Kal Penn

There was a family friend dentist that I knew when I was a kid.

my parents friends, and they told me, you know, they pay full benefits, health coverage, everything to all of their employees.

And it's just a small, like, you know, eight person dental clinic at the time.

I remember being in high school or college and realizing what that meant.

I'm like, aren't you guys losing a lot of money doing that?

They both were like, well, first of all, we're immigrants who got to come here for a better life.

Most of our employees are first-generation immigrants who went to trade school and we just think it's a no-brainer.

They are the reason we have this thriving business.

We have to cover their healthcare and their benefits and all of that.

The way it was explained, I was like, oh, yeah, wait, why isn't this just a thing?

Where is the human decency aspect of it that cuts ahead of the greed there, to your point?

Anyway...

What I love about this question is it implies that he and I are the same age and I'm way older, so that makes me feel good.

It makes me feel very good, so thank you.

So, I've known him since he was 14.

Not you, okay.

Not me, I was in my, I guess, late 20s.

His mom is a wonderful Academy-nominated film director named Mira Nair.

And when I was a kid, one of the first movies of hers that I saw was called Mississippi Masala, which was incidentally one of Denzel Washington's first movies.

And it's, you know, like when you're young, there's like a couple of movies or actors or directors that make you go, oh, wait, maybe this is a thing that I can do too.