Kal Penn on the role of Anna Nicole’s Doctor, in collaboration with Gregg Araki and “Harold & Kumar 4”

After years of juggling acting and political work, supporting the likes of President Obama and New York City Mayor Mamdani, Kal Penn is back in leading man mode.

One day after finishing his role in Gregg Araki’s film The decline of fucking Western civilizationDeadline spoke with the actor about his busy year on screen culminating with his portrayal of the late Anna Nicole Smith’s doctor, Dr. Sandeep Kapoor, in writer/director Thane Economou’s film. Believe me, I’m a doctorwhich is now playing in theaters.

“I was really fascinated, especially by the insecurity of Sandeep’s character, and the vulnerability and that back and forth between the two. I think five times in the film he says, ‘I’m just a private person, I live a private life,’ but then he makes every decision contrary to that, just to get attention, right?” Penn explained. “So there was this kind of juiciness to a character that I had never played before that drew me to him.”

Based on Kapoor’s 2017 memoir Trust Me, I’m a Doctor: My Life Before, During and After Anna Nicole SmithThe Economou-directed biopic chronicles the doctor’s professional relationship with Smith as a patient, which faded when they began a brief friendship outside the exam room, before her death from a prescription drug overdose on February 8, 2007.

Although the Medical Board of California initiated a review of Dr. Kapoor for prescribing methadone to Smith under a pseudonym during the eighth month of her pregnancy, he was acquitted of all charges related to Smith’s death and allowed to continue his medical practice.

Penn discovered during the preparation of the film Briarcliff that “the real Sandeep was, to my great surprise, very welcoming in letting me observe him and follow him everywhere.”

“I’ve had dinner with him tons of times, and through that I’ve seen a few things that have made me think. There are things he does physically. He sits differently depending on who he’s with. If it’s someone he’s clearly nervous in front of, he sits very differently than friends or family he’s comfortable with. His manner of speaking and his flamboyance too, not that he’s code switching, but they clearly change depending on who he is around,” he added.

Telling Kapoor’s story of his experience with Anna Nicole also involved a “guerrilla style” scene filmed in the middle of the 2024 West Hollywood Pride Parade, made to look like WeHo in 2005.

“Thane, our director, basically had 30 background artists around this car, and it, shot for shot, was supposed to look like the real parade Anna and Sandeep put on, so everything else in the background is mostly blurred, unless you can get away with the few things left over from 20 years ago, like Circus of Books,” Penn noted. “But it was super interesting because you only had one shot, right? You start at the beginning of the parade and you continue until the end hoping you have everything you need.”

And while Larry Birkhead, the father of Anna Nicole’s daughter Dannielynn, has expressed his disapproval of the project, Penn concedes that “it’s not going to be a movie for everyone,” but acknowledges that “someone died tragically, and I would never want to take something like that lightly in a movie.”

With a busy year coming to a close, which included a “fun” arc as a “terrible person” in season 4 of the BBC/HBO series. IndustryPenn prepares to return to its roots after last year’s announcement of a fourth Harold and Kumar in the works of writers Jon Hurwitz, Hayden Schlossberg and Josh Heald.

“So John Cho and I have officially signed on for a fourth movie,” Penn confirmed. “Jon and Hayden, the incredible screenwriters who wrote all three films, directed the second one, they’ll direct the fourth one, and they just finished the script, which John and I read a few weeks ago, and I loved it. It follows the other three films, and I’m not just saying that because I play the guy, but it’s one of the funniest scripts I’ve read in a very long time.”

Penn added, “So I’m excited, but it hasn’t been greenlit or anything yet, so I don’t have any real updates, other than the fact that I read the script and I loved it. So I’m hoping we can do the thing.”

Meanwhile, Penn has been busy checking an item off his bucket list after working with New Queer Cinema director Gregg Araki on his upcoming film, The decline of fucking Western civilizationa role he told his agent to “pursue aggressively” after seeing Araki speak for the first time following a screening of his 1995 film at UCLA. Doom generation during Penn’s undergraduate years.

“I didn’t know anything about the movie, you just walk in. I’m like, ‘This is like nothing I’ve ever seen before.’ And then listening to his Q&A about his kind of guerrilla-style filmmaking and shooting in Los Angeles and just doing things the way he always did…” Penn recalls. “So I was excited to join the cast and I just finished.”

Read on to learn about Kal Penn’s experience as Dr. Sandeep Kapoor in Believe me, I’m a doctorcurrently in cinema, as well as his upcoming roles in Harold and Kumar 4that of Gregg Araki The decline of fucking Western civilization and more.

DEADLINE: What appealed to you about this perspective on Anna Nicole’s story?

KAL PENN: So, I didn’t know much about his story, and if I’m honest, I still don’t, because Sandeep’s acting arc in the film sort of runs from start to finish, from before he met Anna to after he passed away. And so, I never researched her, because that just made it easier to be Sandeep. And then you package a movie and you’re like, “Okay, that was it.” … But the reason I said yes to the movie, I remember being a young actor in Los Angeles, in the nascent era of reality TV, and I think there was a party that I went to, like an awards show, that Anna was at, but she was there with four cameras and a huge entourage, and it was clear that she was filming a reality show. But I remember my friends and I being like, “Oh, does she have a reality show because that’s how she actually behaves, or does she behave that way because she has a reality show?” And it’s a question that the film doesn’t answer completely either, it’s an open question at the end of our film. But that’s all I knew about her, right? It’s like, “Oh yeah, that’s Anna Nicole Smith from that reality show.” So, I see the email come in from my agent for this movie, and it was a short logline that I just went through, and then the script was attached. And as I’m clicking on the script, I’m like, “Oh yeah, I know that story. It’s about this doctor who’s in prison for the murder of Anna Nicole Smith.” And then I started reading the script, I was like, “That’s not what happened at all. How can I think that’s what happened?” I never followed the case or anything, but why do I think that’s what happened? And then I thought, “Am I one of those people who reads three tweets and thinks I’m an expert in something?” “So, I read the script with that in mind and I was really fascinated, especially by the insecurity of Sandeep’s character, and the vulnerability and this back and forth between the two – I think five times in the film he says, “I’m just a private person, I live a private life,” but then he makes every decision contrary to that, just to get attention, right? So there was this kind of juiciness to a character that I had never played before that appealed to me.

DEADLINE: What was the physical transformation and voice change like for the role?

PENN: So obviously Anna Nicole Smith was in the public eye as a character. Sandeep is an interesting character to play because he wasn’t. I guess he was in the public eye, and so fair game and all that, but he’s not like a household name, and I think the biggest decision in trying to find with Thane, our writer-director, the right way to play him was like, “I just need to anchor these vulnerabilities and these bad ethical decisions in something bigger than what’s in the script,” and the real Sandeep was, to my surprise, very welcoming in letting me follow him, follow him everywhere. I’ve had dinner with him tons of times, and through that I’ve seen a few things that made me think. There are things he does physically. He sits differently depending on who he is with. If it’s someone he’s clearly nervous around, he sits very differently than friends or family he feels comfortable around. His way of speaking and his flamboyance too, not that he code switches, but they clearly change depending on who he is around. So there was a little bit of Alexander technique, there was a little bit of backstory to anchor it all, but that’s kind of what went into the transformation. It’s not necessary because to me it made a lot of sense, some of the things you learn about him from all of this.

DEADLINE: It’s funny that you bring it up because it’s a part that really touched me…