Huma Abedin and Kal

KAL PENN: I’ve been seeing you everywhere the last couple of weeks, especially the last week and a half. We have the same [book publication] date, and I have been so excited to hear you tell your story.

You sent me an early copy of the book. I was thumbing through just the photos at first. It’s the same photos that I have in my book [laughter] of the immigrant parents, and the ’70s, ’80s attire and the trips to South Asia. COVER I feel like that experience of, STORY at least what I felt was boundless possibility as a kid, going into this unlikely journey of entering worlds—mostly entertainment and then dabbling in public service; you’ve had this whole lifetime of public service. Were the parents an influence? What was the big insight that got you in there? HUMA ABEDIN: Kal, I want to gush about you for a minute, because I just want to tell you about you. [Holds up a copy of Penn’s book, showing many pages tabbed with page markers.] Look, these are my notes. PENN: Oh my god. ABEDIN: And yes, I compared early family photos.

We’ve known each other in politics. I’ve obviously seen you—I’ve watched your shows. I know you’re super famous. But your story . . . I just opened the book, and I couldn’t put it down. I came away with such an extraordinary respect for your story.

You asked about our immigrant parents and stories and grandparents: I opened my book with my grandmother. My father came from India, my mother came from Pakistan. Both immigrants, like your story.

This notion of education being a religion of sacrifice—you know, the story you tell in your book about going to Gandhi’s ashram with your grandfather. And them not talking about being freedom fighters and all of that. I felt that very much in my family. My grandmother fought to go to school back in the time in India where girls were not sent—it was shameful to be sent outside the house. She would get on the back of an ox cart, in the back of the house [so as] not to bring shame to the family.

Every time I think about those pinch-me moments that you and I have had in the White House [and] on Air Force One, I think about our grandparents and our parents and what they sacrificed to give us this extraordinary life of opportunity. PENN: I was one of those nerds in college and especially post-college who would Google “Why hasn’t Huma been doing all these interviews?” And then you realize it’s because of the nature of the role that you played and the type of public service you’ve done. I wanted to ask you whether, with your parents and the work that you chose, first of all, were they supportive of what you wanted to do early on? And was there a singular moment where they sort of said, “I’m proud of the work that you’re doing?” ABEDIN: I was born in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and

HUMA ABEDIN & KAL PENN

THE AMERICAN DREAM CAN BE

realized by people following different paths, including immigrant family experiences, career changes, and lots of hard work. From the November 9, 2021, online Inforum program “An Evening with Kal Penn and Huma Abedin.” HUMA ABEDIN, Former Vice Chairperson, Hillary Clinton 2016 Presidential Campaign; Author, Both/ And: A Life in Many Worlds KAL PENN, Actor; Former Principal Associate Director of the White House Office of Public Engagement; Author, You Can’t Be Serious

I often think about sort of this notion of choice.

When I was two, my father was diagnosed with renal failure and he was told he had 5 to 10 years to live. And it’s one of the first lines I wrote in my book: “My father was told he was dying, and so he went out and lived.” Two months later, we moved to Saudi Arabia. My parents were both professors, academics. We get on this plane for a oneCOVER year sabbatical, and that was 42 years ago. I grew up in a conservative environment. STORY I think anyone who knows anything about Saudi Arabia [knows it] is culturally and socially conservative. My mother, in particular, really struggled. She left Pakistan to study in the United States, then has to go to Saudi Arabia, and she can’t even drive. But they always told me . . . you can be three things in our part of the world: a doctor, a lawyer, engineer. And if you weren’t one of those three things, and if you were a girl, then you could get married and you could maybe [be] a teacher, but there were certain circumscribed professions.

