Kal Penn

Kal Penn joins us to talk new CBS show 'Clarice' and more!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
You're on with Mario Lopez Mario Lopez jaw on Zoom
from the new CBS series Clarice actor Cal Pan. Welcome back,
my man. How are you? Thank you good? How you doing.
I'm well, nice to see you. Looking forward to this
series because it essentially picks up a year after the
Silence of the Lands, right, and where do you come in?

(00:21):
Tell me about your character. Yeah, so I play a
guy named Santra Patty. He's an FBI agent who who
has kind of a weird background. So um. So he
got his start in library sciences and the Smithsonian, so
he's kind of got this art sea side to him. Um,
and then decided who wanted to become a federal agent,
joined the FBI, and in the year preceding the pilot,

(00:43):
obviously everybody in you know, everybody in the in our
world knew what happened with Clarice Starling and with with
Hannibal Elector and and uh, work sort of in all
when Clarice gets reassigned to the Violent Crimes Unit, which
is our team. So she comes in and we obviously
knew who she was, and we knew her background, and uh,
and I'm sort of the only one who thinks it's

(01:04):
interesting that she has a background in behavioral sciences. All
the other guys are sort of they've got this bravado
of like is that even a real thing? You know?
Who knows who? Who is this little girl. There's a
lot of kind of that that angle going into it.
So it's been, um, it's been a cool couple episodes
getting getting to know the world well, being that you're
a history expert. Will the series get into historic events?

(01:26):
So far? We only touch on them a little bit
and in a way that I thought was really like,
there's um the second episode, there's there's almost like a
Waco esque um situation happening at a at a compound
that that's outside of DC, and we show up there
and there are a couple of mentions of Waco, and
you realize that, yeah, that would have just been so

(01:46):
recently that it doesn't feel quite right if the writers
harped on Waco a lot, because obviously the characters know
it's fresh in their minds. At the same time, we
got one audience, so are we saying enough that reminds
them that, oh, yeah, this was the thing that happened.
The same thing with I don't know if you remember
Terry Shivoh, it was one of the first first right

(02:06):
to die case controversial case, yes, exactly, Yeah, especially at
the time. I mean you think about it today and
you're like, oh, yeah, all the craziness going on in
our world, that probably wouldn't have been at the top
of the list, but it was sort of what got
that conversation started. So there are a couple of references
to that. I think an episode five or six and
we'll see what happens. Yeah, yeah, it's been it's been good.
So you don't necessarily even had to watch the movie.

(02:29):
You can just sort of jump right into this this series,
I imagine that. Yeah, I think so. I think. Look,
it's a it's a CBS series, but it's also shot
like a movie. So if you were a fan of
Silence of the Lambs was, you're gonna appreciate it more.
But otherwise you can, you know, you can dump yourself
right and especially that pilot episode, it gets you up
to speed on our world. Yeah that's cool man, Good

(02:49):
for you and get to see in that light and
very that's great. When when you were last here, Cal
we talked about your Netflix series, Cal Pan approves this
message where you impress of the millennial and gen Z
turn out in the past election, I think so, yeah, Look,
I was impressed with with kind of the youth vote
turnout and and you got to give credit like there

(03:10):
was there was such high historic turnout across the board.
You know, there were obviously I'm a I'm a left
leading guy. I worked for for for President Obama. But
you look at those numbers and you say, young conservatives
showed up to you know, in huge numbers. And ultimately,
I think that obviously is going to make our our
democracy more vibrant if everybody shows up and it makes

(03:31):
their voice heard. So I think a lot of you know,
it used to be that question was like are our
young people are going to show up? And the last
probably three election cycles, and I don't just mean the
presidential I mean midterm elections and local elections, that question
has been answered. It's like, yeah, they will show up.
They do show up. They care a lot, certainly more
than I did when I was eighteen. You know, Yeah,
they seem to be definitely more savvy and knowledgeable. If

(03:53):
you did more episodes, Well, what topic would you cover
right now? Uh? You know, I I like the fact
that if we were to do more of that show,
that we could do it outside the confines of an election,
because when you're when you're leaning into an election, obviously
all the topics had to be things that we're on
people's minds that that the immediate presidential election UM would tackle, right,

