Imagine another actor as Joe in You… That’s what could have happened to the Netflix series as Penn Badgley revealed recently.
If Penn Badgley began his career in 1999, he exploded in the eyes of the general public in 2007 when he landed the role of Dan Humphrey, a young high school student who approaches a circle of wealthy people on the Upper East Side. When Gossip Girl ends, the actor has a hard time finding a role that suits him. He then passes the casting of a Lifetime production, adaptation of a novel by Caroline Kepnes, entitled You.
But that’s when Penn Badgley no longer wants to play in this kind of productions, as he explains in his podcast Podcrushed : “I asked the showrunner if it was possible to stop doing sex scenes. I specify that it is a decision that I made before accepting the role. I don’t think I’ve ever talked about it until now. At that time, I didn’t really want to play a lead role in a romantic movie or series again.
Loyalty is important to me, as is my marriage. I had come to a point where I didn’t want to do this anymore. I said to Will Gamble that my wish was to do zero intimate scenes. But I signed this contract, I accepted this role. You can’t take that away from the show, it’s part of its DNA. I asked her to do the minimum and she accepted without even thinking. She was thrilled that I opened up about it. They managed to really reduce those scenes.”
A choice that would also explain why season 4 of You had far fewer intimate scenes than the previous ones. In any case, the series will have allowed Penn Badgley to experience a new lease of life in his career and to have enough impact to tackle a subject that actors in Hollywood do not really talk about.