Penn Badgley explains why she no longer films sex scenes in ‘You’

For almost five years, over three and a half seasons, we have seen Penn Badgley in the shoes of Joe Goldberg fall in love in an obsessive, toxic and absorbing way with one woman after another in the series ‘You’, stalking and seducing each one of them, until their evil romance inevitably goes awry and ends in a bloodbath. The series continues to seek to show viewers events from Joe’s point of view, even when he does the most depraved and violent things.

I mean, sex is an important part of ‘You’. But Badgley is fed up with filming these types of sex scenes. “It’s important to me in my real life not to have them,” she said recently. “My fidelity in my relationship is important to me. And in fact, it was one of the reasons I initially wanted to turn down the role. I didn’t tell anyone. But that’s why.”

The actor’s words had a reaction on social networks from fans of the series, with some comments pointing out that part of an actor’s job is to be able to create the distinction between a performance and personal privacy outside of filming.

“It’s not a place where I have blurred the lines,” he later clarified. in an interview with Variety. “There’s hardly anything 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 edge—has always been something I really don’t want to play with at all.”

Badgley broached the issue with ‘You’ showrunner Sera Gamble, and as a result, the fourth season of the popular thriller series features a different kind of love scene: Badgley continues to share several charged moments and sexual encounters with Kate (Charlotte Ritchie), but they are all fully clothed, and in the episodes that have aired thus far, the two characters have not even kissed (Kate ordered him not to). , it was not to be that he fell in love with her).

“I kind of told him my wish, and he immediately accepted it and responded,” Badgley said of Gamble. “I’m always very practical. I told him that I know it can’t be any, because there is something encoded in the DNA of the series, and I signed the contract, so it is what it is.but as little as possible would be my preference.”