(04:13):
But now we have a lot more room for things
like a conversation on sensible gun laws. Right right up
to an election, it's always a little more heightened, or
if it comes right after a tragedy, But I think
a time in between that is where you can have
rational people kind of sit down and say, you know,
you might be a right leaning gun owner or left
leaning gun owner for that part, or you might you know,

(04:33):
be like like I grew up in New Jersey, I
don't know anybody who owned a gun because we didn't
really need them. I didn't grow up in a rural place.
But those kinds of conversations I think I'd love to
be able to have if we brought that show back
between elections. Yeah, Um, being that you had a role
in the Obama administration, any chance you'd work in Washington again?
Or is that is that now a by gun era? No,

(04:55):
it's funny. Somebody asked me about that recently, like would
you go work for for Biden and Harris? And what
do I say? I said something like, look, man, I
had the privilege of playing a Stoner three times and
working at the White House twice. Like that's a America
has been kind That's an only in America story right there,
you know exactly. Yeah, when my parents moved to America,
I don't think they had either of those things in mind. Um.

(05:15):
I love that that. We're working on Clarise right now
and have a few a few acting and writing projects.
But um, you know, I love staying involved in public service.
So who knows what's to come down the line? There
we go? Never say never. I like it. I like
it well before I let you go, but I'm gonna
put you on the spot. Quick questions, quick answers. Okay,
what streaming show do you recommend other than your own
to watch? Right? Sex education? Sex Education? Okay, I remember

(05:40):
taking Jillian Anderson right, yes, yeah, I saw the preview
of that on Netflix. Okay, good, I want to check
that out. Song. You know all the words too? Oh
man uh oh um let her cry a boy, hooty
and the Blowfish. Great song nineties kid. Okay, that's a
great song. Good karaoke jam too, that's a karaoke jam.

(06:06):
All right, sitcom from the past. You wish you could
have appeared on? Oh Man, Growing Pains, Let's go Growing Faith. Wow. See,
I won't even further. I was thinking, I asked myself
that question in my head right now, I'm thinking I
would have gone threes Company, and I would have been
at the Regal the Regal Beagle with Jack and Larry.
Would you have lived in the building? Yeah? What's your

(06:31):
go to cocktail? Uh? A vodka martini? Okay? And which
show should get considered for a reboot next? Oh man?
That's all right, I gotta I gotta answer that just
very quickly. So I would say, well, they already did it.
I was gonna say Full House, Um, they already did it.

(06:54):
They Uh, that's such a good question. I'm trying to
think of like stuff fresh Prince, but they did that too. Well.
They only did the reunion. They did the Reunion special
rebooted all right, that I would go with Fresh Prints.
But the reason I hesitated was it's such a crazy question,
like as somebody who's on a reboot show or a
reboot of a movie. I guess it's like there's the
part of you that's an actor and a writer that's like, no, man,

(07:15):
why don't they just make original ideas? Nobody makes original ideas,
And those of us who are not actors are saying
that too. Yeah. Well yeah, But then you think about
it's like, well, the streaming platforms are doing a lot
of original ideas, and I think the networks that own
a lot of the libraries of rights to things are
trying to do the reboots, so it makes sense. They
don't all work, but some of them do. Like the
Full House reboot that moved over to Netflix is excellent

(07:39):
and one of my favorite shows. And they did similar
to Silence of the Lambs about a movie and took
the characters and into a series. And what they're doing
the Silence and you know they could do the same.
That's a great blueprint for anyone that wants to do
every and and huge shout out to John Horwitz and
Hyden Slusburg, the guys who created that, because they are
also the HEROLD ANDAR creator. That's right, that's right. I

(07:59):
heard about that. That That. Wow, those guys are awesome. They're
very diverse. Oh that's why you know those guys as well.
Oh cool. Oh that's funny man. Well, nice cat catching
up with you there, cow talking to you again. Congratulations
on the show. Watch Clarice Thursdays on CBS cal Thanks
for checking in. Thanks On with Mario Lopezzi.