Best known for his comedic roles, Kal Penn almost didn't even get to audition for The Namesake, Mira Nair's new drama that's based on Jhumpa Lahiri's book about an Indian family that moves from Calcutta to New York. Initial calls from his people to Nair's people were ignored simply because Nair (Monsoon Wedding, Vanity Fair) didn't know who Penn was. Penn wrote her a letter explaining why he felt he was perfect for the role of Gogol Ganguli, the lead character whose journey from infant to adult is chronicled in both the book and film. That, too, was met with no response. Luckily for Penn, Nair's 14-year-old son was a fan of the teen comedy Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle and urged his mother to at least give Penn a shot.

"She let me audition just to get him off her back," Penn says via phone from Las Vegas where he was "mostly working." "I was nervous because I respect her so much. I flew to New York, and she made me feel very comfortable. She's my favorite director that I've worked with so far."

For Penn, it wasn't so much that he shared the character's ethnicity. In fact, Gogol is Bengali, and Penn is Gujarati. While that difference might be lost on Westerners, it means that Penn wasn't just typecast.

"To me, ethnicity is never interesting as far as an acting choice goes," he says. "What I connected with were his passion for his job and why he decided to become an architect; he likes politics and history and sees the connection. I responded to the relationship with his parents as well. I know there's a cultural component to that, but it reminded me of everyone I know."

A particular challenge in the movie came when Gogol had to identify the body of his dead father.

"The dialogue wasn't as difficult as the non-verbal part," he says. "When something like that happens, you can't speak. Doing those scenes, it makes you think about your own relationships and anyone you're close to. I credit my performance to Irrfan Khan, who plays my father. He has so many layers in his performance."

For Penn, who grew his hair long to play Gogol as a teen and then cropped it short for the parts when his character is older, The Namesake was yet another chance for him to widen his scope. And it's certainly a far better showing that the misguided Van Wilder sequel, in which he had the lead role as a frat boy gone wild. (Penn simply refers to the film as a "lesson learned.") This year, Penn's also had a bit part on 24 and is currently filming a Harold and Kumar sequel, which he says shows great promise.

"As an actor, you don't have a lot of choice," he says. "The assumption is that you can do whatever you want. As a young actor, if you're pretty and white, you can be on the CW and do Dawson's Creek. If you're not, you do teen comedies. But whether it's glossy TV shows or gross-outs, my goal has always been to diversify."