Harold and Kumar, the characters portrayed by actors John Cho and Kal Penn, have ridden cheetahs, hang-glided and escaped a freaky foursome, all in the name of little White Castle burgers. But Friday, they will face their biggest adventure yet in Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay.

In the sequel to 2004's box-office bomb/DVD darling, Harold and Kumar go to White Castle, the stoner duo try to follow Harold's love, Maria, to Amsterdam but are mistaken for terrorists and end up in a U.S. prison in Cuba.

In a recent college press conference call, Cho and Penn answered some questions about their movie, their craft and Neil Patrick Harris.

Q:How is Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay different from Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle?
A: John Cho: The first movie was plot-less, and it involved us getting high, getting hungry, looking for a burger place, and then a bunch of stuff happened to us on the way to the burger place. This movie has a very traditional -- or much more traditional -- plot with really high stakes.

Q: It sounds like you're touching a bit on discrimination, human rights, social and political injustices in the new film. Will this movie be more political and less silly than the first one?
A: Kal Penn: I don't think it's a political film in terms of taking a stance on anything, but definitely it inherently deals with some of the pop culture that surrounds the political sphere right now. I mean, we have a caricature of President Bush, so you can't deny we're playing with the idea of politics.
Cho: And I think the political premise is a way to make fart and poo jokes funnier.

Q: These films seem to base a lot of their comedy on the issue of stereotypes. Is there a time when you remember being stereotyped, and how did you react?
A: Cho: I moved to the United States at the age of 6 to Houston, Texas, and it wasn't a terrible upbringing. It just was an environment where there weren't many Asians, and I'm trying to think of a specific story, but, I mean, there's kind of a lot.
Penn: I hate the movie Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, even to this day. I hate it because it came out when I was in elementary school. There's this absurd scene that it seems they insisted on putting in the movie, where it's fictitious but for some reason they made this place India. These people are eating snakes and monkey brains and weird stuff like that. I remember going into lunch the weekend after this movie came out and nobody would sit next to me. People, especially kids, see movies like that and they can't necessarily [separate] fact from fiction.

Q: A lot of critics and parents feel that this type of humor is a bad influence on people. How do you feel about that, and what do you have to say to those critics?
A:Penn: I don't necessarily disagree. I think there is a reason why films like this have an R rating. I think that parents, if they are concerned with their kids' having exposure to something like this, they should make sure they perhaps play a bigger role in their children's upbringing.
Cho: I feel like the movie has a very innocent attitude to it. I feel like our humor, even though it crosses certain lines, manages to be fun and innocent in a strange way. You compare it with other stuff that's in the marketplace, like Hostel, to name one, a torture movie. I feel that ours is really tame in comparison.

Q: If you weren't acting, what do you think you would be doing?
A: Penn: ... I do have a bunch of other interests. I was toying with the idea of something in the nonprofit world or the teaching world -- maybe documentary filmmaking.

Q: Do you take personal credit for the resurrection of Neil Patrick Harris' career?
A: Cho: I think that Harold and Kumar allowed people to see him in a different light.
Penn: I think he said, "I owe everything to Kal Penn," if I am not mistaken. I don't know ...
Cho: Wow!
Penn: I'm only kidding. I'm kidding, I'm kidding.
Cho: I don't think he is. I know this guy. He is that boastful in real life. He has to stand in the background when we film because his head is enormous. It's like a Citizen Kane cinematography trick.