Penn Badgley

thirty million dollar mansions. So like, if you think you're on the outside, Dan Humphrey, I'm sorry, but you have a lot of learning to do. Hi. My name is Penn Badgeley and I am you. Hi everybody. As always, I'm your host, Brian bamb Gartner, and today we are truly going off the beat. Thanks for joining me. Today's guest. He's charming, he's thoughtful, he's incredible, likable, and he plays

a serial killer on TV. I'm talking, of course, about the uber talented Penn Badgeley, a man who is as much at home on his podcast talking about the awkward middle school years as he is luring people to their deaths on the hit show you talk about range. Pen and I we have a lot in common. We're both actors, we both love many of the same people, some of whom co starred with him on Gossip Girl of course, where he played Dan Humphrey. And we're both always watching. No,

not really, but seriously. I loved hearing about Penn's unique journey growing up on television and now he's reflecting on it over twenty years later with his podcast pod Crushed, which coincidentally I'm a guest on this month as well. Give that a listen if you want to hear about my awkward junior high years. Can't wait for you to hear this one. I won't make you wait any longer. Here he is my new friend, Penn Badgeley, Bubble and Squeak. I love it. Bubble and Squeak on Bubble and Squeaker

Cookie every month left over from the night before. Pen. It's great to see you. Where are you? You're I'm in New York City. You're in New York You're in You're in a very official I podcast studio. It's branded and everything it is well so this is it's it's funny because the first year of producing and recording our podcast, I was in a different super jan Kie environment every

for every interview. And actually, if you look at some of the stuff we've put together on social media, when we weren't even trying to be visual, but we just had some zoom footage, I'm in a different place every time. The lighting is terrible, Like I have facial here and that's very unkempt, whereas now it's there, but it's kempt and it's m Yeah. And so now I'm like getting used to. I get on the train and I come and it's like taking care of and we have our

engineer here, and we have our producer. It's like, it's yeah, it's if this is podcasting, signed me up? This is it? Now. I have to ask you, this is like such a lame, lame, lame Hollywood question. Do we know each other? Did we know from back in the day? But I don't think so, you don't. But here's why it's easy to be somewhat certain. I've lived in New York for the last fifteen years, and I really don't run into people the same way.

We'll see. Here's the thing. I randomly became, which, of course we'll talk about Gossip Girl in a little bit. I randomly became friends slash friendly with virtually your entire cast in New York City, really so like Ed and Sebastian stand Chase and all sort of through Jeff z or Ah. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's then you know what it were you it would have been in New York because I really haven't been to a much.

So if you were around when the show was still on the air, when Gossip Girl was still going, then I suppose it's possible, yes, but if neither of us remember it, it probably wasn't. I think we can go ahead and say, nice to meet you. Yeah, nice to meet you. That sounds makes sense. Nice to meet you. Yes, you know, Gossip Girls started shortly before the Office, and you guys were so big and so hip, which was

the opposite of us at that time. I uh, when you started, I mean you, well when for sure, when we started, but also but even throughout you know, the we weren't. We weren't like paparazzi stalked and like, we weren't living that sort of well gossip girl type life. I guess you're just creating the most watched television show I think in history. Is that? Now? What the office is? The U S Office. It's it for sure. Now I don't know, maybe maybe I love Lucy or something. It's

still okay, it's still bigger. But um yeah. So so I had some crazy like New York experiences like oh, this is the back door of a place, like I wasn't used to that. Yes, I still don't know how to get in the front door. I've actually talked my way into the front door of a club once, exactly once in my life, in the first season of Gossip Girl, the first and last time I ever did it. I still don't know how to wield that hammer, and and

it's it's comical. But you know, if a back door is open to me and I'm being ushered through it, sure thing. Yeah, it's easy. Yeah, all right, Well I want to start back before that. You're a You're a difficult guy to pin down in terms of the question where are you from. It sounds like you were born in Maryland and then going to move to Virginia at two years old. Packed up my bags. Yeah, then I was also in Washington State. By the time I was

I think eight or nine. And then I was in l A, l A, pursuing a career as an actor at the right old age of twelve, and about time I was twenty, I was in New York City. Okay, so you you went, you went the opposite way. You're one of the very very few who moved from l

A to New York. That doesn't usually happened. No, I mean I was really lucky in a number of ways when Gossip Girl came along, even though even though it was something that I have spoken a lot about, how like, you know, sort of in the beginning, I wasn't sure it seems to be the way I signed on to things because it was the same with my show You Now. But I yeah, I mean one of the great gifts

that brought was living in New York City. Truly, I cannot well, any other life is a fantasy, but I can't imagine not having been in New York in my twenties. And it's very intense, by the way, like the city is exhausting, so that fifteen sixteen years later, I'm like, you know, having to process what that was. But but man, yeah, it's an incredible place to be. Where would you say, what place influenced you the most before you're your move to New York. It sounds like you were in in

in Washington State for quite a while. Yeah, every everywhere was a different kind of influence, each one of them pretty deep. I think the one that resonates the most is Washington State because at that age I was just nine to twelves and those are such formative years. And then by the time I was in l A. You know, those are formative years as well. But then, of course, like any like any teenager, I became to disdain the

place that I lived. And I think, um, being a an actor, you of course, you know, the relationship you developed with l A is different then if you do something else right, you know, And so I think by the time I was twenty, I really wanted to get out. I always wanted to live in in New York, and so then the opportunity came, and so yeah, I'd say Washington State, that place is the place that feels like my home before it all kind of started. Before it started. Um,

were you named after a tennis ball brand? I was. Indeed, Now that doesn't really mean anything because there was no attachment to the brand. My parents were not that's not even that's it's tennis players. Well, my dad was a tennis player, but not you know, I mean, it's like it was more of a happenstance where he was he was bouncing gripping a pen tennis ball just sort of like because it was there and it was a stress thing. And my mom said, uh, oh, he's about the size

of that tennis ball. Right now, I think they've just gotten the first sonogram. I don't know if a story is. I don't know if they were actually in the hospital at a time or if what what it was. But but then and then he just looked at the ball and then in that moment they knew pen. That's that's the Yeah, fascinating. Do you think that that that bouncinus influenced anything later on? Back and forth? Uh, that's interesting.

