Penn Badgley Calls Out Netflix for Glorifying Serial Killers (Exclusive)

Drew Barrymore received an unforgettable birthday surprise, courtesy of “You” star Penn Badgley.

You.Maybe it’s the way Penn Badgley looks with or without a beard. Or maybe it’s the show’s funny, yet cutting satire on the people we suffer through every day.But damn, four seasons in, You (★★★★☆), Netflix’s series about a sociopath who obsesses over women, still hits that same perverse spot it did to make it one of the streamer’s best in recent years.Originally a Lifetime Original adapted from Caroline Kepnes’s book series, You was brought to the screen by producing giants Greg Berlanti and Sera Gamble, who installed former Gossip Girl star Penn Badgley as the lead.After one season aired on Lifetime, the show migrated to Netflix, where it blew up and has remained a permanent fixture since season two.Badgley stars as Joe Goldberg, a troubled sociopath with inclinations for becoming obsessed with random women, ingratiating himself into their lives, and then killing anyone who gets in his way.On paper, this seems like a strange recommendation in the #MeToo era, but You‘s greatest strength has become its humor, focusing on entertainment and sardonic musings on everyday life from a truly messed up man.Over the first three seasons, Joe traveled across the coasts, going from being a bookstore manager in New York to a young dad in suburban California.

Breaking Bad, describing the part as “the one that got away”.The You star was asked in a new interview with Buzzfeed to name a role fans would be surprised that he auditioned for but didn’t get.“One I got close on was Breaking Bad,” Badgley said. “It was between me and Aaron Paul, we tested.” Paul ended up getting the role of crystal meth cook and dealer Jesse Pinkman in the hit series, which aired for five seasons between 2008 to 2013.Actually, that was the best television script I’d read at that point,” added Badgley.

Had things gone another way, Penn Badgley would have played Jesse Pinkman alongside Bryan Cranston in “Breaking Bad”.

Penn Badgley saying no to sex scenes in YOU Season 4 has gone down well but would an actress have had the same luxury? If you are as eagle-eyed as Joe Goldberg from Netflix’s psychological thriller YOU, you may have noticed the subtle but significant dialling down of raunchier scenes the show was famous for in earlier seasons. It turns out this is because the former Gossip Girl star asked to do as few sex scenes as possible out of respect for his wife Domino Kirke.

Ever since Netflix‘s Dahmer docuseries hit the streaming platform, idolization of serial killers has been a huge topic on social media. It’s something that’s been around for as long as killers have existed — for whatever reason people feel drawn to these murderers and some even go as far as dating or marrying their chosen slayer. What happens when this admiration goes too far? Well, there are some serious consequences…

Penn Badgley has opened up about the one role that he was almost cast in – Jesse Pinkman on Breaking Bad.

You star Penn Badgley might have used Taylor Swift‘s “Anti-Hero” to introduce himself to TikTok. However, he thinks his character Joe might not be as big a fan of the pop phenom.

You star Penn Badgley has said his character would “probably despise” Taylor Swift.When asked about his first effort at a TikTok video in conversation with Variety, Badgley discussed having set the song to Taylor Swift’s recent single ‘Anti-Hero’.Badgley lip-syncs to the song on TikTok, with the clip having gone viral and Swift commenting “OMG!!!!” on the social media platform.However, the actor said that his character Joe Goldberg “probably despises” Taylor Swift, despite one episode of You containing a reference to the pop icon.“I think, unfortunately, he would despise her,” Badgley said. “Because she’s successful and blonde, maybe? I don’t know, but I think he would.”In a four-star review of You season four part one, NME wrote: “Yes, it’s all very silly, but it’s also surprisingly gripping and consistently witty.”Penn Badgley recently revealed he requested to have no unnecessary sex scenes in the recent season of You, due to his marriage to singer Domino Kirke.Speaking on the podcast Podcrushed, Badgley said: “I asked Sera Gamble, the creator of the show, ‘Can I just do no more intimacy scenes?’“This was actually a decision I had made before I took the show.

in the fame department after Gossip Girl first premiered in the mid-aughts. Obviously, this was only heightened after tabloids caught wind of his . Stressful as this period was, Badgley said that dating Lively may have saved him from going down a destructive path. Plenty of young stars from this era have been open about dealing with substance abuse (, , , etc.), but Badgley said in an interview with that he never really did.

