Gossip Girl’s Penn Badgley Had Some Hesitations About Playing Dan – Looper

Throughout the five-year-plus run of “Gossip Girl,” Dan Humphrey’s awkwardness and insecurity defined his best and worst traits. But these personality characteristics were initially not something Penn Badgley was interested in exploring.

“And here’s why I think I actually am onto something because Dan was not the heart of that show,” Badgley said, providing some context about why he never felt he was right to play the role. “This is what I actually feel comfortable going on record saying. It’s not like, ‘Oh, I did nothing or I’m trying to diminish my role in it.’ Okay, no fine, but I think actually what the fans of that show came to love really was Chuck [Bass] and Blair [Waldorf].”

While Dan was always trying to be the nice guy, Badgley noted that “Gossip Girl” was always an “amoral” show. Chuck and Blair’s life of wealth and high drama was a fantasy that the series was great at portraying.

He added, “[The] whole point is that everybody wanted to be Chuck and Blair and nobody in the world can ever be Chuck and Blair, because they were 60-year-olds in [the bodies of] 16-year-olds. They had the relationship of like French artists with billions of dollars in their mid-forties, drinking scotch and smoking cigars and flying around the world. I mean, nobody lives that life but that’s what the show is about. Not the guy who’s sitting on the sidelines judging it all.”