I've never thought of that. And my relationship with tennis is I really like to watch it, but I've never been a tennis person. I don't it doesn't. Here's where the name means something to me is that I kind of I went through this phase where I got into them. The etymology of the word pen like a like a like a writing pen, even though that's technically not I mean, it has an extra end, so I don't know if

that just makes it a name or whatever. But like the idea that a pen point is like, it's like this, like I don't know the point where things come to a head. It's it kind of used to mean like a general. I think in Germanic. It's sort of like the root of the word used for a general. Yeah, it's kind of I don't know, interesting esoteric stuff. But now the name, the name, doesn't I like it because it's unique. Yes, I rarely ever see the name or hear the name in any of the reference than to me,

you know what I mean. So that's kind of interesting, Like you know, people who have a name, like it's more common, they're accustomed to meeting people with their name. I I have only met one other person named pen And incidentally, my mother's neighbor for a very brief period. My mother lived in Colorado, and she actually when she

first moved in to this suburban street in Colorado. This is like I don't want to say, six seven, eight years ago, she uh had somebody left cookies on her front door and it said, you know, nice to meet your neighbor signed pen and my mom. The way she describes it, she literally was like what and like she didn't see who it was. She was just so she was having like a brain glitch, like a matrix moment, you know, like what do you mean That's not possible.

And it turns out the woman who lived next door, she was like in her forties. I think she had like two kids. She was from. Her heritage is a West Indies, so she's black, and so it's it's it's an interesting funny story that the only other woman me or my family has ever met was an older black woman who lived next right to my mom. You know that's kind of I like that the name has that spectrum. Yeah,

it does, you know, it does. It transverses the world. Now, I have to tell you, in the weirdest coincidence ever, I have only met one other pen And Gilette to him on this podcast, very very recently, and I will tell you, well, you have you have a lot to live up to. He was, he's fascinating. Yeah, he's pretty incredibly smart and intuitive, and he immediately invited me, well not immediately, but at the end of our conversation invited me to a show of his in Vegas and I

have never been. And after the conversation, I was like, anytime, and I will just fly there to come and hang out with you. And that actually makes me feel like I've never felt this way about like another quote unquote celebrity. That's sort of I don't operate like that. But that just made me realize like he is the only other famous pen I'm aware of. He uh, and he's a profound dude. He's like he's their act Penn and Teller

is is I think brilliant. I mean I've never really dug into it, but I I've never seen it live. But you're making me feel like somehow I really want to reach out to him, and just because he is so smart, you need to and it'll Pen and Pen. Yeah, Pen and Pen, that's an episode we gotta get him for our podcast. Yeah, Pen and Pen, you just give me credit just in the in the bottom corner. Definitely, You're not gonna get any points or anything but points. Points. Points. Yeah,

It's just I've never had points in anything yet. Points are what you get when something is not worth anything, right, right, right right. However, However, if you get in I mean, you know, on a show like yours or if it's well, I know, I'm not saying that you guys did it. I'm just saying like, there is that rare like Keianna Reeves famously got him, he didn't he like rather than getting paid a lot for the matrix, he got some points.

Well those are good points to have, Yeah, exactly if you can stumble onto something that is going to turn the giant. Yes, Um, when did you start becoming interested in acting? Now? I understand you did some stuff for Seattle Children's Theater, so this is young. But was this a hobby or was this something you were really interested in pursuing? I mean both it it went from a hobby. My first creative passion is music that was kind of from birth pretty evidently, which with my toddler actually seems

to be the same case. Really really his love music from the get go and has a very specific kind of taste. So yeah, singing performing in that way was like something that I think my heart desired. But the way it became acting I can't really recall, except that there were some school players pretty young and then and but then really what did it was that I was clearly a very creative person. Actually, the thing I spent

the most time doing was drawing. I would draw and listen to music and I didn't sing that much that at that point. But but then when we moved to Washington State, we lived in the middle of nowhere, and I needed a social outlet because it was just the beginning of summer. I had no school, nothing like that, and my mom and I would drive to this, uh, this theater house. It was like few miles away in a town called Monroe. And that was when I fell in love with the practice. A crew of cast, you know,

like there's sometimes nothing better. It's like this communal experience. You get to meet so many different kinds of people, especially when you're that age. You know most kids are. Most kids are surrounded by kids only their age, which is a construct of school you think about, it's not totally natural what I love. I loved being around just adults and all different kinds of people, creative people. I

just I really loved it. And then I saw Seattle as this like um because I didn't live in Seattle, and when I would go into Seattle later when I was doing plays in the city, I just felt some Metropolitan would go to the museum and stuff. I just it just felt like like the arts with this access to the world, you know, And and so I didn't just love acting. I loved the entire thing. You know,

it just was like magical. It just it was it was lovely and so I really pretty and I don't know, I mean it just that couldn't have matter been doing anything else. You bring up something I've never thought about before. But it's so true. I mean, if you think about school and you think about sports, even at a young age to right, I mean, you're you're it's like you're playing with nine and ten year olds or eleven, you know,

in on teams. But theater specifically is one place where you have the opportunity to be around and in a way be on the same team with a variety of ages and types and sexes and everything. That is that that's so valuable, I would is no. I mean, I actually think it's a more natural way for people to grow up because you think about schools, schools haven't existed that long, Like we're normally the world is mixed age, Like you know, you're going to be in the world.

