One of her signatures I think is her use of music and I found it very interesting that the wedding night scene turns out to be a musical number.  How did that help in terms of getting the rhythms of the world that's being created, having that musical element?

That particular scene or just in general?

That particular scene but also in general because I think music is something that's very important to her.

Music is always the last thing added to a film. I know Nitin Sawhney did the score for the movie and a lot of the songs are not decided until late in the editing stages.  For me as an actor music actually plays a huge part in preparing for the character. I always call the writer or email the writer and ask for a list of ....what are the top 10 CD's this character would have?  If I don't have them in real life, I got out and buy them and put the on my IPod and listen to them constantly looped when I'm driving to work or at the gym whatever. I think music plays a huge part in our personalities and what defines us, especially if this character is listening to something completely different from me. I think it's really important to listen to that sort of music constantly.

Do you play air guitar on your own?

I don't but I'm glad that that Pearl Jam thing worked out. The book is set about 10 years before the film is set so I was pitching the idea of Pearl Jam and I said we have to get a Pearl Jam song. They were using some temp music from some local band from the lower East Side and I said it's not the same as Pearl Jam in the late 90's or the mid-90’s,  trust me. Mira totally got it she said I know but we can't use Pearl Jam unless Pearl jam approves it and Pearl Jam won't approve it unless they see the film. So you have to show them the film before they agree to use it and we decided to shoot the scene once with the track they already had with this local band and half the time with this Pearl Jam song playing hoping they would agree to it. I guess Eddie Vedder and those guys own all the rights to license their music for film. So they must have watched it and agreed to it.

Have you met him yet?

No, I really want to.  I'm a huge fan.

I was going to say that was definitely had to be.....

Yeah, I'm a huge, huge Pearl Jam fan.

You described it as a universal American story. I see it part of the immigrant saga but it's repeated I mean we've seen the story of the Irish, the Jewish, and the Italians although more mobsters in some groups than others maybe. I wonder about the sense of re-discovering your culture. I think that's one of the things that Gogol goes through. That's interesting, that does echo throughout that. That people especially the 2nd the 3rd gens have pushed it aside and then they discover there's something about the culture they want to return to or at least preserve.

Major spoilers in the next paragraph – do not read until you see the movie. It is in white so highlight to read

I didn't find that actually. I think it depends on how you read the characters.  I actually found what Gogol returns to is his sense of family. I think that sense of family is very universal.  I don't think that he returns to any sense of ethnicity because I don't think he's ever lost his sense of identity throughout the course of the film. I think what he has lost is what's equally universal. You go off to college or you move to a different city from where you grew up, you talk to your parents less. You slowly talk to your friends less who you've grown up with.  In Gogol's case, he gets caught up in living with Maxine. He's living with her family, he's living in the upper East Side in this beautiful multimillion dollar brownstone and it's not until his father passes away that he realizes he's been ignoring his own family and that he's felt a little bit burdened by his own family. He remembers when his dad lost a parent he shaved his head. Gogol remembers that and he's like well, I loved my father so I'm going to shave my head when I go home. There's even a little bit of dialogue with the mom who says you know you didn’t have to do that. Well I wanted to do that because that's who I am and that's how I mourn the loss of my father because that's just what you do.  I don't think he ever really lost any sense of cultural identity I think what he lost was a very universal element of family that I think everyone goes through in some point or another.

What are you doing after Harold and Kumar?

A pilot for ABC called The Call. We'll see after that.

Can you tell us about it real quick?

Yeah, sure. The Call is the same producers who do 24. It's a single camera 1/2 hour comedy about 2 EMT's in Los Angeles.

Who's the other EMT?

I don't know yet. I'm not sure.