Actor Penn Badgley recently spoke about his time acting as Dan Humphrey in Gossip Girl as well as his on-screen and off-screen former co-star and ex-girlfriend Blake Lively.
In a Variety interview, the You actor thanked Lively for keeping him on the straight and narrow during the height of the show’s popularity.
“Beyond our relationship, I don’t think anybody was going to be interested in me publicly,” he said. “It was a little bit night and day. I think the date was Sept. 19, 2007.”
Badgley Credits Blake Lively
The couple, who met on the set of Gossip Girl, started dating in real life in 2007. While the show was “fun and fast-paced,” Badgley experienced a “dark undercurrent” that would bottom out in his later 20s. However, Lively’s influence kept Badgley from going down the road of substance use.
Badgley clarified that he never struggled with substance, but his relationship with Lively helped him stay on the right path. They dated for three years before breaking up in 2010. Although he was never suicidal, he struggled with feelings of despair and the question of whether he mattered.
Badgley Not Invested In Role
Penn Badgley shared that towards the end of the six seasons of “Gossip Girl,” he was not invested in his character, Dan Humphrey, and was just biding his time. He felt that the environment was “fun and fast-paced,” but he experienced a “dark undercurrent that would bottom out in my later 20s.”
Badgley did not go down the road of substance use, partly thanks to his then-girlfriend, Blake Lively. Badgley was grateful for Lively’s positive influence on him, saying that she didn’t drink, and their relationship saved him from forcing himself to go down that road.
In 2017, Lively talked about her romantic relationship with Badgley and their work on “Gossip Girl.” The couple started dating in real life in 2007 while playing Dan Humphrey and Serena van der Woodsen who were also in love.
Lively revealed that their bosses wanted them to date and wear the same clothes as their characters in the show, as it fed their whole narrative, and people could buy into this world. Lively was often wearing the same clothes as her character and doing fashion shoots, dating the same person that her character was dating, or sometimes that person was her on-screen brother, Dan.
Lively As Serena