So in the way I grew up like in the world, and I think, you look, I mean, it has it's it has its taxes and as its cost. But but there's something about that that I always loved. I really always loved and I and I and I stopped going to school in a traditional sense pretty early on, so you know, yeah, I've I've come to appreciate it. Did

you graduate high school at age thirteen? Technically, what I did was took the California High School State Proficiency Exams, So that's now referred to as the CHEST because it's a bit more popular for kids who were seeking to Basically, what it does is it allows you to work without a tutor on set and without the constraints of like the eight and a half hours or whatever that is. So like I could work for twelve hours and I

wouldn't have to have a tutor. And you know, if you're an autodidact, if you like learning, that's not a bad thing at all, because the set tutor is a little bit of a I didn't five with it, and and I'm again like, I'm not recommending it for all people, but the way that it worked for me was that it is that it worked fascinating. So like basically the equivalent of a G E D or something the exact same thing. It's just a G E D I think is a national thing with this is just in the

state of California. So what I did was I started going to Santa Monica College. I don't know if you've ever been there, but it's a really cool kind of like cultural hub too. Yes, there was another example of how this profession sort of kept opening up the world to me. You know, I was taking sociology at a college level when I was like fourteen, and I loved that. I loved that. I took photography, you know, and I was taking drawing and I was drawing models, you know,

and stuff. It was just loved it. I really really loved it. Well, again, this makes a ton of sense. I mean, if you're someone who is interested in the world and wanting to be educated, but not wanting to be because you're because you're working, because you're pursuing something you love, not wanting to be held with those constraints that are sort of artificial, but being able to actually begin focusing and expanding your knowledge with things that you're

interested in, that make a ton of sense. I've actually never heard of that. Never maybe I haven't been around smart kids. I didn't. I never occurred to me that, oh well if you if you place out, you you don't have to be under those same rules or do the set school or whatever. Yeah, well, I mean and to be to be again to kind of underscore like I didn't, I didn't test out of high school in

in that way that you would think of. What really started happening was that, like this other way of of being able to make things work and have a sort of a career and occupation started to present itself very early, so that it seemed like a safe enough gamble to be like, you know what, what do people go to school for? What do you do it for? They do it to set them up, right, I mean, you don't like unfortunately people don't really go there to learn. You

do it because you basically have to. If you don't go to school, your child services will be called in your parents at something. Right, So you know it's like, but that's again, this is kind of a construct like and so and again. And you know, I don't believe in children should not all go to Hollywood. It's the

last place really they should be, you know. So it's like it does not work for everybody, but I managed to cut a path that that again, it came with some costs, but ultimately, like was this really rich sort of exposure to culture and a different kind of education that you know, I never lost the love for learning, actually, And that's interesting because a lot of people get to

college and they're just exhausted by the academic experience. I personally, you know, I read more than most people I know, and I think one of these one of the reasons is is this right, I just love to absorb. You know, you went to Los Angeles then, specifically at that point fourteen to pursue a career. Yeah, yeah, the cliff notes

are yes. The longer answer is, no one at thirteen, No one as a child is going with a parent to l a to pursue a career without some aspect of the family being like people needing to get away from each other, parents getting divorced, that sort of thing. So it's you know, it's always I mean, if you look at Hollywood as it like a control experiment or something, you know, you know that child actors are coming from often a lot of a lot of stuff and and

so and so that was a part of it. But I did have the genuine desire to act, to pursue a life as a creative person, as an artist. And I'm not even saying that that's what I achieved, but that is what brought me there. And you know, and then I started working right off the bat, uh in

in television and I virtually have not stopped since. Yeah, you had a number of recurring roles early on Young and the Restless, which, by the way, in terms of an education doing a soap opera, learning quickly how to be on set and how to be efficient and work, that's a great education, right, Yeah, I mean, you know, I did it briefly enough that I think, Yeah, it

was just it kept me working. It kept me like if like I didn't study a lot, and as an actor, I was just sort of living by doing or sorry, learning by doing. And um, it was just it all was training, it all, you know, all those sort of

recurring roles. I remember being very very nervous every time I went to Younger than Restless because it was right next to the Prices right studio, Okay, and that just is an iconic kinda I mean, young people now don't probably don't even know what that it is, but like, you know, it just was in the days of network television being the only way you consume anything and it

being like a pillar of everybody's sort of life. You know, television news there to raise me and you know, the Price is Right is there to keep me company and you know what I mean, like so the Price is Right being a living, real thing right next to where we shot and everything, as you said, it moves fast, so like as a kid. Oh man, Actually, I haven't thought about this in a long time, but I was always so nervous going to work there because it just

seemed huge. It was the CBS studios, you know, CBS Radford just this like giant kind of old Hollywood vibe everybody. Yeah, it's yeah. I'm always fascinated with people who get into the business. And I hate the phrase to business, but I just used it early. Do you feel like you had a normal childhood? No? No, no, no, no not at all. No. I mean, in fact, part of what I even started my podcast for, which is like it's called podcrushed. It's this is not a plug, it's just

the truth. Um. We were exploring middle school partly. And my two co hosts have their own middle school experiences, their own life experiences. Actually their teachers, they were teachers before they left at all the come stars. No, that's

not what they're doing. But um, but I yeah, I mean I'm kind of openly processing what it was to have a late childhood and an adolescence and teen years and even early and even my twenties in in in this this business, you know, and and under the public eye more and more, and it's not normal yet it's not. I It's like, I, you know, just face value. It's like, wouldn't recommend it. It's like, if you go that route, be ready for soon. Some life brings us all challenges.

I would say this, this kind of challenge is is extreme and it's unique, and there's no there's no clear reason anybody should subject themselves to it. That's what I would say, except except that you loved it. Well yeah, and so that's yeah, yeah, that's true. I mean, look, yes, um, but you know, I love the whole thing, and my pure love of the craft ultimately is what's carried me through.

