Penn Badgley was reportedly 'close to broke' before landing Gossip Girl gig

Penn Badgley recently opened up about the circumstances that led him to play his most popular role to date, Dan Humphrey, in the widely loved series Gossip Girl. In the new episode of the podcast Call Her Daddy, released on April 23, Badgley revealed to host Alex Cooper that he was almost out of money when he decided to become a part of Gossip Girl.

Badgley, who started in the entertainment industry as a child actor and appeared in The Young and The Restless and The Bedford Diaries, shared that initially he was not interested in taking up the role of Dan Humphrey in Gossip Girl. When asked by Cooper to speak about what made him change his mind, Badgley revealed that he had no money when he decided to say yes to the series. He said,

“Well I was close to broke, although that was, I was looking forward to like figuring that out. I’d had a pretty spartan year behind me, you know, I was like, I was enjoying my way of life, but the future was real unknown and I think, you know, it's not like I could go live with my parents…the stakes is high.”

Continuing, Penn Badgley revealed a few more aspects that factored into his decision to say yes to Gossip Girl. He said,

“My manager certainly spoke about it in a way that he thought it was a good idea…and then it was it was New York City, getting to live in New York City where I've now lived since and which is my home and I'd always wanted to live there.”

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Why was Penn Badgley apprehensive about saying yes to Gossip Girl?

Penn Badgley also expressed why he was initially apprehensive about playing Dan Humphrey on the teen show. He shared,

“You know, you also think about a show like that, it's hard to grow beyond it…next year I will be 40, I will still be answering questions about this show I decided to when I was 20, you know what I mean and whatever that is what it is, like certainly that's fine, but it sets you on a certain track that you have to in a sense resist, you have to learn how to work with it, interface with it. Otherwise it just sort of takes you on its ride.”

Adding to his reservations, Badgley added,

“So, you know, you're kind of playing, you're taking a huge risk. I think in a way actually you know if it's going to set you up to do only some things and you're going to have to fight to try and do other things, you know.”

When Cooper asked Badgley if fans must perceive his position as strange because being on the show led him to be discovered and loved by fans worldwide, Badgley said,

“You want to have some autonomy and you sign, so also signing on to a television show, what you do is you have to sign a six-year contract. There's no other way to do it. You don’t, you know, you haven’t seen any of those scripts you're just like, ‘All right'.”

Badgley, however, did agree that he is now grateful that he accepted to be on the show. He said,

“I mean I chose to do it because it felt like it could be an exciting new experience and and I’m, yeah no, I mean look I'm grateful for it now. But it took some time ‘cause keep in mind I started in a place where I was like tired, disillusioned. I was literally, compared to the others, like oddly I was like a veteran, you know.”

During an earlier conversation with The Guardian, Badgley shared that he was disillusioned as a result of his work on Gossip Girl. He said,

"What was that show other than aesthetic? That was its thing, the way we all looked…I didn’t particularly love the superficial celebrity aspect of the way I was perceived.”

Badgley also revealed that it was his Baha’í faith that allowed him to persist with his acting career when he was debating leaving the industry. He shared,

“That is what allowed me to persevere through the disillusionment, all the things I’d been grappling with, and then come back to it all, but with hopefully some kind of inner transformation.”

As per The Guardian, Badgley seems to have found a balance now, and he makes sure to pray and meditate regularly.

Meanwhile, on the work front, Penn Badgley has been busy promoting the last season of his Netflix series, You, which started streaming on April 24.