Isn’t this how people get tricked into doing porn? I buzzed the gate and stepped inside. The walls of the guesthouse office were adorned with promotional posters for Growing Pains and Full House. Just above the couch, a poster of my grade-school crush Candace Cameron and her brother, Kirk. I glanced down at the piece of paper on which I’d scribbled the name and address. Barbara Cameron. Holy moly, could it be? Yes, agent Barbara Cameron, mom of Kirk and Candace Cameron!
On the one hand: Whew, this was probably not porn. On the other: What are the chances?! First Jaleel White in my history class and now an audition for my childhood crush’s mom? My entire childhood flashed before my eyes. Was the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air around somewhere?
The audition itself was quick: I was asked to read a short script for a soda commercial and was out of there within fifteen minutes. (Turns out nobody will ever ask you to perform a Shakespearean monologue in Hollywood.) That afternoon, the blue McDonald’s phone rang again. “Hi Kal, it’s Barbara Cameron. You were fantastic in the audition and we’d love to have you aboard!” Was it professional to sound excited, or was I just supposed to calmly say thank you, play it cool, and hang up? While my brain was busy figuring out the right response, my mouth got ahead of itself and started woo-hooing ecstatically over the phone. I finally had an agent! “Can I call you right back from my landline?” I asked her. “This McDonald’s cell phone is expensive.”
Barbara and her associate Laura got me out for auditions almost immediately. It was a slow start to be sure, but I was borrowing the Panoch with more frequency now, toning my arms, sweating in traffic, and frantically running out to feed the parking meter if auditions ran overtime. I was on my way. Now I just needed to book a job.
1?Okay, here’s the deal. I love Raghav very much. We’re super close. When he was in college, we started this dumb brotherly contest where one of us would try to throw water on the other’s face at random times. There were a few botched attempts (like when I visited his apartment one morning and threw a full glass of water in his face only to quickly learn—amid screams of agony about his eyes—that it was a glass of gin his roommate left on the counter). Anyway, things escalated quickly after that. I used Facebook to convince Raghav’s then-girlfriend to throw water on him in the dining hall and say it was from me. (Not the reason they broke up, shockingly.) From the safety of his dorm room in Ohio, he convinced his mom, my aunt, to throw a tiny and respectful bit of water on my face during—ready?—his grandfather’s funeral in India, which I attended. That pretty much ended the contest. You can’t top your grandpa’s funeral. So, I had to do the only thing I could think of: write a book and tell everyone that Raghav caught gonorrhea during the pandemic. That’s a total lie. He has never had gonorrhea. As far as I know. But most people don’t read footnotes.
2?Good time to brag that I failed probability and statistics twice in college. I told you I was bad at math. Take that, stereotypes!
3?Pronounced pun-OH’ch
4?It wasn’t until writing this book that I called DLC to ask, “Hey, what does ‘the panoch’ mean?” He laughed and explained, “It’s short for panocha… ‘pussy’ in Spanish.” Jeez. Would have been reeeeeealllly good to know that back in the day, when I’d offer people “a ride in my super-tite Panoch.”
5?I was deeply embarrassed.
6?Also a real consideration in the moment.
7?Remember, Indians love spicy gossip about other Indians.
8?The extra n stands for “Not gonna play a stereotypical cabdriver.”
9?Fifty cents a minute, guys!
10?There was no way to know for sure, since agents toss out submissions they don’t follow up on. Since I had submitted an old headshot to Barbara Cameron & Associates previously, it was presumably a combination of a new catchy name with a better photo that got me noticed eventually.
CHAPTER SIX HOW (NOT) TO PRODUCE MOVIES
Agent: ?
Paid gig with actual lines: ?
Panoch (super tite): ?
Dope internship: TBD
By the end of winter quarter my junior year, I had gone on a handful of auditions thanks to my new agent. To my massive disappointment, most of them had been for stereotypical, one-dimensional roles in commercials. During these casting sessions it was not uncommon to be:
asked “Where’s your turban?” (I’m not Sikh),
told “You speak very good English, wow!” (thank you), or
questioned about “which country is that accent from?” (New Jersey. Go, like, uhh, fuck yourself?!”)