But so much of it I don't feel as though I've spent like refining the very participating in the art and refining the craft in its purest sense, so that like, you know, I don't feel as I've been living my life as like a working artist. That's not really what it feels like. It feels like I got into this business and it's very much a business, and then I spent a really long time doing like succeeding in the

business as a player in it. And then I think, only now, after all this time, do I start to real they feel as though I can take some control of that and and and reclaim this feeling of being an artist, to be honest. Yeah, again, it's always interesting to me when I talked to someone who started so young, because I didn't quite frankly, and even talking about you know, being involved in theater and you know, having a variety,

you know, being around people of different age. That really wasn't my experience because you know, I was essentially early on doing school play, so it was all my age essentially, So you know, I was even then playing the sixty year old may On or whatever. But you know the next next next to my friend was playing the young lover or whatever. Um, so yeah, you know, it was just it was just very and it wasn't until after, you know, after I got out of school that that

that really started for me. But I I just I find it so interesting in it it makes sense that at such a young age you would feel sort of out of control and trying to find your way and make your way and not being able to sort of guide yourself down, you know as you as you say, an artist path, but really just trying to survive. And then you know, in your case, succeed in the business the business of acting. Yeah, which by the way, is a statistical anomaly. Success in the business is actually the

exception that proves the rule that you will fail. I mean not to sound like what I mean is that anyone you succeed succeeding is actually the anomaly. The business is not one that offers any kind of like merit based metric. It's not. It's like it is. It is you see someone doing what you want to do. Guess what if it's a numbers thing that they're doing, it means that you can't, that you won't. I'm not based

on your worth, not based on fairness. This is not just, but it is the way that it is, like the percentage of people who succeed versus the percent of people who fail is so disproportionate. Son even succeeding in all of it is like, wow, what is what is? It's gets, it's it's it's a it's a crazy thing that we do. You uh, nineteen twenty years old, you already have a ton of credits under your belt. I was ready. I'm not kidding. I was ready to hang it up before

I took Crossip Girl. I've been doing television for so long. Really, it was already so disillusioned with the process. I had done so many shows, series leads, series that at all gone to series, not just pilots that had then failed and been canceled. We try to get that back nine, you know what I mean? You know the first season in the office, you know, you know, how is it a struggle a compatas to get a show to make it? And I was just like, you know, I can't do

TV anymore. I just can't. And that's why when Crossip Grow came along, I initially did say no, but anyway, sorry, you can know so you you so no, So you you have the opportunity for Gossip Girl comes and you say no, Yeah, I mean so so the so the co creator, Stephanie Savage, she actually asked me. She emailed me the script and she said, you know, I feel like you will have already she her words in my memory are I think that you will feel like you've

already done this, which is play the flappy haired, awkward kid. Okay, because that's what I had done on the show we'd worked together on like two or three years previous. When I was seventeen years old. I lived in Vancouver for the best six months on a show called The Mountain where I was playing this young professional snowboarder and a show that was basically like the pitch was. It was Dynasty on a Mountain, Okay, and she co created that show with mcg at the time was huge with the

OC and all this stuff. So then she and Josh Schwartz got together to to make Gossip Girl, and um, she emails me the concept the script and was like, I would really love you to look at it, Dan, even though I feel like you you'll probably not want to do it. And I read it and I said thank you, and you're right, you know, thank you for thinking of me, but respectfully like, yeah, this is just not what I'm interested in doing right now, and the

opportunity went away and they cast everybody else. I couldn't find who they thought was Dan. Um. She comes back and sort of gives me a little bit of a a plea, I mean plea maybe sounds not. It wasn't like desperate, it was more like it. She she pitched me on the idea that I was Dan and Um, I ultimately was sold on it and and said, yes,

why what made you change your mind? Um? Honestly something that did not even pan out, like I don't feel like she was she she meant what she said, but what she said was that she was interested in the fact that he was like the sort of moral center of the show, like a sort of male lead of

the show I think at its outset. And she was sort of pitching me on like this idea that three years prior I had done our show where I started out in a in a recurring role, and then that role became slowly kind of the heart of how she saw the show that I was in every episode I think in the end and by the end, I was like a really a main character, and she was like, you know, think about that's that was the ark with your last guy, you know, And I've done another series

of Warner Brothers since then. And actually he was in college, so I was taking a step back into high school. And at twenty years old, I was like, high school? Are you kidding me? Like I'm like, like my sideburns are down to my jaw. I don't, I don't, I'm not. I'm not, like you know all I've never even been to high school. And I honestly was just I just so wanted to play other things and other people and and and other ideas. But she kind of had this idea.

She was like, you know, this time, you'll be starting out as a sort of heart of the show, and you know, just think of where it can go from there and and what's interesting about class of Girl. And I say this as a witness, not as like a I think I took it personally initially, and I am I complained as a young and but what I see it now and just just purely with detachment and like you know, distance and time. The whole point at Gossip Girl was that Dan was not meant to He was

not the heart. Like the show wasn't so concerned with having a heart. It was concerned with this aspirational as we say, this sort of fantasy of of the of the elite, you know, of the of the glamorous, of which basically doesn't exist, you know, but but yeah, it's this like fantasy life of youth. And and actually, in Chuck and Blair, who I think very quickly became the clear heart or hearts of the show, or the bivalve heart of the show, the whole point was that they

were not moral. The whole point was that they were. They weren't immoral, but they were a moral They were sort of like, they did what served them. And at the end of the day, because they were portrayed by two talented actors, those characters had such depth and such range because actually, when you play people who are who are not sure about what's right, you ultimately get a more compelling story. And I mean that's why, you know, years later, I'm playing a serial killer and people haven't

ever responded more positively, you know. And I think it's a sign of like the sort of stories that we're interested in, in in what we get from stories. It's actually very hard to tell a story about a moral center. It's it's I'm not saying that it's not a good story.

