A few months and several stereotypical auditions later, a big opportunity! Barbara got me in to read for the head of casting for the WB network (which is now defunct and was replaced by the CW). The network was looking for actors to play young marines on a new TV series, and I had a shot at auditioning for one of the supporting leads. I read the script diligently and worked hard on all five audition scenes nonstop for a week. Backstory. Character arc. The process I love.
I pumped myself up the entire drive to the studio. I want this job. I am this character.
I got to the waiting room very early and briefly clocked that all the other actors were white. Each one was given fifteen minutes in the audition room. The only open seat was between the sign-in sheet and the door, which meant I could size up my competition a little closer—glance at the other actors’ résumés and see who their agents were. I found it interesting that they were all represented by the biggest firms in Hollywood, although almost none of them had any serious training—certainly not as prestigious as UCLA’s School of Theater, Film and Television. I decided that this would bode well for me. My training has to put me ahead of the pack, right?1
An assistant called my name, and I walked into the audition feeling confident. I reached out to shake the WB casting head’s hand. She retracted her arm, grabbed my headshot, and glanced back and forth between me and my photo with considerable confusion.
“You’re Kal Penn?” she asked.
“I am.”
“Okay, well uh… I’m not sure if they told you but we’re only going to be reading the first scene today.” Only the first scene? I thought to myself, that’ll take like three minutes, tops. Everyone else has spent at least fifteen minutes in this room.
There was clearly something about my look that the casting director immediately didn’t like. She had decided not to cast me, before I even had the chance to audition.
As usual, I knew I only had a few seconds to decide how to react. A few seconds to take in the information, suppress the emotion. Against racism, my best device was professionalism. Just then, an angel popped up in the right side of my head. I’d seen him before. He was shouting, You don’t know that this is racism! Maybe she thinks you’re just too tall or too short! Maybe she wants to cut the scenes because she has to run to a meeting! Maybe it’s because you don’t have a bigger agent! You’re already here in this room, so do a kick-ass job anyway! Show her how good you are! A tiny red devil popped up in the left side of my head, whispering nefariously, Don’t listen to him. You’re the only one here who isn’t white, buddy. Obviously, that’s what this is about. Don’t bother. You have no chance. Just go home.
A lot of my early auditioning was a question of which voice to listen to on a given day.
Fuck off, Devil, I want this part. I would listen to the angel and I was going to give it my all, even if I only got to read that first scene. I took a beat. Peeked at my notes about the backstory. Channeled the character arc and began.
Two pages in, the WB casting head interrupted. “Thank you so much, Kal. I’m sorry. I just have to stop you before you finish the first scene. I just um… I just have to ask. What are you?”
“Huh?”
“What are you?… Like where are you from?”
“Oh, I’m from New Jersey. I graduated from UCLA’s School of Theater, Film and Tele—”
“No, I mean like where are you really from? Are you Latin?”
The goddamn devil was right.
“I’m uh, ethnically Indian. I was born in New Jer—”
“You look like you could pass for Latin. Are you mixed, at least?”
“Mixed? Um, no—”
“Ugh, are you sure?”
There was now a miniature version of me standing on the shoulders of the tiny devil inside my own head. Was I sure? I thought to myself, Lady, I already got myself a white-sounding stage name, I need to “at least” be mixed too?
I hated the angel at this point but responded politely. Any sign of annoyance and they might think I’m difficult to work with.
“I got my training in the UCLA theater department, so I’m confident I can play a wide variety of roles! And yes, my parents moved to New Jersey, where I was born, from India—”
“Okay, right, so you’re not even Latin. I can’t cast you. I mean the role isn’t written Latin, but that’s the only way I could have cast you. You’re a very good actor, by the way. You’re really good. It’s just too bad. That you’re not Latin.”
There was nothing to discuss further. I was the wrong kind of brown. The head of casting for the WB didn’t want to waste her time auditioning me. Not when there was a room full of white actors with less training out there waiting for their shot.
* * *
Experiences like this were common and maddening, because they undermined my ability to make creative choices as an actor. While other newcomers got to create backstories, develop their craft, and showcase their talents with fifteen-minute auditions, I found myself kicked out after reading just one part of a scene, or relegated to playing tired stereotypes, regardless of how much I prepared. I felt like I was going nowhere artistically or professionally, and my cynicism deepened. An actor’s job is to emote, but in the face of racism, it becomes necessary to put on what others see as a professional game face while burying feelings of anger and rage. It’s emotionally draining, creatively suffocating.
I grew to expect bad behavior from casting directors as a rule rather than an exception. I learned to believe all producers would ultimately require a reductionist accent. When I did find a promising audition, I thought to myself, Oh, they’re bringing me in for the part of a guy named Ryan. I’ll never get it since it’s not written for an Indian American dude. It was clearly a defense mechanism, something to take the sting out of the constant bullshit. Unfortunately, it was also turning into self-sabotage.
I felt so beaten up that I stopped my dedicated preparation routine. I no longer focused as much on doing well at auditions, because I knew in my heart I wouldn’t get those parts anyway. Once I stopped giving one hundred percent, this pathetic self-pity only made the self-fulfilling prophecies come true: Without believing that my hopes and dreams were possible, I was not preparing. I hated every audition. Now that I was unprepared and hating every audition, I was not getting jobs. But most damningly, I was the one who decided—before the producers themselves had—that I was not worthy of a role. Even a stereotypical one that might have given me a coveted résumé credit or paid another month’s rent.