According to Variety, Penn Badgley (Gossip Girl) has recently been in the headlines for both part one of season four of You airing on February 9th, but also for his mention of strongly disliking filming intimate scenes. The internet exploded after his remarks with different thoughts on the matter after Badgley spoke on his podcast Podcrushed. He then shared his feelings with You showrunner Sera Gamble (The Magicians), to which Badgley stated that Gamble had a, “really positive response and they came back with a phenomenal reduction” for the current season.
Variety covers that Badgley spoke extensively on the subject and how he knew that the number of sex scenes he had to do for the series had been a major factor in 2017 for him not wanting to play the role of Joe Goldberg.
Below is an Instagram post from Variety with Badgley on the cover of this week’s cover story releasing February 15.
Badgley stated, “It’s not a place where I’ve blurred lines. There’s almost nothing I could say with more consecration. That aspect of Hollywood has always been very disturbing to me — and that aspect of the job, that mercurial boundary — has always been something that I actually don’t want to play with at all.”
Badgley is now much older than his romantic interest in the show which he says, “Didn’t used to be the case.” He also wishes he didn’t have to do any sex scenes and said, “It’s important to me in my real life to not have them.”
After being asked to clarify Badgley says, “My fidelity in my relationship. It’s important to me. And actually, it was one of the reasons that I initially wanted to turn the role down. I didn’t tell anybody that. But that is why.”
Badgley has been married to Domino Kirke-Badgley (Angels Crest) since 2017 who had encouraged him to play the role of Joe. Badgley tells Variety that the current season now has fewer sex scenes and all are performed fully clothed.
After bringing up the issue to Gamble, Badgley says, “One of my responses was, ‘It sounds like we’re in a good place for me to …’ — I told her kind of my desire, and she immediately was accepting and responsive. I’m always very practical. I said I know it can’t be none, because there’s something coded into the DNA of the show, and I signed the contract, and so it is what it is but as little as possible would be my preference.”
Part one of season four of You is currently available to stream on Netflix and part two will premiere on March ninth.