I'm not saying it's not worth trying, but I'm saying that it's Currently we live in an age where it's it's more compelling off the bat to tell a story about a bad person who's trying, who's trying, because I think we can identify more readily with that visceral level of struggle. And people also don't want to be told what's yeah, exactly, what is right? Yeah, Actually that's never worked with anybody, so any right, yeah, then it becomes

preaching well exactly. And I think in sense, Dan coupled with the way that I unconsciously played him, became righteous and annoying, you know. And and that's and that makes sense at least, I'll say this. I think true stands of Gossip Girl usually seem to align with the Chuck and Blair kind of like thing. And that's that. I do think it's really seems to me, like I remember

when it happened the first season was episode six. They were the kind of unexpected relationship that then just worked and then it became the heart of the show really and and I think that no one anticipated that, but it was a sign of the times. It was like, ah, and a sign of what you just said, which is like, you can't start out with somebody who's who's like always right or something or who and who always thinks that they're good and then just complains about how no one

else is as good as them. That's not that's not as interesting, it's not and it's not it's actually not humble in the end, did you view yourself as the outsider on the ship? In life? On the show? On the show, did I view Dan as the outsider? As Dan as the outsider? I mean, that's who he's identified as. But to me, the joke is always like, bro, how much more on the inside could you be? You're just not in the deepest of the inner circle. But you're

in the same school. You're you're a you're a white boy. You know, you're you know, your dad was a rock star, and you live in a three million dollar apartment rather than a thirty million dollar mansion. So like, if you think you're on the outside, Dan Humphrey, I'm sorry, but you have a lot of learning to do. You just aren't literally inside the inside of the inside. You're just on the outspirit of the inside, you know. So Uh, when did you find out that that he's got the

Gossip Girl? I think right like just the day before we started shooting in that final episode I believe now at the beginning of that season, the producers did tell me they kind of cryptically like Dan is going to assume more power this season, so I just get ready and and you know, in a typically seasons or twenty six episodes, but we that's season only did a half

order like of ten or something like that. So I remember thinking like, wells, you have to get there pretty soon or um, yeah, And but I didn't know what that meant. And I didn't even think that it was about being gossip Girl at all, like not even remotely, because you know, if you try to break it down logically, it's you know, it doesn't really make sense for anybody to have been Gossip Girl other than de Rota or

some other more peripheral character. M hm. I mean this marks the first time that you work on a really long running show with the same group of people, largely the same cast. How how is that? How was that different for you one playing that character um being able to play through multiple arcs over several seasons, but also play alongside your cast mates for for that long. You know,

it's a lot of things. I mean, the first things that come to mind are totally like sensory and mo stional, like man, it was just those superformative years of being in your early and mid twenties and youth. How was it, you know, the arcs, the character, the cast. I feel like for me, I was never as invested in the story as I was in the experience. I was never as invested in the show as I was in like the set, like the like the cast and crew I was.

I was never as invested in Dan as I was in having new experiences as an actor, and so unfortunately, I think what that meant as a as a as a as a young and hungry professional, I constantly felt the limitations of the show and the role, which is not right. You know, it's like it's but it is. It is I think common for such a for for

for young people thrust into that position. But what I do think, I mean, you know, I had, of course the first couple of years, had had a relationship with Blake Lively, and that that that was its own bubble experience of portraying Dan and Serena and being together, and that was really, when you break it down, that's actually

a very surreal experience. Another one I would not necessarily recommend to others, but if you somehow find yourself there, go ahead and journal because it's weird, of course, which I'll you know, always be grateful for those experiences, really really lovely things ultimately went out in memory. But but weird, you know, it's it's it's a it's an intensive way

to do things. And yeah, I don't even know what I think about the character because to me, it's very that that show was so intimately connected to our personal lives in the tabloids. I gotta honestly say, like, and I'm saying this again as a witness, this is not in the realm of complaint. I really see it as like we were too young to really understand what's going on. It was too much of a frothy pop gossip an

engine on its own, you know. And I just feel like it was very hard to separate life from from fiction. And yes, and I personally didn't like that. I actually didn't want more of that. I can't. I don't know how you guys did it. Now, I joked with jess Or about this, and I was not going to say this to you because I didn't know what your experience was or what you know. Look, I don't follow the tabloids, so I don't. To me, it doesn't matter what the

machinations or what the pairings were. But all I know is every time I would run into those guys, which I would run into jess Or Chase or Sebastian or Ed as I mentioned at various times throughout the year, but months would go by because I was in l A and you guys were in New York. I couldn't I couldn't keep it straight. I couldn't keep it straight who was with who because I felt like one summer two of you guys would be together, and by Christmas

time that wasn't happening anymore. But everybody was still cool with each other and going out together. Yeah, I mean, but now you were with someone else and it was playing out differently on the show, so that was confusing. I don't know how you did it. I don't know how you how you lived through it. I truly don't. Again, I don't recommend it to anybody, but if you find yourself in the position, journal my friend, you journal like

you have never journal before. It'll be really interesting later on, and you're gonna need to process it with your therapist. So it's just a short cut, a short cut. You You you cling to that journal, young gossip girl. You cling onto it like your sanity depends on it. Um. You know, it's funny as that I didn't journal throughout those years, and which is why I'm saying is but um, yeah, man, look I mean it. It is a it is a

completely constructed thing. It's not normal to to to put we're portraying people younger than we are who live relationships as though they're forty year old billionaires, right, you know, the sort of the level of emotional nuance and like sexual experience that all these teenagers are meant to be demonstrating, it literally is more like the it's more like the love lives of a theater company in Paris in like nineteen twenty. Like, it's not the way that teenagers live,

and not even most adults in America live. Um, but then you know you you so, so we're they're kind of bringing that thing to life. And then but then you keep us together for years on end without any any of course elsewhere, like we couldn't unless we die on the show, we can't. We can't get out of this thing. We're not gonna so so so we're continually

thrust together. And I think the reality is that young actors actors in general, really relate to one another in a way that no one else is going to be able to relate, which is often why they find relationships together. You know, Um, it's actually why I cherished so much that my wife is not an actress. Yes, but I realized now why I was, why I had a couple of significant relationships with actresses, because no one else can quite understand what you're doing and and uniquely on that show,

what was happening then, So you know, that's right, that's right. No, but yeah, you you guys at that time, and part of it was in New York too. I mean, I think that's a huge New York a huge party. You were the biggest kind of pop hit culture show in New York and you're all and who else can relate to you at that well, just one of the people you're working with exactly, No, exactly, And you know, to be fair, the way that Blake and I got in relationship and sort of more or less clung to one another.

