You can’t be serious.
Penn Badgley is just about ready to return as serial killer Joe Goldberg when You season four, part one premieres Feb. 9 on Netflix. But believe it or not, the Gossip Girl alum initially wanted to turn down the series from the very start.
“I didn’t want to do it—it was too much,” Badgley told Entertainment Weekly. “I was conflicted with the nature of the role. If this is a love story, what is it saying? What was key in me wanting to jump on board were my conversations with Greg Berlanti and Sera Gamble, the creators, and understanding Joe’s humanity.”
He continued, “I knew that I would be conflicted about the role from day one till the last day, and that is why they thought I would be good for it, I’m not psyched to play somebody of this nature.”
But that’s not the only piece of trivia floating around out there about You. For starters, while it’s now a hit Netflix series, You didn’t even start out on the streaming service—it actually aired its first season on Lifetime when it debuted in 2018.