“Can I just do no more intimacy scenes?”: Penn Badgley Doesn’t Want to Make Wife Jealous With Intimate Scenes After Revealing His Worst On-Screen Kiss With Ex-Girlfriend Blake Lively
The first five episodes of Part 1 of You Season 4 were released on Netflix on February 9, 2023, and Part 2, with the remaining five final episodes, will begin streaming one month later on March 9, 2023. As viewers can recall, the main lead, Joe Goldberg, played by Penn Badgley, has been appearing in the show You for the past five years when it premiered in 2018. Throughout the series, a dangerously charming and intensely obsessed young man goes to extreme lengths to insert himself into the lives of those he is captivated by. However, with the emergence of murders and other mysteries, the series quickly turns dark.
Despite the murder mystics, the show involved the lead character, Joe Goldberg, in more than his fair share of s*x scenes, and these increased dramatically during Season 3. There were several scenes of the lead having s*x in season 3, including one where he and his wife Love, played by Victoria Pedretti, took part in a foursome. Both Penn Badgley and Victoria Pedretti admitted that filming the season during the COVID-19 pandemic made it difficult for them to do the intimate scene. Upon releasing Part 1 of You season 4, the main lead Penn Badgley admitted that he had actively urged about having fewer s*x scenes in this season.
Penn Badgley Reveals He Did Not Want Intimate Scenes In You Season 4
The 36-year-old American actor, Penn Badgley, best known for his role as Dan Humphrey in Gossip Girl (2007-2012), has been featured in Stitcher Studios’ Podcrushed podcast after releasing You Season 4. In the podcast interview, the actor revealed that he had requested that the series’ showrunner tone down his s*x scenes in the fourth season of the Netflix psychological thriller.
Badgley said during the podcast,
“I asked Sera Gamble, [the] creator, ‘Can I just do no more intimacy scenes?’ This was actually a decision I had made before I took the show. I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned it publicly, but one of the main things is, Do I want to put myself back on a career path where I’m always [the] romantic lead?”
He added,
“Fidelity in every relationship — especially in a marriage — is important to me.”
“It got to a point where [I thought], ‘I don’t want to do that,’ so I said to Sera, like, ‘My desire would be zero [intimate scenes], to go from 100 to zero.'”
He concluded,
“I signed this contract. I signed up for the show. I know what I did. You can’t take this aspect out of the DNA of the concept, so ‘How much less can you make it?’ was my question to them.”
“Gamble didn’t even bat an eye. She was really glad that I was that honest, and she was sort of almost empowered. She had a really positive response, and they came back with a phenomenal reduction.”
At one point, Badgley found it challenging to accept the industry and the story requirements because he is a married man and a loyal husband. For him, fidelity in his marriage is more important than anything else, and he reached out to the show’s creator to reduce the intimacy scene, which worked to a certain extent. Badgley married Domino Kirke in February 2017, and they share an adorable son, James Badgley, who is two years old.
Gossip Girl Star Once Revealed His Best And Worst Onscreen Kiss Experience With Ex-Girlfriend Blake Lively
In their time on the show Gossip Girl, Badgley and his ex-girlfriend, Blake Lively, dated and broke up on and offscreen, although their real lives didn’t always correspond with their characters. The couple kept their breakup a secret for an extended period of time during the show. During Badgley’s appearance on Watch What Happens Live in 2015, he opened up about his best and worst onscreen kiss experiences with Lively during the show Gossip Girl.
Badgley said during the interview,
“I’ll say Blake [was the best onscreen kiss] because we actually had a relationship at the time. And worst? Maybe Blake after we broke up.”
He added,
“We actually consummately professional, to be honest. I think we should both pat ourselves on the back for getting through it—because, you know, anything is complicated in that way, and we handled it.”
In 2007, the former couple began dating, ending their relationship in 2010. On the superhero film The Green Lantern set, Blake Lively met her now-husband Ryan Reynolds the same year she split with Badgley. After completing Gossip Girl in 2012, Lively married Ryan Reynolds in a secret wedding ceremony. The now-couple are now parents to three young daughters, and their fourth baby is soon to be born.
Source: Stitcher Studios’ Podcrushed podcast
