Kal Penn plays Anna Nicole Smith's doctor in Trust Me, I'm a Doctor
Kal Penn plays Dr Sandeep Kapoor, the real-life physician to Anna Nicole Smith, in the drama Trust Me, I'm a Doctor, which was in theatres as of October 2026, Deadline reported on 16 October.
Kapoor was Smith's doctor in the period before her death. The film was written and directed by Thane Economou and is based on Kapoor's 2017 memoir, Trust Me, I'm A Doctor: My Life Before, During and After Anna Nicole Smith. Abbie Cornish plays Smith opposite Penn.
Smith died of a prescription drug overdose. Kapoor was later acquitted on all legal counts connected to her death and was allowed to continue his medical practice, according to Deadline. The Medical Board of California also opened a review of Kapoor for prescribing methadone to Smith under a pseudonym when she was in the eighth month of pregnancy.
The production took an unusual route to recreate the past. The team filmed guerrilla-style, without closing the streets, in the middle of the 2024 West Hollywood Pride Parade to stand in for West Hollywood in 2005.
Not everyone welcomed the project. Larry Birkhead, the father of Smith's daughter Dannielynn, expressed disapproval of the film.
Penn discussed the role just as he finished other work. He had wrapped his part in Gregg Araki's The Decline of Fucking Western Civilization a day before his interview with Deadline. He also appeared in Season 4 of the BBC and HBO banking drama Industry in an arc he described as a terrible person.
What makes this stand out is the shift in register for Penn. Viewers who know him from broad comedy see him here carrying a fact-based story about medicine, fame and the courts, with no easy heroes.
There is also movement on a very different front. Harold & Kumar 4 is in the works, with producer Greg Shapiro telling People in July that the original actors, writers and directors are returning.