I think it was a certain it was a safety and it and it worked by the way, like I think those first couple of years of the show was when we were all gonna get broadsided by fame and all that more than any other you know, And I think in a way we were it was a safety mechanism. Like I'm not saying that it was in a legitimate relationship and we loved each other and stuff, but you know, when I look back, I'm like, man, I'm thankful for

that relationship for that reason. You know, we we actually didn't engage socially the same way that that that everyone else kind of was thrust into it because you know, the other relationships were cycling through a lot faster and for better or worse, ours was longer and that and I do think it was a safety. You keep in touch with those guys still, you know. So I had Chase on the show, and I oh, and I had Laton on the show and Sebastian. So it's kind of

like a smattering. It's like a it's like a we don't were like roommates from college where we remember each other fondly, but we're not always right in touch, you know. Yeah, you talked earlier of your first and maybe more significant love of music. Um, I want to talk to you little bit about mother, Okay, yeah, with an X, with an X, yes, I have to be clear about that. Were you excited, I mean this this starts around the

time Gossip Girl ends. Were you excited to do something in a new direction and pursue that sort of original love? Very yeah? Actually know it's funny, I haven't. I haven't spoken about mother really in an interview at length in a while, I don't think, which is so thank you for the opportunity. Um. Yeah. So by the time gossip Girl was ending, Remember how I said that I I was kind of thinking about hanging it up at least in terms of television by the by the time Gossip

Girl came around, right, So I felt that way. Even more so by the end of gossip Girl because it was such a full on experience, I really wanted to pursue acting more. I didn't know what kind of opportunities would present themselves. So I knew, you know, I've done a few great film roles that were very encouraging and inspiring and then ultimately lead to music because I played a role I played of Buckley in this in this very kind of small, quiet biopic. It was not a

traditional biopic in that sense. It's just like this little snapshot right kind of viaby movie and playing a musician, you know, it was just finally kind of things felt like they were meeting where I loved and then and then after so yeah, so Gossip Girl ends, and I just really wanted to play music and I had. I mean, the key thing is that I had this great friendship with His name is Jimmy Gianopolis, who's actually now directing movies,

and I've done is it one or two? I feel like I've done bit parts and at least one of his movies. But it's funny that I can't remember because we that's the nature of our relationship. We we we met back in what we just immediately knew that we would make things together. By the time Gossip girlins and late finally there's some time we start recording this thing.

We include two other friends, the four of us become this really tight knit unit for like a month and make this record, and then we got a deal and and toured that record on and off for three years. And by the end of those three years, we had

done what is very hard to do. We had gone to a point where we could sell out, you know, like a five capacity club and in all the major in like a major city like New York, London, l A, places in South America as well, like and uh, we we could have actually kept continued except the fact that like we'd we'd overcome those professional hurdles of making music that people want to go see and pay money for in the age of streaming, which is a racket. I don't know how people do it now. It's just insane.

But with the four of us, we're now unfriendly terms. But we we really couldn't work together creatively. Then something some think something about the foundation of the way it all started. It just didn't really pave the way for more than one record to be made. We couldn't. We didn't find that we could work together in the same way, and that's that's a shame, but it is it's also I think very common. You know, it's hard to it's

like being married to to three other guys. You know, it's just it's it's uh engaging in a in a creative and and business partnership is like you better get ready again cling to your journal that that's my maunch for today. Well, but and you're also spending I mean, so you're engaging in business and creative and then you're, as you say, you're going on tour. So then you're also living together. Oh yeah, yeah, and and you know, travel, sleeping,

advance together. And it's always so scrappy because you need to make a lot of money to be able to do that in a way that it's not scrappy tour and uh so it was really, uh it was great. It was actually you know what, it was a little bit like I was finally doing what I never got

to do as a teenager. And then but it was in my my mid to late twenties, I was getting to have a band and like grow out my hair, and we started in shows that were so small and so bad, and then by the end of it, we were actually knowing how to really like rock a crowd

of five hundred, six hundred people, it was like. And we also did play We got the chance to open for much bigger acts and play big festivals, and we would sometimes play for crowds that were like ten fifteen thousand, and that was man, that was actually I can't believe we did that. It's it's it's really, it's really really a lot at that level of performance. It's it's but if you when you find yourself in those moments, like, it is special, it's very special. Yeah. But no, no

more albums and not from other No. And I and I mean, all those guys kept going on with it, and they're all very talented producers and songwriters and musicians and their own right, and they're all just you know, making it work the way that artists do. But yeah, and I might put out of I might. I might actually get it together and put out a record of

some kind in the future. But you know, it's not it's it's what I was saying earlier about, just like the the racket, the age of streaming, the same way that has changed television in a large part in film, it's changed music even more, I think, because it's like the only way to make money as to tour, and touring is a very intense lifestyle, and so I think in order to make it worth it, you need to

be very successful. You had a song on the album called Victim and attempting to make one of the greatest segues in the history of podcasting. I think I know you're going with this your next show. You come on. That was pretty good bright to you that we're going. It's certainly the most unique I've gotten. And I do want to say it's the best because that's a good song too. It's one of my favorite songs of ours.

I knew that. That's why I said it. Uh Stalker murderer Joe Goldberg and you Now I have to tell you, I well, I mean, I guess the word is binged. I binged season one. I have, I have, I have watched every episode of the show. I don't it is we were talking about before, so I'm gonna bring it up now because we're talking about uh you. It is in line with what you know many people call the Golden Age of television, which I identify as being the time where we found the anti hero. Yeah, I would

agree with you. There the greatest you know in in in my opinion, being Tony Rano or or yes, break Walter White breaking Bad, many many others um and I It's it's compelling in that way, but of course different. It is different because it's funny when you say, when you bring up those two, I mean, I don't ever in my mind include Joe Goldberg in the same realm.

And I'm not giving the same kind of performance, and it isn't the same kind of show, but you are right that it is part of In a way, I feel like my show You is now kind of like an entrance into the next iteration of this golden era where of the anti hero, because the show is so like um, almost like self referencing. It's it is popular. It's not the clinical portrayal of a real killer. It's you know what I mean. It's not a man falling

from grace. It's a man starting out as this sort of like evil deconstruction of the same trope we've been imbibing for the last couple of decades, you know, and like John Hughes movies and stuff, romantic tropes of of a good man. Yes, I think that's true. Yeah, And and there's never a real attempt to be good. Yet we do find ourselves caring about him and what ultimately is going to happen to him. Um, I understand you.

