Penn Badgley on why he axed no sex scenes rule…
Let’s get bodily.
Penn Badgley made headlines in 2023 when the “Gossip Girl” alum, 38, spoke out in opposition to sex scenes and revealed he’d requested the “You” creators to cut back on them.
However, within the fifth and ultimate season, which is now streaming, his character, Joe Goldberg, steams up the screen a number of occasions.
Penn Badgley attends Netflix’s “You” Season 5 New York Screening on the Plaza Hotel on April 23, 2025, in New York City. Getty Images
“I had to throw that out the window,” Badgley instructed People in an interview revealed Thursday.
Badgley defined, “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.”
The Netflix thriller “You” follows Goldberg, a man who thinks of himself as a bookish and delicate romantic, however he’s actually a killer.
In the fifth and ultimate season — spoiler alert — he has an affair with a bookish lady named Bronte (Madeline Brewer). She in the end helps result in his downfall after the 2 have a number of steamy bed room intervals.
In 2023 when “You” Season 4 was airing, Badgley stated on the Podcrushed podcast, “I asked Sera Gamble, [the] creator, ‘Can I just do no more intimacy scenes?’”
Madeline Brewer as Bronte, Penn Badgley as Joe Goldberg in “You” Season 5. CLIFTON PRESCOD/NETFLIX
Domino Kirke, left, and Penn Badgley attend a particular screening of the fifth season of Netflix’s “You” on the Plaza Hotel on Wednesday, April 23, 2025. Charles Sykes/Invision/AP
He added, “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 married his spouse, Domino Kirke, 41, in 2017. The singer is the sister of “Girls” star Jemima Kirke, 39, and actress Lola Kirke, 34. Badgley is the stepfather of Domino’s son Cassius, 16, who’s from a earlier relationship.
Badgley and Kirke even have a son named James, 4, and she or he’s at the moment pregnant with twins, due in the summertime.
Penn Badgley as Joe Goldberg in “You.” CLIFTON PRESCOD/NETFLIX
“Fidelity in every relationship, and especially my marriage, is really important to me. It just got to a point where I don’t want to do that,” Badgley stated in 2023, referring to sex scenes.
“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.’”
For his half, “Outlander” star Sam Heughan, who has tangled within the sheets on-screen many occasions, instructed The Post in January that sex scenes are “just a part of the story.”
Penn Badgley as Joe Goldberg, Charlotte Ritchie as Kate in “You.” Courtesy of Netflix
Griffin Matthews, from left, Madeline Brewer, Penn Badgley, Charlotte Ritchie, and Anna Camp attend a particular screening of the fifth season of Netflix’s “You” on the Plaza Hotel on Wednesday, April 23, 2025, in New York. Charles Sykes/Invision/AP
However, Badgley turned his back on that “no sex scenes” mandate for the final season of “You.”
The actor instructed People that he felt just like the show “really had to return to form,” with Joe being seen as “a romantic icon” within the ultimate season.
“He’s been a profound experience for me. He’s not a real person. So what have I been doing? I’ve been engaging in this … my entire 30s,” Badgley defined of his character. “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’s like my 30s.”
He added that Joe “taught” him a lot about “what it is to be a man by knowing what it is not.”
The former “John Tucker Must Die” star quipped, “And I don’t mean the obvious things like, oh, don’t murder, that’s bad. That’s very clear.”
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