President Obama and Kal Penn.
When Kal Penn's character on Fox's "House" was killed off Monday night, it could easily have been interpreted as a career setback for the actor.
Instead, it was a calculated career move, one that threw Hollywood and D.C. politicos for a loop: He'll be taking a job in the White House, working as an associate director in the office of public liaison.
Essentially, Penn will be working to forge alliances with the Asian-American and Pacific Islander communities and the arts community, mirroring some of his efforts as a relentless campaigner for Barack Obama before the election.
Penn said he was "deeply honored and deeply privileged" to be taking the position, which he said he is undertaking "based wholly on passion" to enter public service. He said Obama's campaign inspired him to make the leap into the new arena.
"This was unexpected in the sense that if you had told me two years ago, when I started on 'House,' that I would be doing this, I would have said you were crazy," Penn said in a conference call arranged by Fox on Tuesday.
His new job is unique in the annals of entertainment industry figures making the leap into politics and government. Past presidents have appointed performers to special commissions: Arnold Schwarzenegger, for example, served as an ambassador on physical fitness for the first President Bush. But few if any have ever taken a staff position, one that will see him entering and exiting the Executive Office building every day for nitty gritty, day-to-day work marked by long hours.
Penn, who is registered as an independent, says he'll be taking a "huge pay cut," although he declined to specify how much, and expressed some anxiety about what he will do about his Los Angeles home with the real estate market in the dumps. He plans to travel to Washington next week to look for an apartment.
While he'll be putting his acting career on hold, Penn left open the door for a return and said he is not interested in running for public office.
"I am not packing up and saying, 'I am leaving Hollywood' and all this stuff. It is just pursuing another passion right now. We'll see for how long and under what circumstances."
Like Obama's team did during the campaign, the White House has tried to use a certain amount of savvy when it comes to engaging the entertainment community, mindful of the attention that showbiz brings but cautious of not getting too carried away with it at a time when the economy is in dire straits. Stars like George Clooney and Brad Pitt have been to the White House to see the president, but there's been some effort to either downplay their visits or to make sure they had a substantive basis: Clooney met Obama to talk about Darfur; Pitt's visit was to talk about his nonprofit dedicated to rebuilding New Orleans.
There are obvious perils in bringing on Penn, who rose to fame as the star of the "Harold and Kumar" stoner comedies, but his move could just as easily be cast as an example of someone who gave up a lucrative career to enter the public sector.
Having first met Obama at a fund-raiser in late 2007, Penn was a member of the future president's arts policy committee and spoke to various groups at colleges and universities as a campaign surrogate. But unlike many stars who take to the trail, he was also willing to do menial tasks. He was inspired enough to move to Iowa to work on Obama's campaign there, and, during the Democratic National Convention, volunteered in a position that amounted to being an usher on the floor of the Pepsi Center.
He said he first talked about taking a position on the White House staff in a brief conversation with Obama at an inaugural ball and followed up with senior adviser Valerie Jarrett and her chief of staff, Michael Strautmanis, who oversee the office of public liaison, which is designed to be the interface between the administration and the public.
Penn's work in the arts is expected to involve various nonprofit groups and organizations across the country. He said travel is included in his job, part of which is to "make sure that everyone's concerns are heard and that they are familiar with the president's plans and proposals."
He also suggested that he'll work to engage those he knows in Los Angeles in ways other than writing checks for candidates -- a common gripe coming from many in the entertainment business who say that D.C. has a tendency to view the entertainment community as an ATM.
"Speaking as someone who has lived here for the last 10 or 12 years, my colleagues aren't engaged frequently in the day-to-day and the outreach aspect of things. We would like that to change. We would like to engage people in the arts community," Penn said.
The demise of his TV character came with a public service message. Dr. Lawrence Kutner committed suicide, and Fox used the occasion to direct fans to the website for the National Alliance on Mental Illness.
As for "Harold and Kumar," Penn doubted that there were any more movies in the series for him after his White House tenure, and his conference call may have offered a good reason why. One reporter asked him his position on legalizing marijuana.
"I don't smoke weed in real life, so it is not something I have given much thought to," he said. "Admittedly, I didn't try to learn about (the issue) because I knew people would ask about it."
Contact Ted Johnson at
ted.johnson@variety.com