Penn Badgley on coming to London for season four of You: ‘I discovered how American I am’
Penn Badgley says he’s never felt more American than when he was “displaced and surrounded by Brits” in London while filming the latest season of You.
The Gossip Girl star, 36, who plays bookshop manager and serial killer Joe Goldberg in Netflix’s hit psychological thriller, told Sky News he “loved being in London,” and thinks his character did too.
Pic: Netflix
Based on novels by American author Caroline Kepnes, Joe has a penchant for beautiful women, but also an obsessive nature, a tendency to stalk and the will to destroy anyone standing in his way.
The show premiered on US channel Lifetime, but moved to Netflix in its second season.
Location-wise, within the world of the show, following murderous sprees in New York, LA and suburbia, Joe is now heading to the UK to spill some British blood.
Filming in various areas of London, including Spitalfields (east London) and Knightsbridge (west London), as well as further out into the sticks in Egham, Surrey, Badgley says being in the UK opened his eyes to parts of his own character he’d not connected with before.
“Being an American in London for six and a half months, that for me was interesting because I was seeing the differences and grappling with them… I discovered how American I am which I’ve never really been able to feel as much as when I was displaced and surrounded by Brits.”
Despite the self-reflection, it was an experience he enjoyed: “I loved being in London personally. I really did. Joe, I think, likes it too, until he discovers that that no setting and no other person can change who he is, and that he has to change himself. I think that’s the whole exercise. But he’s as likely to be happy in London as anywhere else, I think.”
Even the British obsession with class – something that isn’t such a thing over in the US – is incorporated into the storyline.
Charlotte Ritchie joins the cast. Pic: Netflix
Badgley explains: “We’ve given winks and nods to things like privilege and class in the show, but we’ve not ever delved so directly into it, and I think this season, that’s done.
“But the show is still ultimately, I think, about what we think of love and how that shapes us and how that affects our relationships in real life.”
But is it problematic that the show’s large and dedicated audience have come to love the murderous anti-hero at its centre so much?
Badgley says fans can’t be blamed for falling for Joe: “We’ve designed him – crafted him meticulously in a lab or a studio for four years, to be charming and to be likeable. So, that’s not on the viewers. I think that’s on us.”
The actor says now, like the audience, he really understands what makes his character tick: “We get who Joe is. I’m really interested in where he’s going to go, you know, and where and how this whole thing may end.”
But can the life of a mass-murderer – even a fictional one – ever end well?
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“It’s a big question. I mean, you look at look at any of the world leaders who we find reprehensible, and do we think redemption is possible? Do we feel that we’re capable of judging who’s worthy of redemption? So, Joe, in a real world, having done what he’s done – is redemption possible? Maybe only in death. Yeah, I don’t know.”
Luckily, away from some of the darker themes of the show, Badgley did find a little light relief while in the UK – albeit while he was unwell and unable to work or hang out with his friends.
Inspired by his co-star, Ghosts and Feel Good actress Charlotte Ritchie who joined the You cast this season, he indulged in some very British comedy.
“I really got to see a lot of Ghosts when I had COVID for about two weeks and I was unable to work. I watched the whole series, which I really did love. It brought me some joy.”
Season four of You comes to Netflix in two instalments, with five episodes having already been released and a further five parts released on 9 March.
Taylor Swift has announced she is getting married to her NFL star boyfriend Travis Kelce.
The pop star and Kansas City Chiefs tight end shared the news in a joint post on Instagram, with the caption: “Your English teacher and your gym teacher are getting married.”
The announcement was liked more than 1.7 million times just over 30 minutes after it was posted.
Pic: Instagram / @taylorswift
Swift and Kelce started their relationship in July 2023, after the three-time Super Bowl winner said on his podcast New Heights that he tried and failed to meet the singer at her Eras Tour concert in Kansas City.
Rumours grew that the couple were dating after Swift was spotted at a number of Chiefs games. On her seventh time in the stands, she brought her father, Scott Kingsley Swift, along.
Kelce told the Wall Street Journal in November 2023: “There were definitely people she knew that knew who I was, in her corner [who said]: ‘Yo! Did you know he was coming [to the Eras Tour]?’
“I had somebody playing Cupid… She told me exactly what was going on and how I got lucky enough to get her to reach out.”
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From January: Taylor cheers on Travis after Chiefs win
Earlier this month, Swift appeared on Kelce’s podcast, New Heights, and announced her 12th album, titled The Life Of A Showgirl.
Speaking to her now-fiance and his brother Jason Kelce, Swift said it was inspired by the Eras Tour – and also talked about Travis’s attempt at meeting her two years ago.
While she said his plan to give her his number on a friendship bracelet was a “wild, romantic gesture,” she joked he “didn’t do any proper logistical planning” and thought he would be allowed backstage.
“Because he knows the elevator lady, he thought he could talk to her about just getting down to my dressing room,” she added. “That’s how it works in 1973.”
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The new album, which will be released on 3 October, marks her first release since she took back control over her entire back catalogue from private equity firm Shamrock Capital.
Sky News culture and entertainment reporter Gemma Peplow said after her globe-trotting tour and a swathe of re-releases over recent years, the new album cemented Swift’s reputation “as the hardest-working star in pop”.
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Despite rumours he would retire after losing this year’s Super Bowl, Kelce will play for the Kansas City Chiefs again this season.
He told GQ magazine his on-field performances “slipped a little bit” as he started acting, and added: “I’m just saying that my work ethic is such that I have so much pride in how I do things that I never want the product to tail off, and I feel like these past two years haven’t been to my standard.”
Entertainment
Boy, 16, convicted in Germany over supporting failed terror plot at Taylor Swift concert
A 16-year-old has been convicted in Germany for supporting a foiled plot to attack Taylor Swift concerts in Austria last year.
The teenager, named Mohammad A, who cannot be fully identified under Germany’s privacy laws, was convicted of preparing a serious act of violence and supporting a terrorist act of violence abroad.
He was handed a suspended 18-month sentence on Tuesday. According to the court, he made a “comprehensive confession” at his trial, which was held behind closed doors because of his age.
German judges found that the defendant, a Syrian national then aged 14, supported the ideology of the Islamic State group at the time.
The court heard he was also in contact via social media with a young man in Austria who planned to attack a Swift concert in Vienna, had sent him a video with bomb-building instructions, and organised contact with an IS member.
All three of Swift’s concerts at Vienna’s Ernst Happel Stadium were cancelled in August last year after a terror plot was uncovered by authorities.
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Swiftie on cancelled Vienna show
Concert organisers had expected up to 65,000 fans inside the stadium at each concert and as many as 30,000 onlookers outside.
Authorities said the main suspect, now 20, planned to target those outside of the stadium and hoped to “kill as many people as possible”.
Omar Haijawi-Pirchner, head of the directorate of state security and intelligence, added at the time that the suspect was “clearly radicalised in the direction of the Islamic State and thinks it is right to kill infidels”.
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Swift later called the decision to cancel her shows in Austria “devastating,” and said: “The reason for the cancellations filled me with a new sense of fear, and a tremendous amount of guilt because so many people had planned on coming to those shows.
“But I was also so grateful to the authorities because thanks to them, we were grieving concerts and not lives.”
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