I had the good fortune, yesterday, to participate in a conference call with actor Kal Penn and House creators David Shore and Katie Jacobs. Unlike Kona Gallagher, I was not able to ask my question, but plenty of other people asked my questions for me, so it was okay.
You’ll be happy to know that Kal Penn is alive and well. He sounds remarkably like his character. I have been on conference calls with other actors who were jerks to the callers, but Penn was completely relaxed and polite, despite being asked directly what his new salary will be at the White House. In case you are wondering, he declined to discuss numbers. During the call, which lasted for over an hour, many questions were put to bed, but there were a few that remained un-asked. I’ll try to summarize both for you here. In no particular order:
1) Penn himself was shocked when he learned about Kutner’s suicide. He said, “At least everyone watching it could talk to their friends and family. I couldn’t talk to anyone about it.”
2) He learned of Kutner’s suicide mid-way through episode 18. His character shot himself in episode 20. It definitely and absolutely was not a murder, though. Also, don’t bother searching through old episodes for clues leading up to this: They aren’t there. And they want this to remain a mystery, locked in Kutner’s head. Better to torment House this way. FYI, that was actually Kal Penn’s body during the scene in which Foreman and Thirteen found Kutner; they wanted as much authenticity as possible.
3) He has been discussing the possibility of a White House position with House creators for eight or nine months.
4) The writers have been discussing Kutner’s fate since a retreat in November.
5) No word as to why Kutner shot himself, though House addresses that issue in the episode (“It means panic.”). Also no word on whether or not Kutner was an organ donor, or why the meticulous and curious House didn’t perform an autopsy to rule out another diagnosis of a fatal diagnosis. I was sort of waiting for that to happen for the whole episode.
6) David Shore and Katie Jacobs referred to Kutner as “irreplaceable,” but did emphasize that Cameron and Chase would have interesting reactions to this suicide.
7) Kal Penn does not smoke pot in real life. He made that point clear. He also does not foresee more Harold and Kumar movies while he has his White House appointment.
8) He is not retiring from acting; he is taking a few years off to explore his second, equal passion of public service.
9) He is a political independent, but was inspired by Obama.
10) Kutner’s memorial on the FOX website does not “creep” him out, as one woman asked. Kona and I were IM’ing each other during the call, and had to laugh at that question because Kona had asked me to ask that, almost verbatim. Penn did say, however, that he insisted that all photographs used in the memorial were professional shots, and nothing from his personal collection.
If you have additional questions, please leave them in the comments. If it was discussed during the call, I’ll answer in the comments.
Clacked by Jen Creer
on Apr 08, 2009 @ 18:08 EST5EDT
