Penn Badgley Asked To Film “Zero” Sex Scenes For You Season 4

Joe Goldberg will never stop being Joe Goldberg — even if Penn Badgley wants him to. On a new episode of his Podcrushed podcast, Badgley revealed that he asked not to film any sex scenes for You Season 4. The Netflix series follows Joe as he becomes infatuated with many women to the point of stalking and, in most cases, killing them, and while sex scenes are a natural part of that story, the actor had some strong reasons to tone down the raunchiness.

"I asked Sera Gamble, the creator, 'Can I just do no more intimacy scenes?' This is actually a decision I had made before I took the show,” he explained. “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?” He also wanted to avoid sex scenes because of his marriage to Domino Kirke, with whom he welcomed his first child in September 2020. “Fidelity in every relationship, and especially my marriage, is important to me,” he said. “And it just got to that point where I don't want to do that.”

However, even he knew that Joe Goldberg wouldn’t be his most authentic self without getting a little down and dirty. “My desire would be zero, to go from 100 to zero,” he said. “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.”

Luckily for him, Badgley said that You creator Gamble “didn't even bat an eye” at his unexpected request. “She was very glad that I was that honest,” he recalled. “She had a really positive response.” But of course, she didn’t adhere completely, instead giving him a “reduction” on hot and heavy moments. In the fourth season, Joe does get involved with Charlotte Ritchie’s character Kate, though their few intimate scenes are much less raunchy than fans have seen in previous seasons. The same cannot be said for Lukas Gage’s character though, meaning You viewers still have many NSFW moments ahead.