SAN FRANCISCO (Diya TV) — On Friday, the Wall Street Journal ran its review of “Lion,” a new film from director Garth Davis, a biopic about Indian-Australian Saroo Brierley. The film stars actor Dev Patel.
However, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of the column, Joe Morgenstern, mistakingly confused the identity of the British-born Patel for the New Jersey-born actor and former White House employee, Kal Penn.
“Saroo is played dazzlingly by Dev Patel, who gives his richest performance since The Namesake,” Morganstern wrote in his review. But 2006’s The Namesake stars Kal Penn of Harold and Kumar fame.
Social media exploded when the botch was noticed:
https://twitter.com/kelvindchen/status/802145660942295040?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
https://twitter.com/TravelHD_/status/802165862543323136?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Wow. Just… wow. I for one can never forget your performance in The Namesake. It was pitch perfect.
— Kiran Khalid (@acereporter) November 25, 2016
Kal Penn joined in the fun, retweeting the mistake himself on one occasion, following it up with a retweet of a Variety story, laying out the error.
The Journal quickly edited the error, and the review now includes an update that reads “An earlier version of this article misidentified Dev Patel as appearing in Mira Nair’s ‘The Namesake.'”
Morgenstern offered a rather haphazard response on Twitter when confronted about the miscue:
I do. What a dumb error.
— Joe Morgenstern (@JoeMorgenstern) November 24, 2016
