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Penn Badgley has revealed that he broke his “no sex scenes” clause for the final series of Netflix’s You because it was “vital” for the character’s story.
The fifth series of the hit psychological thriller dropped on Thursday.
Badgley returns as stalker Joe Goldberg who develops an obsessive fascination with a woman.
The Gossip Girl alum said in 2023 he had asked show creator Sera Gamble to reduce the number of sex scenes in the fourth season.
“This was actually a decision I had made before I took the show,” he explained on his podcast Podcrushed. “Do I want to put myself back on a career path where I am always romantic lead? Fidelity, in every relationship, and especially my marriage, is important to me.”
In a new interview, Badgley explained why Goldberg was back to doing sex scenes.
“I had to throw that out the window,” he told People magazine. “That was the question again. All right, what am I willing to do? And as I always said, I said, my desire is that least as possible, but if it’s necessary that’s the show we all sign up to make. So, let’s make sure it’s vital, let’s make sure it’s important, it’s deliberate. And we did.”
He explained that they “really had to return to form” and take Joe back to being a “romantic icon” for the story to make sense at the end.
Looking back at his time playing Joe, Badgley said he would “miss him a little bit”.
“He's been a profound experience for me. He's not a real person. So what have I been doing? I have been engaging in this...my entire 30s. I was 30 when I took the role. I'm going to be 39 this year. Even though the show, the way it came out, it's actually been closer to seven years. For me, it is like my 30s,” he said.
“I became a father while I was on this show. I only got married just before I took the role. So I've grown a lot and I've grown with Joe in a strange way.”
Badgley reflected on troubling “similarities” he found with Joe and how playing the character had helped him realise who he did not want to be.
“My thirties have been officially defined by him,” he told The Guardian. “It’s possible that he has made me a better person because he’s caused a lot of reflection.”
Badgley described playing Joe as an “exercise in understanding all the things I want to avoid”.
Some of these things were “obvious”, he continued, such as “don’t kill, don’t manipulate, don’t be a predator”.
“What I’ve had to do is try to understand, in some manner, where these things come from,” he said. “I’ve found similarities, and had to understand how it could have been possible for me to end up that way, rather than the way that I am.”
He added that, ultimately, he was glad his time with the character was over.
“It’s a politically intensifying world and I don’t think this show would make sense starting right now. It’s ending right now. The way this show plays with questions of how we reward bad people, that was a more playful question eight to 10 years ago,” he said.
“It’s not as playful a question now, and it comes with way more stakes, and I’m glad we’re not going to be playing with it any longer. And for that reason, I’m really glad it’s ending.”
All episodes of You are available for streaming on Netflix.
English (US) ·