Penn Badgley preferring not to film sex scenes after getting married to wife Domino Kirke has fascinated his fans.
The actor rose to stardom playing fan-favorite character Dan Humphrey on The CW’s Gossip Girl from 2007 to 2012 so imagine our surprise when Badgley took on the role of fictional serial killer Joe Goldberg.
You, which premiered on Lifetime in 2018 before moving to Netflix, followed Joe as he fell in love with a different woman each season and how that lust progressed to fatal obsession. Due to the subject matter, it only made sense that Badgley’s character was often taking part in steamy moments with his love interests.
Badgley, however, surprised viewers when he revealed he was taking a step back from the explicit content.
“I asked [the creator of the show] Sera Gamble, ‘Can I just do no more intimacy scenes?’” he said on an episode of his “Podcrushed” podcast in February 2023. “This is actually a decision I’d made before I took the show.”
Badgley explained that his marriage to Kirke inspired the career choice. “I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned it publicly, but one of the main things was, like, do I want to put myself back on a career path where I’m just always the romantic lead?” he noted. “Fidelity in every relationship, and especially my marriage, is really important to me.”
He continued: “It just got to a point where I don’t want to do that. Before I took the show, it was a question, ‘Do I have a career if I don’t?’ Think about every male lead you’ve loved. Are they kissing someone? Are they doing a lot more than that?”
Badgley exchanged vows with Kirke in 2017 after three years of dating. In addition to being a father figure to Kirke’s son from a previous relationship, the couple expanded their family with a son and in 2025 confirmed Kirke was expecting twins.
Keep scrolling for Badgley’s candid quotes about how his personal life affected how he approach filming intimate scenes for work:
No Interest in It
Before You came to an end, Badgley hinted at some changes for his character.
“I said to [the creator] Sera [Gamble], ‘My desire would be zero, to go from 100 to zero,’” he said on his podcast in 2023. “But I signed this contract, 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 for them.”
Badgley praised the screenwriter for accommodating his request, adding, “She didn’t even bat an eye. She was really glad that I was that honest, and she had a really positive response. She appreciated my directness, and she appreciated that I was being reasonable and practical. And they came back with a phenomenal reduction.”
Cutting Back
“It’s not a place where I’ve blurred lines,” he told Variety in February 2023. “There’s almost nothing 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 boundary — has always been something that I actually don’t want to play with at all.”
Clarifying His Perspective
Badgley later noted that his comments were “blown out of proportion.”
“What I was speaking about wasn’t actually the final product. It was sort of, like, the culture inherent to the production of all movies but particularly those scenes,” he told GQ. “It’s like, look, we know that Hollywood has had a history of flagrant exploitation and abuse.”
Badgley continued: “It was not easy. It was easy because of Sera’s response, and I felt relieved. But technically speaking, if I thought I’d had the ability to set that boundary earlier, I would have.”
Adjusting to the Material
Despite requesting no sex scenes on You, Badgley explained why that changed amid the show’s fifth and final season.
“I had to throw that out the window,” he told People in April 2025. “That was the question again. ‘All right, what am I willing to do?’”
Because the season called for more intimacy, Badgley was willing to adjust accordingly, saying, “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 signed up to make. So, let’s make sure it’s vital, let’s make sure it’s important, it’s deliberate.’ And we did.”
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