Finding FAITH & LOVE H
PENN BADGLEY The former ‘Gossip Girl’ actor talks marriage and success
ow do you play a character you detest? When Penn Badgley started portraying Joe Goldberg, the terrifying – and terrifyingly charming – stalker at the centre of Lifetime’s new drama series You, he turned to religion. “I’d pray a lot. I’d meditate,” he says. “If anything, I was trying to understand the humanity of Joe because I hated him personally. The spiritual aspect helped me be unconcerned enough with [the show] having some kind of negative effect on me, my soul and my spirit.”
Eleven years after Gossip Girl shot him to sudden stardom, Badgley, 31, says he now has a happier, healthier relationship with the spotlight. Six seasons on the CW teen drama and high-profile romances with Blake Lively and Zoë Kravitz made him famous, but the introspective actor was uncomfortable with the scrutiny that came with success. “I’m really grateful for it, but also you struggle with things,” he says. “The phenomenon of fame is literally invisible, but it influences and dominates your life if you aren’t careful. I had to learn how to accept it and accept that lots of people think they know me.” Finding that peace, he says, ultimately led him to love – he married singer Domino Kirke, 35, and became stepfather to her son Cassius Riley, 9, in February 2017 – and his critically acclaimed return to TV.
Born in Baltimore, Badgley began acting in his early teens, first doing voice work for Nintendo 64 video games and moving on to roles on The Young and the Restless and Will & Grace. He passed a high school proficiency exam when he was just 13. “I think maybe the fact that I never really went to school much past the age of 12 allowed me to never tire of learning,” says the avid reader.
In his 20s, at the height of his Gossip Girl fame, Badgley deepened his study of the Bahá’í faith, a religion which began in the 1860s in Iran and parts of the Middle East and emphasises the unity of all the world’s faiths and equality of all people.
That faith grounded him when he began dating Kirke in 2014. “I don’t think I could truly value human love until I developed divine love,” he says. “[Domino and I] very much had a romantic beginning, but I think you discover in marriage that what sustains a marriage for decades – there are less and less people who can tell us this – but I think it has something to do with divine love.”
The couple live together in New York with Kirke’s son (whose dad is her ex-boyfriend, musician Morgan O’kane) and their dog Terrence, who Badgley says keeps them laughing “when we do struggle”. After filming 2015’s NBC miniseries The Slap, Badgley took a break from his acting career and spent the next few years performing and touring with his band Mothxr. After the band split up, Badgley returned to acting.
“I know how to do this in a professional way,” he admits. “It’s just like second nature to me, whereas music … is kind of my primary passion, and I didn’t want to turn it into the same hustle that a job becomes.” Badgley hopes that You and its story of obsessive love will spark debate. (It’s based on a 2014 novel by writer Caroline Kepnes.) “I hope that with this show we can make some kind of valuable contribution to the conversations that exist about gender roles and human behaviour,” he adds. Badgley has long been vocal about supporting LGBT and women’s rights. “Standing up for something right is, in some ways, living in every moment. It’s listening to my wife, listening to women,” he says.
“I’ve learned so much and am learning” — Badgley