Actor Kal Penn shared photos of old scripts for auditions and roles he has done to his Twitter on Tuesday, making a point about racialized stereotypes in Hollywood perceptions and portrayals of South Asian and Middle Eastern characters.
The scripts include characters named "Ghandi lookalike," and another called "Foreign student." Penn noted, "Ha! In this audition for Smart Guy, they didn't even give the character a name!"
In another post, he said he used to love the show King of Queens, "until I got to audition for it lol," sharing a photo of the script with a character named Sanjib, and another character named Arthur who repeatedly mispronounces Sanjib's name. "Sinbad?" "Sandjob?"
Penn also commented on accents for parts. "Jeez I remember this one! They were awful," he wrote about one script. "'Can you make his accent a little more AUTHENTIC?' That usually meant they wanted Apu."
Read his posts below.
