We can almost see the barely concealed look of horror that flashed across the 24 casting director's face when deceptively Anglo-monikered Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle star Kal Penn signed in at his audition for a part as an up-and-coming CTU operative who would play a crucial role in a particularly daring, death-cheating Jack Bauer escape from enemy clutches. Upon discovering that the actor was perhaps not as alabaster-complected as they'd hoped ("Hold on, didn't I ask for Harold? What? Harold wasn't white either?"), much shuffling of script pages occurred as they scrambled to find the sides for the part of the Indian programmer to whom the recently deceased Edgar's job was outsourced, but could finally locate only ones for the "guy who is somehow involved with the Islamic guru running the neighborhood mosque and might be the key to a terrorist plot." The talented Penn, of course, shrugged off the switch and knocked it out of the park, saving the casting department the trouble of sitting through a wasted day of auditions with Latino actors they would deem not "ethnic" enough to be mixed up with terrorists.

• "Harold & Kumar" star high on "24" role [THR/Reuters]

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