In April 2009, Penn joined the Obama administration as an Associate Director in the White House Office of Public Engagement. This necessitated that his TV character, Lawrence Kutner, be written out of House. Penn resigned his post as Barack Obama\'s Associate Director of Public Engagement on June 1, 2010, for a brief return to his acting career. He filmed the third installment of the Harold & Kumar series, A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas, and subsequently returned to the White House Office of Public Engagement as an Associate Director. In July 2011, he again left the White House to accept a role in the television series How I Met Your Mother.\n', '

Currently, he stars in the role of Seth Wright in the political drama Designated Survivor and served as host of the game show Superhuman.\n', '

Penn was born in Montclair, New Jersey, to Gujarati Indian immigrant parents. His mother, Asmita, is a fragrance evaluator for a perfume company, and his father, Suresh Modi, is an engineer. He regularly visited Gujarat as a child during vacations, which he fondly remembers, and he can speak some Gujarati. He has stated that stories of his grandparents marching with Mahatma Gandhi during the Indian independence movement were a significant influence on his interest in politics.\n', '

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