You almost didn't take this role as well, right, Evidently that's just part of my character, my my pan Batics character flaws. Yes, I was in a similar position where so after my band mother. Actually, you know what, this was a good segue because you're tracking, you're kind of going through the actual timeline here. I haven't done I haven't done an interview like this in a very long time. Thank you, So kudos to you. I had so my

band had just dissolved. We had just done the thing that was very hard to do, and then realized we couldn't make another record, and so that was a bit of spiriting. I was considering exploring a solo career in music and actually had some meetings set up with labels. The script comes along, and again I actually was like, you know what, this is not initially what I'm interested in.

It felt it just felt like I couldn't appreciate the places it would go and how different it actually was, because you know, when television, you only get to read the pilot, and in the pilot, a lot of what I was resisting was where I felt like I saw Dan Humphrey, you know what I mean, And if you look at the very first scene where Joe meets back,

I'm basically Dan Humphrey. And then performance was because I actually mean you all in every way, the way that I look, the way that I'm acting, the way that the character is behaving. This sort of conceit of a man falling in love with a woman who's unattainable, but who he's actually going to end up with. Um, you know what I mean. It's like, it's it's it's I don't remember the first scene, but I believe he's a book snorting yeah, yeah, and Dan was a writer, you know.

So it's just it's just it's a it's to me, I think, what actually the reason it all works. And then what's brilliant about it is that it's kind of picking up not where Gossip Girl and Dan left off, but it's picking up where that era of that kind of show leaves off. Because look, even the Gossip Girl reboot, it doesn't it's it doesn't hit the same like we don't live in the same age, we don't live in the same political time, we don't live in the same time.

Where like the way climate change literally generates anxiety and generations of youth, we didn't have that. We should have, by the way, but we didn't have it in two thousands seven, you know, like like it's just not the same. People don't feel the same people don't, you know, So

therefore they don't want to see the same thing. And I think why I might show you works is that it kind of brilliantly sees that takes the sort of conceit of a romantic lead, whether he's Dan Humphrey or or he's from something early three decades prior in John Hughes film you know, and it, and it starts there, but says this is there's something wrong with this, there's something wrong with these ideas. Let's start. And I'm not saying that there's nothing right about the idea of romance

in the way we've seen it in movies. But this show is not a show that's doing that. It's exploring what's really actually kind of crazy and toxic about a lot of romantic tropes, particularly in the portrayal of men as romantic leads kind of like needing to win the affection of women and thereby just sort of perpetionally objectifying them. So I think it's to me that's what's really cool. But I couldn't feel and see all of that when

I first read the pilot. I really just saw the things that it shared as opposed to the things that it did really differently, and so I was really really hesitant and and sort of tried to say no to to Greg Berlante. But it was my conversations with him and Sarah Gamble, who co created the show together, and it's really Sarah Gamble's journey as a showrunner's her creation,

her baby. Um, it's my conversations with them that that convinced me that it was like, oh, this is really doing something different and it will be really really interesting to do. I have to ask you a question. Now, there's an obvious answer here, but I'm trying to go a little bit deeper. So indulge me for just a second. Why Joe is a fairly charismatic and on the surface

likable character, Right, He's able, He's a likable guy. He's a you know, moderately attractive of course, played by moderately. I'm stressing that word attractive, played by you. Why does he feel as though he must do what he does? Or is it just I'm trying to get it when yeah, truly exploring like why does he why does he feel he must do what? He does as opposed to break because there are several times I feel like the character is going to break away from this and he can't

do you know why? Well, so there's like three levels to this answer, and I don't know which one to So on one hand, I think the writers would give you a better answer that pertains to the to Joe Goldberg than I can. As an actor. I just I can't really question a lot of this stuff. I just have to believe what I'm saying, and that's what I try to do. And then I think, So there's there's

two levels to it. One is that I think the show is always meant to be more are of a of a metaphor or it's a work of like fiction that is somewhat fantastical and campy in the way that it's exploring the story of this man and always at the end grounding it in something that resonates so profoundly as like emotionally consistent and truth, so that it always comes home in this way that like truly good fiction is of course it's real because it resonates no matter

how fantastical it is. It's doing something where it is like, oh that's yeah, like I'm having a true I'm having some kind of reflection that it's worthwhile because it's like there's something true here even though it's a total fiction.

In that way, there's something deep happening. But I think when it comes to Joe as a killer and as a person who really does that behavior, I don't think he's I don't think anybody's ever tried to ground him in in like the clinical reality of someone who does that, this sort of pathological makeup, you know what I mean, Because I think like at the end of the day, he feels too much and is maybe too inconsistent to truly be what a real killer would be, like say,

I don't know, but then us at the same time, I think Ted Bundy was evidently very like I don't know, he had a lot, he had what didn't he have like a family and he and then there's a gay cy I guess, was like evidently loved by his community, and and so you know, there's there's I actually don't know that much about zero Killers in in truth. I mean, I I just think that what the writers are exploring

is something different. I think it's like an I think it's like an exercise you know, it's like a meditation. And so there are things that Joe does that are you know, maybe impossible or inconsistent, and that's not the point. I think the point is where examining something and it

always comes home in something that really makes sense. And so then on the other level, where if Joe is, if we're trying to understand why Joe really does this, which is to say why anybody could or would do this, it all has to do with I think unprocessed trauma.

You know, it comes to maleness, like masculinity, when it comes to whiteness, when it comes to any any behavior that someone exhibits that is ultimately violent to like another group of people, because it's not Joe does kill people, but it's he's uniquely violent towards women, the same way that like there is racial violence. It is if something is racially motivated, something is motivated by a bias, you know, by prejudice. As my understanding, you know, many brilliant, famous

thinkers have said something like this. The person who comes to mind is Bell Hooks, a black woman sort of think her philosopher activists many things. She said something the effect of, like, you know, the first casualty in um, she didn't say toxic masculinity because I I don't think that was such so much to phrase them, which in my understanding, she's talking about like, you know, maleness, like in male violence, you know, but the first casualty is

to that man, to his soul. And I think it's the same and racially motivated violent all forms of violence, you know, the first act, the first casualty, the first act of violence is to the person who's perpetrating it. And I think that one of the reasons this show also really resonates is that that is we're looking at again, not a clinical portrayal, but like this sort of the way that something in Lord of the Rings resonates as true.

