With The Underdoggs, Harold and Kumar star Kal Penn finally got to check a major item off his to-do list, work with Snoop Dogg. The star of the stoner comedy confirmed in an exclusive interview with ComicBook.com that he and Snoop previously tried to work together on one of the sequels in the fan-favorite series, but it didn’t work out. Now with Prime Video’s The Underdoggs the pair have finally come together and according to Penn that’s the entire reason he even signed up for a role in the movie.
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“For me it was a no brainer because I really wanted to work with Snoop. We years ago, briefly, were trying to get him in one of the Harold and Kumar movies and scheduling didn’t work out. And ever since then it was sort of like, oh, we should do something together. We don’t know what that something is. And so when this came around it was like, yes, absolutely would love to play, you know, Snoop’s character’s absurdist agent.”
He continued, “Then (I) read the script and actually what I liked about it was, it’s funny, of course, but it has a lot of heart in the kind of Bad News Bears sort of way. I thought it was pretty authentic too. You know one of the things that makes comedy work is the specificity, so you don’t have to, you know, you don’t have to be from any particular community or even know kids or like football to like a movie like this. And to me that was a real benchmark of what makes a comedy funny. Like you don’t have to have gone to Vegas to like The Hangover you can just appreciate the writing and the absurdity of it. Yeah, it was a blast.”
Snoop Dogg and Kal Penn star in The Underdoggs which also features Tika Sumpter, Andrew Schulz, Mike Epps, and George Lopez. In addition to starring, Snoop Dogg also produced the movie with Kenya Barris, Mychelle Deshamps, Jonathan Glickman, and Constance Schwartz-Morini. The Underdoggs is written by Danny Segal and Isaac Schamis and is directed by Charles Stone III.
The Underdoggs is described as follows: Jaycen “Two Js” Jennings (Snoop Dogg) is a washed-up ex-professional football star who has hit rock bottom. When Jaycen is sentenced to community service coaching the Underdoggs, an unruly pee-wee football team in his hometown of Long Beach, California, he sees it as an opportunity to rebuild his public image and turn his life around. As Jaycen works to transform the foul-mouthed Underdoggs into top-notch champions, he reconnects with his past, including an old flame and few of his ex-teammates and rediscovers his love of the game.
The Underdoggs premieres on Thursday, January 25 on Prime Video at 7 PM ET.
