Penn Badgley’s character on You may be a creep, but it seems the actor is anything but. The Hollywood Reporter says that Badgley didn’t want any intimate scenes in You season four. He opened up on his podcast Podcrushed about a desire to step away from romantic roles and intimacy out of a desire to stay faithful to his wife, Domino Kirke, who he married in 2017. “This is actually a decision I’d made before I took the show,” he said. “It’s really important to me … Fidelity in every relationship — and especially my marriage — is important to me, and it just got to a point where I didn’t wanna do that. Then, of course, before I took the show is there a question of, ‘Do I have a career if I don’t?’ I mean, you know, think about every male lead you’ve loved. Are they kissing someone? Are they doing a lot more than that? It’s really not my desire to.”
Is Penn Badgley’s Request for ‘You’ Season 4 An Example to Follow?
The debate about the necessity of nudity and sex in scenes has been ongoing for years. And Badgley’s request to put the sex scenes to rest in You season four isn’t the first recent occurrence where a star voiced the need to step away from such material. In 2019, Game of Thrones star Emilia Clarke revealed that she had no idea nudity would be required of her until she signed on to the role. Since then, she has had to become savvier and refused the pressure to put herself in such a position. Such pressure is apparently not new in the industry. Romeo and Juliet stars Olivia Hussey and Leonard Whiting are in a legal battle with Paramount over the pressure they felt to do a nude scene as teenagers.
Thankfully for Penn Badgley, You showrunner Sera Gamble respected his request. Badgley said, “She was really glad that I was that honest, and she was sort of, I wanna say almost empowered. She had a really positive response. She appreciated my directness, and she appreciated that I was also being reasonable and practical, and they came back with a phenomenal reduction.”
You season 4 with Penn Badgley is streaming on Netflix.