Penn Badgley had only one request for You showrunner Sera Gamble going into season four: “Can I just do no more intimacy scenes?”
The star of the hit Netflix series recently opened up on his podcast Podcrushed about wanting to take a step back from romance roles and intimacy, due to his desire to remain faithful to his wife, Domino Kirke, who he married in 2017.
“This is actually a decision I’d made before I took the show,” Badgley said. “I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned it publicly, but one of the main things is like, ‘Do I wanna put myself back on a career path where I’m just always a romantic lead?’”
He continued, “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.”
The Gossip Girl alum went on to explain that he told Gamble, in an ideal world, his desire would be to not have any intimate scenes in the show at all, but he understands that’s not a super reasonable ask.
“I signed this contract,” he said. “I signed up for this 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.”
The You star said the creator “didn’t even bat an eye” when he asked.
“She was really glad that I was that honest, and she was sort of, I wanna say almost empowered,” Badgley said. “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.”
The romance storyline for Joe Goldberg has been a big part of You since its first season. Season four, Part 1, romance may take a backseat to the whodunnit story that’s unraveling over the first five episodes, which are now streaming on Netflix, but it still exists. And the object of Joe’s affection this season is Kate (Charlotte Ritchie), who throws Joe for a loop as he tries to figure out their dynamic and falls short.
“She’s the new shiny object he can’t figure out. So, it’s not boring yet,” Badgley previously told The Hollywood Reporter. “And then, once he starts to get to know her, what draws him in, at least according to him — Joe being the most unreliable narrator, maybe in all of storytelling — he says he’s drawn in because she seems like she wants to be good. She’s surrounded by bad people and wants to be good. And he feels the same way. But, that’s what he says. I don’t know if that’s true.”
After premiering its first season on Lifetime, You took on a new life when it was picked up by Netflix to continue its run. Since then, the show has consistently topped streaming charts, and Gamble is not ready to say goodbye — yet.
“We have an idea for season five that we’re excited about,” the showrunner told THR’s TV’s Top 5 podcast. “It was never anyone’s intention to run this one into the ground. When we’re done, we’ll be done. And we’ll pack it up. Even in the early conversations with Penn, the idea was not to crank out episodes forever; it’s to feel like we have told the complete story.”
You season four, Part 1, is now streaming on Netflix, with Part 2 hitting the streamer March 9.
