You’s Penn Badgley: ‘I’ve Been Playing Boys Who’ve Been Getting a Free Pass for 30 Years’
May 1, 2025
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Penn Badgley attends Collective By 92NY Presents Podcrushed: Penn Badgley, Nava Kavelin & Sophie Ansari in Conversation with Anna Martin at 92NY on April 21, 2025 in New York City. Penn Badgley attends Collective By 92NY Presents Podcrushed: Penn Badgley, Nava Kavelin & Sophie Ansari in Conversation with Anna Martin at 92NY on April 21, 2025 in New York City. Dia Dipasupil/Getty
“I’ve been playing boys who’ve been getting a free pass for 30 years.”
Is there a satisfying way to bring an end to Joe Goldberg’s story on Netflix’s You? To Penn Badgley, who has played the serial killer and sexual predator for the past five seasons, “We give a nod and a wink to the kind of satisfaction you want.” Despite knowing his devious ways, “the viewers were purposefully withheld from seeing him actually, truly abuse and murder someone he—quote, unquote—loves until the very end…. You finally see him as a sexual predator. From day one, like 20 minutes into the pilot, he’s masturbating outside of her window. What more does anybody need to see?” In this season of You, many will see similarities to Gossip Girl, the show that made Badgley famous. “My experience on Gossip Girl was a meditation on celebrity, and my experience on You has been a meditation on masculinity and love.” But to some, it’s Badgley’s take as a bully on Will & Grace that stands out. “I’ve always played such generally sensitive people, but it is true that my first role was a serial abuser. I’ve been playing boys who’ve been getting a free pass for 30 years.”
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Editor’s Note: This conversation has been edited and condensed for publication.
Do you feel like, without giving anything away, that you’re satisfied with the story being complete?
I’m very satisfied with it. And I’ve been sitting with it for almost a year, longer than people who are just now seeing it. What I pose to anybody who hasn’t yet seen it or is thinking about it, is, could there ever be an ending to a man like Joe that is, quote, unquote satisfying? Because satisfaction, in and of itself, is what he has been pursuing. Satisfaction is like a personal selfish desire. I think what would be initially [most] satisfying is our blood lust, to see him torn apart and tortured and killed, right? That’s one way to do it. There’s not that many ways to do it, right? It’s like he’s killed, or he’s tortured, or he goes to jail, or he just gets away with it, right? There’s just not that many things that can happen, and none of them are in and of themselves perfectly satisfying, because what actually satisfies is the justice of his victims, whether they’re alive or dead, and only time can satisfy and heal them. So I think that we’ve delivered as satisfying an ending as you could possibly deliver. And so, by the end, I think what we do is, on top of what I just said, we give one little nod and a wink to that. We give a nod and a wink to the kind of satisfaction you want.
There is kind of a dance with why we root for this character, because he’s horrible, but there’s something morbid in us that wants to see him succeed.
Yeah. I mean, there’s levels to it. I think the point is for people to fall in love with him, or at least to like him a lot, to be charmed by him. That is the point. We’ve purposefully—and by we, I do really mean the writers—but we collectively all brought it to life. The viewers were purposefully withheld from seeing him actually, truly abuse and murder someone he—quote, unquote—loves until the very end. Like we never saw exactly what he did to Beck [Guinevere Beck, played by Elizabeth Lail], he didn’t successfully kill Candace [Stone, played by Ambyr Childers]. He did kill Love [Quinn, played by Victoria Pedretti], but he did it in a moment of self-defense, when she was arguably just as bad as he was. If you’re trying to split hairs between, who’s better, Love or Joe, I think that’s polishing the brass on the Titanic. At some point they both were innocent children who were traumatized. Season four, he killed everybody, but he was dissociated all throughout, so we didn’t really see it in the moment.
This is the season where we finally see, even though we’ve known and actually seen like 99 percent of what he’s done, it’s that last missing piece, where we’ve not seen him engage with a woman in bed where it’s like you don’t want it to happen because she knows, we know, he’s finally dismantled as a romantic figure. That’s a really important moment. You finally see him as a sexual predator. You’re told from day one, like 20 minutes into the pilot he’s masturbating outside of her window, right? Like what more does anybody need to see? So it is this interesting exercise where we’ve both purposefully withheld you from seeing him at his worst, but we’ve told you all along and it’s like, so what do you do? You need to see it to believe it. Do you need to see it for it to change your mind? So it is an interesting exercise. And I don’t think anybody’s culpable here. I don’t think anybody should feel guilty for it. I think it’s a deconstructive exercise of our lower nature, so we’re all responsible in it, in a way.
And this season, he’s a different Joe.
Is he?
Yeah, insofar as now he’s got all this money and is back in New York City.
That is actually huge. His charm before was that he’s like, I’m not just an everyman, I’m a working-class fighter, bootstraps, traumatized boy, who’s made it despite all my hardships, and now he’s a billionaire.
