Montclair Native Kal Penn Wins Kudos at DNC, Pushes #sexyface

During his remarks at the Democratic National Convention, Harold & Kumar actor Kal Penn, a Montclair native, poked fun at Clint Eastwood's speech at the Republican National Convention by thanking the "invisible man in the chair" for killing Osama bin Laden and being "cool" with same-sex marriage.

Since then, media and political pundits have heaped praise on the actor and civil servant, with one newspaper saying he represents the classic ideology of the United States: "He is a first-generation American, born to Indian immigrants, who achieved success through hard work. He is the American Dream."

Penn, who's served as an associate director in the White House Office of Public Engagement, also brought on a Twitter trend with his DNC speech.

"I've worked on a lot of fun movies, but my favorite job was having a boss who gave the order to take out bin Laden, and who's cool with all of us getting gay married," Penn said. "So thank you, invisible man in the chair, for that. And for giving my friends access to affordable health insurance and doubling funding for the Pell Grant."

At the end of his speech, Penn quipped “before I close, and as I wonder which Twitter hashtags you’ll start using when I’m done talking–#sexyface–I ask all of you young people to join me. You don’t even have to put pants on. Go to commit.barackobama.com and register right there.”

Since then, the hashtag #sexyface has taken off.

As an actor, Penn is mostly known for his roles portraying the character Dr. Lawrence Kutner on the TV show House and for his character Kumar Patel in the Harold and Kumar comedy films.

Penn was born Kalpen Suresh Modi in Montclair in 1977.

Did anyone catch Penn's remarks? What did you think? Let us know in the comments section below.