Why Penn Badgley’s ‘No Sex Scenes’ Rule Was Axed for Final Season of ‘You’

Penn Badgley broke one of his own, self-imposed rules in the final season of You — his “no sex scenes” clause.

The actor, 38, confessed to People on Thursday, April 24 that for season 5 of the Netflix hit: “I had to throw that out the window.”

Whether or not to film intimate scenes again as his character Joe Goldberg was a dilemma he grappled with, according to the Gossip Girl alum.

“That was the question again. All right, what am I willing to do?” Badgley told the outlet. “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 sign up to make. So, let’s make sure it’s vital, let’s make sure it’s important, it’s deliberate. And we did.”

In February 2023, Badgley revealed during an episode of his“Podcrushed” podcast that his marriage to Domino Kirke affected the way he wanted to approach intimate scenes in his acting career moving forward, including on You.

“I asked [the creator of the show] Sera Gamble, ‘Can I just do no more intimacy scenes?’” Badgley explained during the podcast episode. “This is actually a decision I’d made before I took the show.”

He continued: “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. Fidelity in every relationship, and especially my marriage, is really important to me.”

Badgley further explained why the decision was so important to him as an actor and a husband. (Badgley and Kirke married in 2017 and welcomed son James together in 2020. The couple are currently expecting twins and Badgley is stepfather to Kirke’s son Cassius, 15, from a previous relationship).

“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 said.

He added, “I said to Sera, ‘My desire would be zero, to go from 100 to zero.’ 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.”

The John Tucker Must Die alum added that Gamble was receptive to his request.

“She didn’t even bat an eye. She was really glad that I was that honest, and she had a really positive response,” he said. “She appreciated my directness, and she appreciated that I was being reasonable and practical. And they came back with a phenomenal reduction.”