Penn Badgley on Requesting "No More Intimacy Scenes" on Season 4 of 'You'
“Fidelity in every relationship — especially in a marriage — is important to me,” he says.
If you’ve noticed less steamy scenes on the new season of You, just know there’s a reason for that. Penn Badgley, who plays Joe Goldberg aka Jonathan Moore, has requested “no more intimacy scenes.”
“I asked Sera Gamble, [the] creator, ‘Can I just do no more intimacy scenes?’” he said on the latest episode of Stitcher Studios’ Podcrushed podcast. “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?”
Badgley, who got married in 2017 to Domino Kirke, hinted at his relationship being another reason. He added, “Fidelity in every relationship — especially in a marriage — is important to me.”
The actor 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.’”
Unfortunately for Badgley, he realized having zero intimacy scenes for his character may be impossible. “I signed this contract. I signed up for the show. I know what I did,” he said. “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.”
As a result, Gamble was glad to hear Badgley out, which led them to finding a middle ground. Badgley added, “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.”
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