My parents always told me, “You can do whatever it is you want. All we require is that you be educated.” I believe my dad, who I was very close to when he died when I was 17, always thought I would be a writer. He would bring books back from his travels overseas, and one year when I was 10, he brought a book back called Silas Marner by George Eliot, and it was so over my head. When I read the introduction, I go to my dad—I used to call my dad Abu—and I said, “Abu, why did this woman, Mary Evans, have to write under a man’s name?” He said “Back in the Victorian era, women were not taken seriously as writers. So she wrote in a man’s name. But don’t worry; when you grow up, you’ll write your own book and you’ll use your own name. Everyone will take it seriously.” I think he always wanted to be a writer, and that’s the one thing I’m very grateful for.

I’m curious about you, because I laughed when I read the “auntie” conversations about “What college are you going to?” and “What are you doing?” So tell me your story, [about] your parents and whether you had these conversations with them, too. PENN:The focus on education is something that really came from my grandparents in our case and especially on my mom’s side. My maternal grandparents were especially active in the Indian independence movement.

I was in a Hindu and Jain household, but incredibly secular. They would encourage us to go to mosque or temple or church with anybody who invited us; really a real Gandhian view of faith and otherness. I appreciated that.

They were both teachers. So they made sure that there were never any excuses. My mom and her sisters and their brother had to get as much of an education as it was possible to get. That certainly was passed on to us. Especially in our case, I think. My dad came here with the equivalent of $12 in his pocket as part of the post-1965 wave of immigration. The sanitized version of that story as my dad came here with no money, and he really made it. And that’s true. He worked his butt off.

But it’s so important to remember that there was a shortage of doctors and engineers in America at the time, and that’s one of the real reasons that so many Asian-Americans were able to come during that time—that he got into an engineering grad program. That’s why he knew that as the American dream and what it was like to build a better life.

So here I come along. I’m terrible at math. My dad’s an engineer. My mom has a Masters in chemistry. How does this happen? Then I say I want to be an actor. And that’s not why they moved to America—so their first-born son can say he wants to be an actor. I felt a lot of that pressure from the Indian community in ways that weren’t always polite. There were a lot of aunties and uncles who would say things like, “Are you not smart enough to go to medical school?”

I mean, look, the answer is no. I was not smart enough to go to medical school, but just don’t say that.

So you have this sense of community or the sense of family, and certainly there’s a lot of support there, but also a lot that I had to work through.

And by the way, when you said the piece about in Victorian times, women who would write had to change their names—I remember in the late ’90s, early 2000s interning; there’s a chapter where I talk about one of the worst bosses I’ve ever had, who taught me how not to produce movies. But during that time, I remember that there were screenwriters, particularly women who wrote action and horror films, who would change the names on the front of their script to men’s names just to get the script to be read. So when you said Victorian times, I just think we often think of Hollywood as a more progressive, more liberal place. Yet when it comes to issues of diversity and inclusion, they’ve been fairly late to the game. ABEDIN: I love this notion of the Hindu, Jain, and that you were going to mosques because that’s definitely how we were raised as well. Curious about other [religions]. Both my parents are Muslims. Actually, it’s one of the reasons my parents were allowed to stay here in the ’60s, because back then, as you well know, an Indian man and a Pakistani woman could not have gone back to either country and sort of lived. And that’s how they got asylum here. But they really did encourage us and push us to be curious about other cultures and faiths and religions.

I kind of had goose bumps when I read the opening story in your book about the experience that you had. I’d love for you to

“MY DAD’S AN ENGINEER. MY MOM HAS A MASTERS IN CHEMISTRY. THEN I SAY I WANT TO BE AN ACTOR. AND THAT’S NOT WHY THEY MOVED TO AMERICA—SO THEIR FIRST-BORN SON CAN SAY HE WANTS TO BE AN ACTOR.”

—KAL PENN

tell us about it, but also because I actually had this notion myself in fifth grade, when my father had his kidney transplant.

I went to school in Saudi Arabia [at] a very international school, but people, for the most part were kind of a mix. Most of us were Muslims. And . . . America could be this ideal for me. Every time we went on a trip, we would land and I would wake up and ask my mom, “Is it America yet?” Because to me, COVER America represented this ideal. America was freedom. It was choice. It was opportunity.

