Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle

Characters

• Harold Lee - A shy, intelligent Korean American investment banker. He has a crush on Maria, who lives in his building. John Hughes' Sixteen Candles is one of his favorite movies.
• Kumar Patel - Harold's best friend, Kumar is a second generation Indian American. He is extremely talented in the field of medicine, but resists going to medical school, perhaps because his father and brother are both doctors. He is much more confident than Harold.
• Maria - Harold's love interest, a very sexy Latina who lives in an apartment in Harold and Kumar's building. Harold eventually gathers the courage to ask her out. She agrees, but is on her way to Amsterdam for 10 days. It is also revealed that Maria shares Harold's taste in movies with her being seen by Harold and Kumar going to see Sixteen Candles at a local movie theatre that was holding a late-night John Hughes movie marathon.
• The Extreme Sports Punks - A group of kids who torment Harold and Kumar. Their favorite exclamation is "Extreme!", and at least one of the gang has an embarrassing fondness for power ballads by female pop music singers and groups.
• Rosenberg and Goldstein - Harold and Kumar's Jewish counterparts and friends. They constantly talk about sex, they smoke pot from a shofar-shaped bong, and they pepper their speech with Yiddish phrases. They also spend their night in a quest for food, in their case, going to "Hot Dog Heaven", after turning down Harold and Kumar's invitation to come with them to White Castle and saying that they were staying at home to watch The Gift on HBO to see the scenes in the movie where Katie Holmes is naked and shows her breasts. Their names may be a reference to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.
• Cindy Kim - A Korean friend of Harold's. She is more interested in Harold than he is in her. She wants him to spend time with her East Asian Students' Club at Princeton University - a group which is apparently geeky, but who stage a wild party, which Harold and Kumar miss but would tell and suggest to Rosenberg and Goldstein later on in the film when the two groups meet up and talked about their separate quests (in the case of Rosenberg and Goldstein, their quest is to Hot Dog Heaven while Harold and Kumar's quest is to White Castle) .
• Burger Shack Employee - An overweight African American, he is very helpful to Harold and Kumar, but seems mentally unbalanced, claiming that he and "Pookie" put animal semen in the special sauce, and rampaging through the Burger Shack kitchen, shouting that he (and Pookie) should "burn the motherfucker down".
• Freakshow - A religious fanatic, he helps the protagonists when their car breaks down. He is covered in boils, yet has a very attractive wife, whom he met through the choir at his church.
• Liane - Freakshow's attractive wife. She is willing to perform sexual favours on Harold and Kumar; they decline when they realise that Freakshow wants to be involved.
• Bradley Thomas (Hippie Student) - A student at Princeton. He enjoys listening to Phish and writing poetry of questionable merit. He overcharges Kumar for weed, claiming he is a "business hippie". He is later arrested for possession of marijuana. It is revealed that Bradley Thomas (Hippie Student) was the original owner of the Giant Bag of Weed that Kumar falls in love with when he was trying to free Harold from the prison cell in the police station Harold was imprisoned in by Officer Palumbo and his fellow racist police officers.
• Christy and Clarissa - Two attractive, upper class Princeton girls from England who agree to meet up with Harold and Kumar. However, the guys are somewhat turned off when they covertly witness the girls engage in the vulgar contest of Battleshits.
• Giant Bag of Weed - A giant bag of weed with whom Kumar falls in love and, in a fantasy sequence, they court, wed and enjoy a loving, if stormy, relationship.
• Officer Palumbo - A deeply racist police officer who imposes a large fine ($220) on Harold for jaywalking, even though there were no cars on the road. He arrests Harold and Kumar for assault when Harold accidentally punches him.
• Neil Patrick Harris - Of Doogie Howser, M.D. fame, "NPH" is in an extremely horny state after taking a few ecstasy tablets at a party when the two protagonists pick him up hitchhiking. He steals Harold's car while he and Kumar are in a gas station, in order to pick up female prostitutes and cocaine. He later makes amends by paying for the pair's very large White Castle order and paying Harold some money for cleaning expenses after making a few "love stains" in the back of Harold's car.
• Tarik Jackson and Nathaniel Brooks - Two African Americans, the former a professor, the latter an attorney. Both are wrongfully arrested by Palumbo, and his (equally racist) fellow police officers. Jackson and Brooks eventually sue the State of New Jersey for racial discrimination and police brutality.
• Dr. Patel - Kumar's father. He insists that Kumar go to medical school. Kumar is loath to comply, until he has a change of heart toward the end of the film, inspired by his experiences over the night.
• Male Nurse - A male nurse that works at the same hospital that Kumar's father and older brother work. He takes Harold and Kumar (who were disguised in operating theatre scrubs at the time so they can score some marijuana from the hospital) into an emergency surgey room to treat a man that was shot. Kumar shows off his medical skills and saves the man's life and the male nurse was very impressed (and sexually turned on at the same time).