In a lot of ways, having that wealth allows him to hide even more. How does him having this wealth and returning to New York, how is he different?
It isn’t. I mean, the way you’re putting it, I do get, in some ways that is substantive, but in some ways it’s superficial. He’s able to do what he does in a lot of ways because of the way he looks. It’s his sex, his race, it’s a lot of his appearance, the way he fits in and blends in alternately. It makes me think that finally giving him wealth is just like underscoring the privileges he already had. But the money is what allows him to sort of complete the ugly cycle of being like all right, now everybody knows a bit more of who I actually am, but I can just sort of paper that over with extreme wealth. But I actually think in some ways that is still kind of superficial. The audience was already there. The world in the universe of Joe Goldberg needed to somehow be convinced that he was a good man. So he needed money to accomplish some of that. But the audience didn’t need that convincing. We’re right there with him. Just give us any way to believe that you could be believed, and we’ll go there with you. So we gave him billions of dollars.
And the way in which the neighborhoods Joe exists in show the different parts of his personality, the uptown Joe and the downtown Joe, don’t you think?
Yes, I think, we see Joe in an all-too-familiar place. And by familiar, I mean, like for all of us, it’s hard to tell a compelling story of a relationship when you’re in the middle years. We love to see a relationship begin. We love to see it end. We don’t love because we don’t yet, I think, [know] how to tell really deep and mature stories about all the time in between. Especially if there’s no in between. Like, what about a relationship that doesn’t end? Wow. What an idea, what a novel idea. What a commitment, what a trust, what a love, but it’s not as exciting in all the same ways. It can be very exciting, but in other ways—and those ways are not as cinematic, let’s say. They don’t work in a pop song for three minutes.
So, actually, Joe is very relatable in that sense, and he is having a very normal human common experience, which we can allow him and forgive him for. And I think in that sense, that is more what this show is about than actual murder or violence, let alone a serial killer, this show is much more about how we all can feel that way in a relationship. And then, the irony is, the one person we should go to when any of us are in that stage of relationship is our partner, because they’re the only one who is in it with us, and yet we often withhold that from our partner. I think that would take a lot of bravery and vulnerability in a relationship, but that’s actually what you should do and address it in whatever manner it needs to be addressed, because otherwise you then become the sole protagonist in your relationship. You’re the star and they’re the supporting character, and that’s when a relationship is no longer a relationship. But guess what? We all do that all the time. That’s why relationships become difficult past the six-month to two-year mark. You’re not running off the love drugs anymore, you got to actually figure out how to be in a mature relationship. And it’s just different. So, I love that. Look, this show isn’t always, it’s not digging super deeply into that, but it is actually about that.
For a lot of Gossip Girl fans, seeing Joe in the setting of the Upper West Side does harken back to Gossip Girl moments.
I don’t see the connection at all. [laughs] No, of course it’s there.
What do you make of that full-circle moment?
I think you’ve kind of said it all. I marvel at the fact that I’m pushing 40 here, and I took Gossip Girl when I was 20, and it’s never gone away, and there’s the strange added fact that I am Gossip Girl. I don’t know what to make of that. I never foresaw that, and I’m certainly not mad at it, but it’s been interesting to see how these two shows are in a cultural conversation together. It’s been like a 20-year cycle. That’s a freaking eternity in pop culture terms. So, I don’t know what to make of that. I mean, where do I go from here? I really don’t know.
Well, speaking of Gossip Girl, that so clearly had a huge impact on your career. What impact do you think these five seasons of You have had at this point in your career?
Trust me, I think about that, but in terms of career, I don’t know, because I think that’s all to be seen. We will see. For me personally, emotionally, psychologically, it’s been probably a meditation on two things, and at some point, those two things become one, and I’ll see if I can make this coherent. I think my experience on Gossip Girl was a meditation on celebrity, and my experience on You has been a meditation on masculinity and love. Both have been about quote, unquote, love, even though neither show is depicting true love. So that’s maybe where they unite. Then I think the first 10 years, in my 20s, in Gossip Girl, the reflection on celebrity is ultimately, well, it comes back to human nature. Like, why do we treat people like this? And then masculinity is ultimately about human nature, too. Like, how do men become like this? And why do they treat women this way and themselves this way? So, it does all come back to human nature. And it does all come back to what is true love and why do we so rarely see depictions of it that are as exciting as depictions of lust and other things? So the connections between these shows, I need more time to connect them and make them concise connections.
Listen, while some are out here making comparisons to Gossip Girl, I’m still talking about you being the bully on Will & Grace. And more people should talk about that.
It’s funny, because I’ve always played such generally sensitive people, but it is true that my first role was a serial abuser. I’ve been playing boys who’ve been getting a free pass for 30 years.
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