Kal Penn mocks Russian envoy for mistaking him for a 'terrorist'

Los Angeles: Russian ambassador to the UK Alexander Yakovenko tweeted a screenshot of Indo-American actor Kal Penn’s face and used the photograph to make some points about “terrorists.” [caption id=“attachment_2480200” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Kalpen Suresh Modi aka Kal Penn. AFP[/caption] The Namesake actor, whose real name is Kalpen Suresh Modi, chose to laugh off and joke about Yakovenko’s mistake about his Harold and Kumar image, reports aceshowbiz.com. The saga began when Yakovenko tweeted a still of Penn from his movie, Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay. The still is from a scene in which Penn is wearing a black turban and a long beard to fit the stereotype of an extremist. His character is imagined to be a terrorist while he is aboard a plane where he is supposedly terrifying a fellow elderly female passenger. On Wednesday, Yakovenko tweeted the image of Kumar Patel (Penn) in order to illustrate a point about how the rivalry between the US and Russia is detrimental to defeating Islamic State terrorists in Iraq. He captioned the photograph, “US threatens to stop helping Iraq against ISIL if Baghdad asks Russia for help. The terrorists must be rejoicing.”

Penn, who once served as associate director in the White House Office of Public Engagement, was amused by the tweet. He wrote: “The Russian Federation ambassador to the UK tweeted this Harold and Kumar picture with seriousness. I can’t stop laughing.”

Russian embassy officials made quick attempts to fix the mistake. Their official account said: “It is rather hard to spot an actual terrorist laughing. Your performance is convincing and therefore fit to illustrate the idea.”

However, Penn refused to stop there. He tweeted an image of Russian fighter Ivan Drago, who was portrayed by Dolph Lundgren in Rocky IV, and wrote: “@Amb_Yakovenko thank you, Mr. Ambassador.”

IANS