STORY But I do write about this one experience in fifth grade, when my father had his kidney transplants. My parents kept us at the local public school in New Jersey for a period of time. I kind of struggled, I became the kid [who] knew all the answers, because I went to British schools in Saudi Arabia and I found that it was material I learned very quickly. Learning that the eye rolling, the nudging, the not understanding the American sports—I didn’t know the rules behind certain games. And it really did make me wonder if I wasn’t the kid bringing smelly Indian food or whatever.

I’d love to talk a little bit about what that experience was, because my takeaway is one of the ways you sort of made your way through was these stories you told. I’m compelled by stories. Tell me about storytelling and what stories did for you— and tell us about The Wizard of Oz. PENN: The town that I grew up in in New Jersey was mostly white, but diverse within that whiteness. What I mean by that is that a lot of people spoke multiple languages at home. So there is a big Italian-American community. A lot of folks spoke Polish or German even. In middle school, there was a huge Jewish community, so every weekend was a bar mitzvah in seventh and eighth grade. So, the central New Jersey bar mitzvah scene I was pretty well versed in.

But the bullying—and it’s funny that by 2021 standards, it’s called bullying, because back then we just knew it as middle school. When kids would kind of beat you up in the hallway or throw your books down the stairs, if you were brown, it was often accompanied with a little quote from either Apu from “The Simpsons” or Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. You know, some reductionist, stereotypical thing that was out there in some of the most popular film and TV shows that kids would watch at the time. And it was the first thing that struck me about, wow, people, especially kids, really take those images of what we see on TV and kind of convert them in an interesting way where those images really affect us.

That same year, I played the Tin Man in The Wiz. Kids would be chastised by the soccer players throughout the year, especially, because we were putting up a play. There’s a phrase that you might have heard that actors use: “I was in the zone.” That means the character took over and you really didn’t have full control over what you were doing. That’s how into the character you were. At 14 I hadn’t experienced that before until The Wiz.

So I’m doing this play in front of the whole school. There’s a scene where the Tin Man gets his heart, and he’s supposed to look at the audience and say, “All you fine ladies out there, watch out.” It’s meant to indicate that he’s capable of love. Instead, I was really nervous and I went into this zone and I got my heart and I said, “All you fine ladies out there,” and I did this gigantic pelvic thrust. And then I just said, “Watch out.” And the crowd went wild. All the girls started screaming. People applauded. And on the late bus home, all the soccer players applauded and said, “That was so funny. We really enjoyed it. Why didn’t you tell us that’s what you were doing?”

My first reaction was, I was waiting for the second shoe to drop. I was waiting for the spitballs. I was waiting for that extra thing. And that never came, because they genuinely enjoyed [it]—whatever their preconceived notions were were evaporated with a silly joke that I made. That was the first time I realized, “Wait a second, I’ve seen the downside to these stereotypical representations. But there’s an upside to comedy that can bring people together in ways that I never had imagined.”

That was one of the catalysts that made me say I want to be a storyteller for life. I want to bring characters to the stage or to the screen and make audiences feel amazing, beautiful things that they maybe hadn’t felt before. And one of the things, when I remember transitioning to my very brief public service career, always in awe of yours and always watching everything that you were doing— and this is a total non sequitur, but I know we crossed paths in Iowa and in several states during the whole campaign process.

One of the things that I loved storywise about your book was when you were an intern. You write about Ramadan and sharing Ramadan with people and what that felt like, and even just being an intern and feeling accepted in a way that had not been the status quo in your life up until that point. I had a similar experience when I worked in Washington. It wasn’t until I worked at the White House that I felt that, because I felt the opposite in Hollywood.

