‘You’ Season 4: Penn Badgley Requested No More Intimacy Scenes to Stay Faithful to His Wife

Penn Badgley made an unusual request when it came to Joe Goldberg’s scenes in the fourth season of You. Badgley revealed in the latest episode of his Podcrushed podcast that he requested his love-obsessed character “do no more intimacy scenes” in order to stay faithful to his wife, singer Domino Kirke.  

“I asked Sera Gamble, the creator the show: Can I just do no more intimacy scenes?” the You star shared. “This is actually a decision I’d made before I took the show. 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?”

Badgley, who married Kirke in 2017, added, “Fidelity in every relationship, and especially my marriage, is really important to me. 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?”

In You Season 4, Badgley’s character tries to start a life free of love in London, but he’s quickly derailed when he meets neighbor Kate (Charlotte Ritchie). While the two instantly have chemistry, their scenes aren’t as steamy as they might have been in seasons past. “I said to Sera, ‘My desire would be zero, to go from 100 to zero,’” Badgley explained. “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,” he continued. “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.” You Season 4 is streaming its first five episodes now on Netflix, with the latter half of the season dropping on March 9.