Penn Badgley asked for fewer sex scenes in new season of You because of wife

You star Penn Badgley has opened up about requesting fewer sex scenes in the latest series of the hit show.

The first part of the fourth season has just landed on Netflix, and we'll be seeing a lot more of star Badgley as Joe Goldberg - though not in a literal, physical sense.

Goldberg is a stalker and a serial killer, moving from obsession to obsession and leaving blood and bodies in his wake; and yet, viewers have found themselves falling for him.

But if Badgley had it his way, there would be no more sex in the show, involving him at least.

Netflix

"I asked Sera Gamble, the creator, 'Can I just do no more intimacy scenes?'" he recalled on his podcast Podcrushed.

"This is actually a decision I had made before I took the show. I don't think I had ever mentioned it publicly, but one of the main things is like, do I want to put myself back in a career path where I'm just always a romantic lead?

"Fidelity in every relationship, including my marriage, is important to me. It's got to the point where I don't want to do that."

The 36-year-old is married to singer Domino Kirke, and they had a son together in 2020.

"So I said, 'My desire would be zero, to go from 100 to zero,'" he continued.

"But I signed this contract. I signed up for this show. I know what I did. You can't take this aspect out of the DNA of the concept.

"So how much less can you make it, was my question to them.

"She didn't even bat an eye. She was really glad that I was that honest. She was sort of almost, I want to say empowered, she had a really positive response. They came back with a phenomenal reduction."

In the new series - as was teased at the end of season three - Joe has found himself across 'The Pond', though not in Paris as we had expected, but in London.

Joe's ended up in the capital on his search for Marienne, wanting to make his imagined 'happily ever after' with her and her daughter a reality. He's now going by Jonathan Moore, and is a professor at a university.

He finds himself entangled in a group of posh, privileged, upper-class London socialites, including aristocratic party girl Lady Phoebe, her wealthy American ex-pat boyfriend Adam, literature professor Malcolm, and Kate, a gallery manager and Malcolm's girlfriend.

In an interview with Entertainment Tonight, Badgley said this season is a little different to those before it.

"The tone is similar but it's shifting in that there is a different format," he explained. "We're using a different format.

"It's almost like we're shifting the genre slightly. And I think it works."

Part one of You's fourth season landed on Netflix yesterday (9 February), with the second part coming to the streaming platform a month later on Thursday 9 March.