In a new interview, the actor, who plays stalker and serial killer Joe Goldberg on 'You', is asked about the message he'd send to 'people who are finding themselves attracted to serial killers.'
- Feb 14, 2023
AceShowbiz - Penn Badgley weighed in on viewers having crushes on serial killers. The actor, who plays stalker and serial killer Joe Goldberg on You", put the blame on Netflix's TV series about Jeffrey Dahmer for the twisted views.
In a new interview promoting season 4 of "You", Penn was asked about the message he'd send to "people who are finding themselves attracted to serial killers." In response to the question, Penn said, "You need to look at that, inside."
"Now, to be fair, with our show, you're meant to fall in love with him. That's on us," the "Gossip Girl" star added. "Ted Bundy? That's on you! Jeffrey Dahmer that is on- that is Netflix. That is squarely on the shoulders of Netflix."
Penn was referring to 2019 documentary movie "Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile" in which Zac Efron played Ted, and Netflix's controversial series "DAHMER - Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story" that starred Evan Peters as the serial killer. Evan even won a Golden Globe for his performance on the mini series.
"I don't have answers at this point," Penn continued. "I do, but they're long. Yeah, it's weird man."
This isn't the first time for Penn to express his unease about his viewers finding his dangerous character attractive. Back in 2021, he tweeted, "You're supposed to see past my face to the crazy s**t!"
He also recently revealed that he asked to showrunner Sera Gamble for a reduction in the number of intimate scenes for Joe. During an episode of his podcast "Podcrushed", Penn said of filming intimate scenes, "It got to a point where [I thought], 'I don't want to do that,' so I said to Sera, like, 'My desire would be zero [intimate scenes], to go from 100 to zero.' "
"You" is currently streaming on Netflix.
