REAL LIFE BUDDIES Brandon “Superman” Routh and Indian American rising star Kal Penn may share the screen in the year’s most hotly anticipated movie, Superman Returns. But not so long ago, they were both unemployed actors in LA. “We’re the dorks who hung out in each other’s apartments playing video games,” Penn told Premiere. Now Penn can add Lex Luthor’s henchman-in-chief to an exploding list of movie credits, including Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle—this generation’s Bill & Ted’s. Penn is to reprise his role as Taj Mahal, clueless foreign-exchange-student-turned-campus-stud in Van Wilder 2: The Rise of the Taj, as well as star in Namesake, a family drama directed by Monsoon Wedding’s Mira Nair. Penn, who’s been busting stereotypes left and right, says the makers of Superman Returns were commendably colorblind in their casting, but we’re not so sure. After all, the character is a whiz kid named Stanford. •