Penn, who served in White House's Office of Public Engagement as an associate director, has taken on a major recurring role on the CBS comedy "How I Met Your Mother," as Kevin, the love interest for Cobie Smulders' lovelorn Robin, according to TVLine.
He has also played a terrorist on "24," a brilliant young doctor on "House," a conflicted Indian American man in Mira Nair's "The Namesake," a hilarious stoner in the "Harold & Kumar" franchise and lead roles in two "Van Wilder" frat comedies.
After campaigning on behalf of then-candidate Barack Obama in the 2008 campaign cycle, Penn left the television show "House" in mid-2009 for a similar job in the Office of Public Engagement that began in July of that year.
Penn resigned that post on June 1, 2010 to fulfil his commitment to film the latest, Christmas-themed "Harold and Kumar" film instalment.