Kumar Goes to Washington

The bong is shelved, the L.A. lifestyle on hold and the Hollywood paycheck a memory — for now. But that’s all fine with Kal Penn, who seems to be relishing his latest gig: White House employee.

The Harold and Kumar and The Namesake star played down his celebrity status and insisted he was “a pretty normal guy” when he spoke to journalists Monday after reporting for his first day of work as the associate director in the Office of Public Engagement. Case in point? He’s shedding his Hollywood stage moniker for the gig, instead using his given name: Kalpen Modi.

"My life is much like that of my colleagues," he told reporters Monday, according to the Washington Times, and detailed a morning that consisted of brushing and flossing his teeth and taking the bus to work from his rented D.C. apartment, a far cry from the not-so-distant days when he could be chauffeured around film and TV sets as assistants fetched him lattes.

Modi, an Indian-American, made headlines this spring when he announced he would take a break from acting to work for the executive branch doing outreach to Asian-Americans, Pacific Islanders and the arts community. The actor has long been an Obama supporter, signing on to the campaign back in 2007 when the long-shot candidate seemed to have little chance of winning.

"Kal was one of the hardest-working volunteers we had in Iowa," Tommy Vietor, an assistant White House press secretary who worked on the campaign, told the Washington Times. "He visited nearly every high school in the state and didn't care if he was met by five or 50 students, or if he nearly got lost in a blizzard trying to get there."

Modi seemed intent to portray himself as any other bureaucrat, announcing to reporters that he is “boring” and describing his first day as full of paperwork. Yet Modi, arguably best known as super-smart stoner Kumar Patel in the Harold and Kumar flicks, seems anything but dull. People who have to convince others they are boring are rarely so — but this might just be the first bit in an endless stream of deft diplomacy we see out of Modi.

Photo courtesy of Justin Cousson via Wikipedia.