Penn Badgley.Photo: Ilya S. Savenok/Getty Images
Penn Badgleyis setting the record straight.
“What I was speaking about wasn’t actually the final product,” Badgley, 36, said in an interview withGQpublished Tuesday. “It was sort of like the culture inherent to the production of all movies, but particularly those scenes. It’s like, look, we know that Hollywood has had a history of flagrant exploitation and abuse.”
He added that he had been “nervous” at first to bring up the topic about limiting his sex scenes in the show withYoushowrunnerSera Gamble, but her openness put him at ease.
“I was nervous to even have that conversation. It was not easy. It was easy because of Sera’s response, and I felt relieved,” he said. “But technically speaking, if I thought I’d had the ability to set that boundary earlier, I would have.”
Courtesy of Netflix
Badgley noted that his request did not “change the trajectory of [You’s fourth season] at all,” as his character Joe “was naturally ready to not be in that position anymore.” However, he admitted that his decision could impact future projects that he signs on to.
“We shall see if setting that boundary, of course, has any ramifications. Just simply, it does limit the number of projects you can be a part of,” he said.
TheGossip Girlalum revealed last month on thePodcrushedpodcast that he asked Gamble tocut his sex scenes for the latest season.
“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,” he said. “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 continued, “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.'”
Badgley later cited hismarriagetoDomino Kirke-Badgley, with whom he shares2-year-old son James, asone of the reasons for his decisionin an interview withVariety.
“My fidelity in my relationship. It’s important to me,” Badgey said. “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.”
“It’s not a place where I’ve blurred lines,” Badgley explained toVariety. “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.”
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All four seasons ofYouare now available to stream on Netflix.
source: people.com
