You’re on NBC’s Thursday night schedule. It’s a different world — no pun intended — from the ’80s and ’90s, when having a slot there guaranteed 20 or 30 million viewers every week. Does it matter to you that you’re reaching a smaller audience these days?

We’re going to make it that big again! [Laughs.] No, what I like about the network space is you can bring people together in a way that you still can’t in streaming. Those services’ reach is restricted because of how much you have to pay a month for them.

You grew up in New Jersey. Why set this show in Sunnyside, Queens?

When I was a little kid, before Edison, N.J., was a hotbed of Indian culture, one Sunday a month, we’d pack up the station wagon and drive to Jackson Heights. My mom would go to the Indian grocery store there. It was always very diverse. I was looking for a neighborhood like that to set the show in, and Jackson Heights and Flushing are the two I know the best, but “Flushing” is a truly terrible title for a show. Sunnyside has the same demographics and is a better title than “Jackson Heights.”

Like your character, Garrett Modi, you’re the child of first-generation Indian immigrants. Your birth name was Kalpen Modi, which you shortened to Kal Penn for showbiz. Is this show autobiographical in any way?

Not really. I always like playing characters who are different from me. Kumar is way cooler than I’ll ever be. There are more comedic influences than real-life ones. I love Garrett and his sister Mallory’s names. When I went to name them, I went back through this long litany of beef people had with me about the names of characters I played. It started with the character I played in “National Lampoon’s Van Wilder,” Taj Mahal. That is unmistakably a very problematic name. It was a different time; we’ve moved past that. But when I got the job on “House,” they had written my role as Dr. Lawrence Kutner , and they said, “How do you feel about changing it to an Indian name?” I said “No, I auditioned for Lawrence Kutner and got it, and I want to play him.” When I started on the show, people said, “Why aren’t you playing a character named Dr. Samir Patel?” I get that we look to art forms for validation, and it means a lot to people. That said, it’s a no-win situation.