You know how often, actors who take certain roles become pigeonholed for the rest of their careers? Say, for example, Shannon Elizabeth, or Chris Klein?
At first, it seemed that the main characters from Harold & Kumar were destined for the slapstick comedy hall-of-fame. More teen movies. More silly dick jokes. And good grief, they were both minorities! Surely these roles were not going to lead to real acting careers.
Except... somehow, for some reason, White Castle managed to launch (or in one case, re-launch) three careers into pretty much unheard of trajectories since Jon Stewart went from Half-Baked to Fake News Cultural Icon.
Let's run things down.
Neil Patrick Harris began the comeback with White Castle, and turned it into a successful and regular gig on one of TV's most popular sitcoms. He also was part of a cult-hit Josh Whedon smash musical, and has gone from obscure, retro-pop-culture reference to one of the few celebrities who are famous essentially for being themselves.
John Cho is probably the least famous, and asides from small movies did mainly guest-spot tv work since the last Harold and Kumar gig. However, this summer he managed to snag an almost assuredly recurring role in the most popular franchise reboot in movie history. Star Trek is going to be a monster. Mark my words. He's going to be rolling in cash from this one role alone (he's Sulu). Pretty good for a dude who didn't even really want a hamburger in the first place.
Finally, Mr. Kal Penn. Yea, he did some TV. And of course, he landed a regular gig on House. But the dude just left the show (with a bang!) to accept a position in the Obama Administration. His official title is Associate Director in the White House Office of Public Liaison. I almost feel like this is on par with making the leap from Porn Star to legitimate actor. Has that ever truly been done? And I mean hardcore porn, not that Red Shoe David Duchovny softie stuff.
It's just strange how these things work out. Did anybody see this coming after watching White Castle? I mean, the tagline on the movie poster is "FROM THE DIRECTOR OF DUDE, WHERE'S MY CAR?"
Crazy.
4 comments:
yea i read about that too! craziness! unless all kumar's actually going to be doing is delegating people to twitter for obama and update his myspace page... but still that's a wicked job title.
He was a volunteer and zealot for Obama's campaign.
If anything, he's living proof of the American Dream - that if you work hard and dedicate yourself to something, that you'll be duly rewarded.
In these tough economic times, the American Dream is all some people have left.
-d
He's probably taking a HUGE paycut to work the politics gig, haha
The Prime Minister doesn't get paid much either. But after he's done his time...
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