Video star Kalen Allen of Kansas City, Kansas, is in a fine ‘Pickle’ with Seth Rogen

Kalen Allen can’t stand pickles. And yet … somehow his career keeps rising because of them.

The Kansas City, Kansas, native has earned 600 million views with his “Kalen Reacts” scathing commentary on recipe videos and his “OMKalen” segment on “The Ellen DeGeneres Show.” Now he’s appearing in his first feature film, a Seth Rogen comedy called “An American Pickle.”

“The first video that really got me attention involved a potato salad cake. At the end of that video, they put pickles on top of the cake, and I made a comment how I don’t like them,” he says. “It’s actually ironic I’m now in this movie about pickles. And I even make a comment in the trailer about a pickle in a very ‘Kalen Reacts’ kind of way.”

The trailer shows him sniffing a pungent dill in a jar and exclaiming, “Yeah, that’s straight from the devil.”

The film (which premieres on HBO Max this Thursday) finds Rogen portraying Herschel Greenbaum, an immigrant who falls into a pickle vat in 1918 New York and comes out perfectly preserved 100 years later. He tracks down his great-grandson, Ben (also played by Rogen), a timid app developer who shepherds his adjustment to the modern world.

Allen plays Kevin, one half of a trendy gay couple (along with comedian Eliot Glazer) who “helps Herschel build his pickle business in a gentrified Brooklyn,” the 24-year-old performer says.

All of Allen’s scenes were shared with Rogen and Glazer.

“When you watch the movie, there are certain parts that are more ad-libbed than they are scripted because we were able to vibe off each other,” Allen says, speaking from his home in Los Angeles.

“That was my first movie, but it was so comfortable to be there. (Rogen) is very understanding and was like, ‘We’re just here to have fun.’ He’s got a lot of these movies under his belt at this point, so it’s probably second nature. It’s an absolute dream to work with Seth.”

Kalen reacts

The first Star article written about Allen’s viral videos mentioned Rogen as one of the celebrities who had liked and retweeted his work. So that’s why he was cast, right?

“No. I went through the whole usual process of getting into a movie and going through an audition,” he recalls. “It just happened to be this movie was led by Seth Rogen. He didn’t even know I was it until I showed up on set.”

The role allows the snarky-but-upbeat Allen to do what he does best: react. Nowadays, however, that’s what everyone out in public expects him to do.

“I can’t even go to dinner,” he says, laughing. “If I’m sitting in a restaurant, somebody will say to me, ‘Are you gonna react to the food?’ Or the restaurant manager or chef will bring out mac and cheese and ask me to taste it and tell them what I think.”

Allen believes what separates him from others who’ve had similar YouTube success is how personable and approachable he appears.

“The key to anything that I make is everything has to be a shared experience. With the initial food videos, when I would say the things about the food, the person watching was saying the same thing at the same time. It wasn’t like you were just watching something; you were involved with it and interacting,” he says.

Ideally, this skill will translate to the big screen just as comfortably.

“Especially during this time (of social isolation), we love to watch content that we can connect to. We want to say, ‘I definitely feel like this character or that character.’ Those are the most accessible movies,” he says.

A graduate of Sumner Academy, Allen developed his talents onstage at Music Theatre Kansas City and as one of Starlight Theatre’s Vincent Legacy Scholarship award winners. He was studying theater and film at Temple University in Philadelphia when his star began to rise.

“I was in a play every single year, usually the lead. I did musicals and a few short films — I was very experienced in that realm of it. I’d just finished a play in my last semester at Temple before I left for ‘Ellen,’” he says.

DeGeneres featured him in the winter of 2017. By summer, the TV star offered him his own digital talk show called “OMKalen.”

“I remember being told on the show that I was given the job. I was staying at the Hilton by Universal Studios, and I walked up to Universal and got on the phone with Temple. I said, ‘We have to figure out a way to move me to L.A. and finish my degree, and we need to do it within two weeks.”

Thanks to the university’s Los Angeles Study Away program, he taped “Ellen” segments during the day while completing his final semester at night.

(Not surprisingly, Allen declined to comment on the current DeGeneres controversy regarding the host and her executives’ treatment of staff and guests.”)

Next: A cookbook

His relocation to Los Angeles has resulted in frequent hobnobbing with celebrity fans, including Oprah Winfrey and Michelle Obama.

“I meet a lot of people, and they always talk to me about the videos. And they usually mention the videos that everybody would know, like the mac and cheese one or the potato salad cake. But Oprah was talking to me about the underrated videos. And I was like, ‘Oh wait, you actually watch all the content,’” he remembers. “That was amazing to me.”

Now that he’s conquered film, TV and online, Allen is pursuing yet another medium. He’s writing a cookbook.

“I was sitting at home during this pandemic and cooking nonstop,” he says. “I talk about food. People know what I think about food. They clearly trust what I have to say about food. Since I know how to cook, why don’t I make a cookbook?”

He consulted with his mother for family recipes, as well as perfecting some of his go-to favorites.

“Everybody knows my peach cobbler is the number one thing that I make. But my new specialty is chicken and dumplings, which Chrissy Teigen actually tweeted about and asked me for the recipe,” he says.

So far, none of the recipes are pickle-based.

Allen fully embraces becoming a brand, not just a performer. He’s hoping to adapt that concept to whatever opportunity presents itself.

“If you want to sustain a career in the industry, you have to forge your own path,” he says. “You have to stick to being who you are and being authentic. If you try to be like the person next to you in the waiting room for an audition, you will not be able to sustain things. It’s what is unique about us that will actually provide us with a long career.”

Jon Niccum is a filmmaker, freelance writer and author of “The Worst Gig: From Psycho Fans to Stage Riots, Famous Musicians Tell All.”

This story was originally published August 5, 2020 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Video star Kalen Allen of Kansas City, Kansas, is in a fine ‘Pickle’ with Seth Rogen."