Can you talk about what that was like and what that Ramadan was like? ABEDIN: It’s amazing. It sounds like you had a tremendous amount of confidence in your ability to tell stories and perform. I think I did, too. The only difference between you and me when we were younger is you were clearly very good, as evidenced by your Wizard of Oz experience. I was not. I would stand up at family parties and say, “I have a new poem. Who wants to hear it?” And all my siblings and cousins would be rolling their eyes, and my father would be clapping from the back saying, “That’s beautiful, beautiful.” And he always told me the greatest power was the power of my pen if I used it wisely.

But—fast forward—I did make it to the White House. I walked in as a 21-yearold intern. Now I do want to note, Kal, that like you, I was rejected from one very special university that I thought I would automatically be accepted in, which is my parents’ alma mater. They met at the University of Pennsylvania. They were Fulbright scholars. So here I am thinking I’ve got to follow in my parents’ footsteps. I have to go to the University of Pennsylvania. I apply for early admission, and sure enough, I get a very skinny little letter saying I’m rejected. It made me think when I read your story about ending up at UCLA, I thought this was so similar, because I ended up going to George Washington University for college, and it was exactly the right place for me.

Just before I left for college, it was the midst of the first Gulf War, Operation Desert Storm. I turned the TV on and I see this woman, and the minute I saw her and listened to her, I thought, I’m going to be her. That was Christiane Amanpour. PENN: Oh, amazing! ABEDIN: I watched women on TV in Saudi Arabia, they’re always covered; or you watched CNN and you didn’t see a lot of people who looked like me. So she was my moment of, I see that. You know what? Maybe I can be that.

So I land in George Washington University thinking I’m at the center of the universe. This is where the next Christiane Amanpour is going to be born. I think you were similar in this way; I was very curious about different student unions when I was at school. I had a friend that I met through the Black Student Union; her name was

“WHEN I WALKED INTO THE CLINTON WHITE HOUSE IN 1996, I DIDN’T EVEN KNOW IF I WAS A DEMOCRAT. BUT I KIND OF FELL IN LOVE WITH THE MISSION, THE WORK THE FIRST LADY WAS DOING.”

—HUMA ABEDIN

Roneith. She comes up to me one day and said, “Listen, I have this great internship at the White House. I interned for Mike McCurry. You know, the blue curtain that the press secretary stands at—I sit in the office behind [the curtain].” Well, . . . wow, yes, of course. I never thought I would get the internship. I filled out the application form and sure enough, I’m shocked when I get in. And then I walked in and day one—this is September 1996; I’m 21 and I was actually disappointed because I was not assigned to the press office. I was assigned to the first lady’s office. I remember calling my mom from those brick cell phones we used to have back then and saying, “Mom, I’m not in the press office.”

And she said, “Well, maybe plan A didn’t work, but you know, Plan B will be something to explore.” And it was amazing.

When you tell the story about bringing Diwali to the White House when you were there—first of all, I’m shocked actually that there was not a Diwali celebration at the White House, so thank you for doing that PENN: There were, but never with the principal, never with the president. ABEDIN: When I walked into the Clinton White House in 1996, I really felt like it I was surrounded—and by the way, Kal, I didn’t even know if I was a Democrat. Most of my family in New Jersey voted Republican. Lots of South Asians are fiscally and socially conservative. So back in the ’80s, you sort of automatically [voted for the GOP]. But I kind of fell in love with the cause, with the mission, the work the first lady was doing on behalf of women around the world, what President Clinton was doing, particularly with Middle East peace.

So for me, like you brought Diwali, we had Ramadan celebrated in the White House, and it was the first time I really felt like I knew more than people in the room. It came with a great amount of confidence, and I felt very kind of welcomed and a lot of curiosity about my cultural and faith values. I think there was the benefit.

Look, I had the honor of working for both the Clinton administration and the Obama administration. That was one thing both administrations did really well, which is this feeling of inclusivity and expanding the table so there are more seats.