It's ultimately about like what perseverance, about friendship, about I don't know, like I'm not really sure. I'm not really Lord of the Rings person, but it's right, like, it's not about it's not about the ring, it's about something else. That's what this show is. Well, that's what I think, That's what I think. Yeah, I know, I agree with you.

I mean there's something about as you mentioned before, well one the objectification of women by him, for sure, But I think that also, And I think what it is why it just the show I can't stop watching it is it has to do it. It's something about it's the idealization of what love love and specifically what what Hollywood quote unquote or movies or shows or whatever tells us about love and what it should be or what

it can be and how it should manifest itself. I agree with you, Yeah, yeah, I know That's what I've tapped into as a thinking person with my role. I don't always necessarily think about this, like between action and cut, Like when I'm having Joe, it's like, it just is what it is. But the way that it really are resonates to me is exactly what you said, Like it isn't even about you know when I talk about yeah, it isn't even really about It isn't just about the

objectification of women. It's it's it is I think much more about, like, well, this guy like if he's if he's doing all this, the first person he's doing it to is an self, but because he can't recognize that, he then has to do it to other people, you know. And so and I think that really crazy myth of love that Hollywood has unconsciously and also in some cases consciously sold us basically since its inception is that that you you have to feel as though you're like addicted

to a freaking drug. Otherwise there's no love. Otherwise there's passion and and it's akin to believing in magic. It's like, if I'm not feeling these feelings like I can't have anything to do with love, then if it's not a practice, it's not a discipline. It's this magical feeling that visits me that I have to feel, and if I don't

feel it, then I must not be in love. And you know, all people I think are somewhat victim to this idea of love that is actually really really unhelpful if you want to have a relationship, and I think Joe is more than anything victim to that. It's like, you don't understand the first thing about love. You actually don't. You actually do not understand a single thing about it. And you know what that is sad, and you know what the first person to get hurt and all of

that is you. That's the title at all, Just you fascinating season four coming up, your directorial debut. That's right? Yeah, how was that was? That fun. It was fun. It was also like we didn't have time for me to watch playback, so it was chaotic. I mean I was I was kind of directing with my eyes closed. So I I feel good about it. I feel good about the cut. I haven't seen the final finals. They take it and do their do their do their work to it.

But UM, great experience overall, like, yeah, something you want to keep doing. I don't know that I can do it on my show. In fact, I'm almost positive I can't. It was too much at all. At the same time, it just wasn't really feat because Joe is placed so centrally in the show, like there was no opportunity for me to prep adequately. So again, the thing that enables me to do it is also of the thing that

hinders me from doing it. So I think, like I would love, I mean I do, I am in the works to direct something else, but but not I don't think I can do my own show what We'll See. You mentioned it before pod Crushed Premier this year earlier this year. How has how has that been? Man, it's been It's been a real joy, you know, because it's like, even though it's only one half of the medium of film.

It's just the audio mostly. UM say for bonus content, would you can find it on on YouTube channel would Um It's like it's an exercise and production, you know, I mean I kind of love it, Like like me and my two producing partners, we're cutting our teeth with it

and it's it's great. It's um you know. And just this the stories that we get from everybody, I think is really lovely because everybody can relate to feeling of rejection and awkwardness and insecurity prof I mean deep insecurity, Like it doesn't matter who you are, the level of insecurity you feel when you're in middle school is is essentially as deep as it's ever going to get. And and that, I don't know, it shapes who we are.

It shapes how we how we see the world and what we think of it, and how we see ourselves and how we behave in all of our relationships. So I think if you, you know, if you tap into it the right way, you can get anywhere from something that is really really really funny and light to something that is frankly, really really intense. And we've kind of

had all those stories. We've had stories of stories of a breakup that is so painfully awkward but superficial because they're like eleven two stories of someone losing their mother, you know, And I mean it literally is that spectrum. It's like it's like it's it and and it's all in these you know, stories that are written in from from people who listen to the show. And then of course that isn't those stories are not the heart of

the show with everybody. All of our guests come on and tell, you know, various story from middle school and we just kind of go from there. But at the end of every every episode there's a there's a narrated story by me from one of our listeners, and you know, it's just it's like, as I said before, it's it's almost been like a way to process. I mean, I didn't finish middle school, you know. And the two people that I'm doing the show with their two teachers, so

they didn't. They're not only finished middle school, they then went back to it as adults, so you know, more right, and so we're coming at it from a lot of angles in a way. Well, I have been really enjoying I've been catching up on episodes recently because spoiler alert there's gonna be a very special guest. How special, odd, really really special. I can only promise specialness. I'm I'm very much looking forward to that, Penn, thank you so much.

Thanks chatting. Yeah, man, thank you so much for having me on. Uh, congratulations on all the success of course, and on the new season of you. And just just know this, I will I will be watching you. We got a new Joe Goldberg right here. Thank you, Thank you, Thanks Ben Pen. Awesome time talking with you. You may be the second pen on this show, but you are absolutely tied for first place in my heart. Hi. I hope you're ready for a very special guest on your podcast.

No no, no, my friend, you cannot keep me away. I am going to get pod crushed. For all you listeners, I hope you enjoyed today's episod owed as much as I did getting to No Pen. We've got a very special episode for you next week end of the year, coming round. We will see you that. Off the Beat is hosted an executive produced by me Brian Baumgartner, alongside our executive producer Langley. Our senior producer is Diego Tapia. Our producers are Liz Hayes, Hannah Harris and Emily Carr.

Our talent producer is Ryan Papa Zachary and our intern is Sammy Cats. Our theme song Bubble and Squeak, performed by the one and only Creed Bratton,