‘You’: Marvel Star Backed out of Season 4 Audition Over Sex Scenes

Jameela Jamil had the chance to star on Netflix’s You, but she canceled the audition. The Good Place star told Penn Badgley that she does not want to do sex scenes, which would likely be required for a part in the steamy series. However, after learning that Badgley asked to do fewer sex scenes, she regretted her decision.

“I don’t do sex scenes,” Jamil said on Podcrush, the podcast Badgley hosts with Nava Kavelin and Sophie Ansari. “In fact, I was supposed to audition for the most recent season of your show. My character was supposed to be quite sexy, and I pulled out of the audition because I am so shy about anything sexy that I can’t.”

Jamil, who recently starred in Marvel’s She-Hulk: Attorney at Law series for Disney+, avoids sex scenes because of childhood sexual trauma. She also doesn’t like to objectify herself. “So I think that was never in the cards for me,” she explained, notes Entertainment Weekly. “You know, I still wear the little skirt or the busty top, but like, occasionally. But generally, I feel quite protective of myself in that way.”

You Season 4 turned out to have fewer sex scenes than past seasons. During a February bonus episode of Podcrush, Badgley said he asked creator Sera Gamble if he could do fewer scenes with intimate moments. The former Gossip Girl star said he was worried about being typecast. Padgley also made the decision for family reasons. He and his wife, Domino Kirke, are parents to their son James.

“This is actually a decision I had made before I took the show. I don’t think I had ever mentioned it publicly, but one of the main things is like, do I want to put myself back in a career path where I’m just always a romantic lead?” Badgley said at the time. “Like, fidelity, in every relationship, and especially my marriage, is important to me. And it just got to that point where I don’t want to do that.”

However, Badgley understood how important it was for his character, Joe Goldberg, to be involved in sex scenes early in the show’s run. It would have been strange if the character went from lustful to suddenly not. When Season 4 began, Gamble agreed with his request though. “She was very glad that I was that honest,” Badgley said. “She had a really positive response.”

After Jamil heard about this, she regretted not even auditioning for the show. “And then you f—ing came out and were like, ‘Yeah, I’m not doing sex scenes anymore.’ And I was like, ‘I didn’t even know that was a boundary that we could draw,’” Jamil said. “But then I was like, I should have gone and done the f—ing show.”

You is based on three novels by Carolina Kepnes and debuted in 2018 on Lifetime. Netflix picked up the series beginning with Season 2 and released the second half of Season 4 in March. In the latest episodes, Padgley’s Joe was in London, where he pretended to be a university professor and finds himself friends with socialites who are slowly murdered one by one. Tati Gabrielle, Charlotte Ritchie, Tilly Keeper, Amy-Leigh Hickman, Ed Speelers and Lukas Gage also starred in Season 4.