Christmas means something very different to John Cho (Saint John of Las Vegas) and Kal Penn (How I Met Your Mother).
When Cho was six, he celebrated his first Christmas in America after moving from Korea. He had never heard of Santa Claus, but his parents tried to push the concept on him and his siblings.
When his present came wrapped in a Hoover vacuum box, his questioning led his parents to end up dropping the charade by telling him there was no Santa.
On the opposite end of the holiday spectrum, Penn claims he actually saw Santa on Christmas when he was 6 years old. Penn didn’t cop to any details but backed up the claim by alleging his parents were asleep at the time of the sighting, and there were deer droppings on the front lawn the morning after.
The pair was recently in Washington to promote their new film, A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas. It’s the third film in a franchise neither actor expected to become popular enough to warrant a threequel.
“The fans discovered this thing on DVD and played it for each other in dorm rooms and frat houses,” said Penn, who is coming off a stint as an associate director in the White House Office of Public Engagement. “I love playing Kumar. He is inherently cooler than I’ll ever be.”
The afternoon interview was full of quips typical of two guys who are clearly friends with well-honed chemistry.
Only Harold and Kumar could take the word “venerable” and seamlessly segue into, as Penn put it, “John Cho’s venerable venereal disease.” It’s chlamydia, if you were wondering.
Then there was this exchange sparked by Penn, explaining the subtle nuances of his character: “Kumar has smoked so much weed that he is essentially penniless and relationship-less with the only bright side being that he has a kicking beard, which doesn’t get you very far in life.”
Cho could not have been more offended by this remark.
“Whoa!” he shouted in mock outrage. “Tell that to Kings of Leon!”
Kings of Leon haven’t found White Castle, escaped from Guantanamo Bay or helped rejuvenate the career of Neil Patrick Harris. You would think that’s enough for people to be able to differentiate between Harold (Cho) and Kumar (Penn), but you would be wrong.
“I get called Harold 40 percent of the time and Kumar 60 percent,” said Penn. “A flight attendant once saw me and yelled, ‘Hey Harold!’ If you’re going to do it, at least do it wrong.”
Now it’s time for this dynamic duo to make people remember their names as they wreak havoc on Christmas, a holiday Penn said “was more marketable than Hanukkah, Ramadan or Diwali.”
Cho hopes the mainstream appeal of Christmas will mean this Harold & Kumar film makes a profit before its DVD release.
“The point for me is to make an event of the movie,” Cho said. “Get some friends, have a case of Natty Lite or get prepared in an herbal way — chamomile, of course — and go see it in theaters.”
diversions@umdbk.com
