Harold & Kumar: White Castle to House

By Rebecca Cole

Now that his character on Fox's House has been killed off with a suicide, actor Kal Penn is moving on to a bigger house: the White House.

Most widely known from his "Harold and Kumar" movies -- he plays a stoner with the munchies who can't find a White Castle in the first one, and a stoner who finds himself shipped to Guantanamo after trying to use a "smokeless bong" on a plane in the second -- Penn, 31, will soon be working as an associate director in President Barack Obama's administration.

Penn's passion for politics first emerged last year when he stumped for Obama on the campaign trail. Over the summer, while on hiatus from House, Penn -- whose real name is Kalpen Modi -- helped out during the Democratic National Convention in Denver, acting as a political whip for Virginia delegates.

Penn confirmed the news with Entertainment Weekly that he chose to leave House in order to work for Obama's administration as an associate director in the White House office of public liaison:

"I was incredibly honored a couple of months ago to get the opportunity to go work in the White House," Penn told EW.

"I got to know the president and some of the staff during the campaign and had expressed interest in working there,'' he said. "They do outreach with the American public and with different organizations. They're basically the front door of the White House. They take out all of the red tape that falls between the general public and the White House. It's similar to what I was doing on the campaign.

Penn admitted his office won't technically be in the White House -- it's actually in the Executive Office building next door -- and that he is taking a big pay cut to work for the president.

"There's not a lot of financial reward in these kinds of jobs,'' he added.

(Maybe he could get advice from Larry Summers about how deal with leaving a high-paying gig in order to work in public service?)

Penn is a poli sci geek at heart, and the inspiration for the move may have stemmed from the example his grandparents set.

"It's probably because of the value system my grandparents instilled in me. They marched with Gandhi in the Indian independence movement, and that was always in the back of my head."

Penn still is leaving the door open to acting, however.

Perhaps that means we'll see a third installment of the Harold and Kumar series - "Harold and Kumar get lost in the White House," anyone?