I really want to hear a little bit more about what you had to go through to be who you became. Because there are shocking moments in this book. Can you share a little bit about that struggle and that assurance? PENN: Thank you for saying that. I think one of the subtexts of my book, hopefully, is how systems can and do change and the ways in which that’s possible.

When I started out as an actor, I went to UCLA—after very dramatically shaving my head after getting rejected from Yale. But I ended up going to the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television and being very excited that I was finally so close to the entertainment industry, so close to people who were working in the industry that I wanted to [work with].

So many of my classmates already had agents. They had agents who signed them and they were going out on auditions, and I wanted that. So for about two years, every Wednesday, I would put my headshot and resume together, sometimes with a tape of a student film or an audition tape that I had made and send them out to prospective agents. And nobody ever called. After about two or two and a half years, a wonderful actor named Jenna von Oÿ, who is still a dear friend of mine—she was on the

COVER STORY

“HE SAID SOMEBODY WHO LOOKS LIKE YOU IS NEVER GOING TO WORK CONSISTENTLY ENOUGH IN HOLLYWOOD FOR HIM TO WANT TO MEET WITH YOU.”

—KAL PENN

show “Blossom” back in the ’90s and “The Parkers” in the 2000—she had a real A-list manager and she said, “Why don’t I take your tape and your headshot and everything to my manager? He’ll at least meet with you, and you guys can talk about a good strategy. No guarantee that he’ll necessarily sign you. But probably.” I said “That would be amazing. What a big favor.”

She goes and comes back to me about a week later and said, “He doesn’t want to meet with you. And I’m curious how much of the story you want to hear.”

I said, “Look, hanging up the artist hat for a second, putting on the businessperson hat, I’d really like to know everything so that I know what to do differently on my audition tape or my submissions moving forward.”

So she said, “OK, so two things. One, you should know that he really did like your tape. He said you were incredibly talented and he doesn’t just say that sort of thing. So I just want you to know it’s true.”

And I said, “OK, thank you, but I feel like there’s a big but coming.”

She said “Yes. He said, but somebody who looks like you is never going to work consistently enough in Hollywood for him to want to meet with you or even take you on.” Agents and managers make a commission off of all of their clients. And if you’re not working enough, then it’s not worth their time.

I was really disappointed for a number of reasons, but the biggest reason was that there was nothing that I could have done differently in my audition tape. There’s nothing I could have done differently on my head shot. My barrier to entry was the color of my skin, and I remember being confused.

I had a lot more clarity on things like “Seinfeld” and “Friends,” two great shows that were very funny shows on the air around that time. You have to try really hard to make New York City look that white, right? I mean, there’s no doubt that those writers are incredibly talented. The producers are phenomenally funny. But you have to try hard to exclude most of New York City. Those things started to click with me, where I said, Wow, that’s right, these people are actually making a decision to exclude.

So what do I do? What am I going to do to get my foot in the door? And when I finally did land an agent and started working toward those auditions, every audition early on was, “Can you put on an accent?” And to be clear, an accent itself doesn’t make for a stereotype. It’s the reductionism that generally accompanies those types of things.

So, you know, “Do you have an accent? Where’s your turban?” I said, “Well, I’m not Sikh, so I don’t have a turban.” I had a woman say, “Well, can you go home and put a bed sheet on your head or something? Because we need you to look like you have a turban?”

So all of these things that back in the day kind of beat you down a lot. There were definitely times where I just thought maybe it’s not the right time. Maybe I’m not cut out for this. I have a brain. I can do other things. Slowly, over time, making the decision to take some of those roles that I found exhausting or stereotypical to build up a resume in the hopes that things would change down the line were sort of the starting point of my path.

What I love now, looking back 20 years later, is how dramatically things have changed and how far yet we’ve still to go. But there are so many younger not even just South Asian, just actors of all diverse backgrounds who have not had those experiences that those of us who came of age in the ’90s had to deal with. And that’s a big sign of progress.