Kal Penn has signed a recurring role on 24. In the desi trilogy of allowed on-screen professions, is it doctor, terrorist or cabbie?

Fox announced Monday that Kal Penn, who played a stoned pre-med student in search of the perfect post-smoke munchies in Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle, has joined the cast of 24. Penn will play a man associated with the leader of an Islamic group that may or may not be plotting a terrorist attack. Considering we’re talking about 24, odds are someone’s plotting a terrorist attack somewhere. [Link]

Shabash, beta. Terrorist: a classic choice, and one that gives Penn an enviable Bacon number of 2, via Kiefer Sutherland. Defamer envisions the casting:

We can almost see the barely concealed look of horror that flashed across the 24 casting director’s face when deceptively Anglo-monikered… star Kal Penn signed in at his audition… Upon discovering that the actor was perhaps not as alabaster-complected as they’d hoped… 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…

The talented Penn… 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. [Link]

There’s also a 24 movie lined up for next year.

Astute readers will recall that my buddy Kiran Rao had a similar role on two episodes of 24, as well as roles on Alias and Threat Matrix.