Creating boundaries. Penn Badgley, Neal McDonough and more stars have candidly discussed their decisions not to film sex scenes in future projects.

While Dan and Serena made it down the aisle on Gossip Girl, Penn Badgley and Blake Lively called it quits long before the 2012 series finale.

Penn Badgley credits his co-star and ex-girlfriend, Blake Lively, with keeping him on the right track as his fame was on the rise.In a new interview with, Badgley opens up about his three-year romance with Lively, who played his character Dan Humphrey's on-screen love interest, Serena van der Woodsen.The pair started dating in real life in 2007 at the start of the teen drama's run.“Beyond our relationship, I don’t think anybody was going to be interested in me publicly,” Badgley says, adding of his overnight fame, “It was a little bit night and day. I think the date was Sept.

Netflix is still releasing pretty much everything (outside of some reality shows) in their patented binge model. All of the episodes, all at once.

Penn Badgley doesn’t actually need to be on the internet to stoke his popularity. He’s already the internet’s boyfriend, and has been since the original “Gossip Girl” premiered in 2007. Badgley became famous at the exact moment when the celebrity-industrial complex, fed by the toxic brew of the gossip sites TMZ and Perez Hilton, was at its most pernicious — which was the same moment that teenagers everywhere got their hands on their first iPhones. “‘Gossip Girl,’ if you think about it, wouldn’t have happened at any other time,” Badgley says. “That was the spirit of the show: It was Perez. It was TMZ.” Badgley made it through that poisonous period intact. But now, when it comes to joining social media platforms, he is, understandably, apprehensive. Twitter used to suit Badgley best, he being a news-obsessed man of words, but that’s changed: “I can’t really spend much time on that platform anymore,” he says. Instagram, too, feels “a bit too much like standing on a stage and trying to present,” and Badgley doesn’t need that type of exposure.

the second half of season 4 on Wednesday, revealing the return of Joe's very dead wife, Love Quinn (Victoria Pedretti), from the second and third seasons. The surprising resurrection(?) came in the final moments of the haunting two-minute trailer as Joe (Penn Badgley) approaches the glass cage -- only to be met face to face with Love, who up until that moment is seen casually reading a book.

“I’m not some cold-blood psycho killer.” To which all fans of Netflix’s You would say, sure Joe, sure.

Netflix is to blame for fans loving serial killers like You‘s Joe Goldberg.The actor said the point of his character in the Netflix hit was that people were “meant to fall in love with him”. However, Badgley also said that the current trend of people voicing their attraction to the likes of Jeffrey Dahmer was on the streaming service.Taking part in an interview for Entertainment Tonight’s TikTok account (see below), the former Gossip Girl actor said people needed to reflect on what’s “inside” them if they were attracted to killers.Badgley was asked in the clip about the message he’d send to “people who are finding themselves attracted to serial killers”.

“You” Season 4, Part 1 debuted Tuesday on Netflix’s English TV List in the No. 1 spot as the most-viewed title last week less than a week after its release.As fans binged the five episodes of the season’s first half, which follows Joe Goldberg’s (Penn Badgley) next chapter as he becomes involved with London’s elite society under the alias of Professor Jonathan Moore, “You” Season 4 hit 92.07 million hours viewed from Feb.

Penn Badgley is once again criticizing the heavy use of sex scenes in his hit show, "You." This time, he takes his comments a step further, saying those kinds of scenes are "disturbing" to film. "It’s not a place where I’ve blurred lines," he said in a new interview with Variety.