Indian-American actor Kalpen Modi, better known as Kal Penn, is so enamoured and completely sold on United States presidential hopeful Barack Obama, that he has put his career on hold and turned down a couple of movie offers to campaign full-time for the senator from Illinois.

Speaking exclusively with rediff.com, Penn said, "Right now, I am on a TV show called House that shoots in California, but that TV show is on strike. I have also turned down a couple of movies so that I can work on the campaign".

"I am really that serious because Barack has really inspired me and I have decided to campaign as long as it takes because with Barack in the White House, we can affect real change and real hope for the people," he said.

Penn said with Obama as the chief executive of the country, "We can finally show ourselves and the rest of the world that we can resume the role of a real democracy and that it doesn't have to just be the cynical status quo".

Penn is best known as the co-star of the 2004 hit comedy Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle, which became a cult favourite with fans worldwide. The sequel, Harold & Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay opens in theatres across North America on April 25.

He is also the star in Mira Nair's The Namesake [Images], and has also appeared in the popular Law & Order series on television.

Penn, who said he started working on the Obama campaign as a volunteer in Iowa in October 2007, said he had now signed on as a 'surrogate', which requires a much longer commitment and travel across the country.

"In October, as a volunteer, I initially did the phone-banking, knocking on doors and the usual volunteer stuff. As a surrogate, what you do is you speak to, for example, college students, high-school seniors about the campaign and why Barack would be the best candidate, and go to places where he is not able to go or are not on his schedule in particular cities," he explained.

Penn said that even in some of the places Obama was slated to appear, surrogates such as him appear before hand. "Basically, I'd call it the pre-show, a warm-up act. You go out and make students aware of him and his campaign," Penn said.

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"It's been such an incredible experience and since my grandfather's stories, I've never seen anything like this. So, I am really excited. It actually goes back to when I was a kid," he recalled.

"Both my grandfathers and my grandmother on my mum's side had marched with Gandhiji. I was told stories about how my grandfather got beaten and thrown in jail by the British soldiers. My grandmother and her friends would march together, but I didn't realise the significance of it till I was in high school and college," he said.

Penn said that up till now, he had always been an Independent and generally politically apathetic.

"I've never campaigned with anybody like this before. But now, I know Barack is like one of us - someone who has a close-knit family similar to ours and who talks about how he never would have had the opportunities unless somebody else stood up before he was even around. I've never been inspired by anybody like this since my grandparents. Finally, we have somebody to believe in," he said.

Penn cited the example of Caroline Kennedy, former president John F Kennedy's daughter, not only endorsing Obama recently in an article in the New York Times, but also campaigning with him "and figuratively passing the torch of her father on to Barack".

"He's (Obama) got charisma, but that charisma's backed up by experience. Initially when you listen to his speeches, you say, 'Wow! This is amazing, But what has he actually done? What can he actually do?' But then you find out that he spent ten years as a constitutional law professor, he's a civil rights lawyer, he gave kids health care when he was an Illinois state Senator," Penn explained.

"So, he's done all of the things that other candidates can only talk about wanting to do. The fact that he's already done them means that the leadership that he can bring to the table is just going to be great," he opined.

"When you see all the clips on CNN, where he's speaking in front of 5,000-10,000 people, it really is so inspiring. But behind the scenes, when you are in a room with Barack and three other people, he's the same guy as he is in a room of 10,000, and that's a remarkable thing," Penn said.

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"It's a real movement, it's not just a talking point, and that's really inspiring to me," he added.

He acknowledged that he was using whatever influence he had with college and high-school kids to convince them about Obama and that he had not been pigeon-holed just to reach out to an Indian American or south Asian American constituency.

Penn said that before he had started campaigning for Obama, although he was leaning toward him, he had been approached by another campaign, which he did not name, asking him to campaign for it targeting the south Asian community. He said he was also asked to co-host a fund-raiser among the community.

He refused, however, saying, "I didn't want our community ghettoised and patronised and for them to be just happy and go away after the photo-ops and contributing their money".

He said Obama has consistently stressed that his campaign was not about race, religion, ethnicity or gender, and argued, "Barack's track record is one that is inclusive with all of the concerns of all groups, including south Asians and Indian Americans, being met".

Penn, talking of how close Obama is to his family, noted, "He talks to his wife several times a day, and she goes home every night to Chicago to tuck the girls in," and added that as a result, he was "a big proponent of family reunification, and that's something that is particular to the south Asian community".

He pointed out, "In 2005, 22,000 south Asians came to the US under the family reunification provisions of the immigration law. That's something he's proud of and that's something he supports".

Penn added, "If you look at the H-1B reform, that's something that is important to him because he doesn't believe that legal immigrants should be tied to potentially shady employers just to stay in the country".

"He also co-sponsored the End-Racial Profiling Act. We are Americans and we should be treated the same as everyone else," he asserted.

Penn, continuing to enumerate a laundry list of accomplishments by Obama relevant to the south Asian community, said, "While he was in the Illinois Senate, he passed the Anti-Hate Crimes legislation. He views all of us as Americans and also recognises that certain communities have certain concerns that haven't been addressed and he wants to address them".

"So, it's not about any particular race that's been divided; it's about actually bringing us all together," he added.