Penn Badgley Admits “It Was a Struggle” to Live Apart From His ‘Gossip Girl’ Character (2025)

Penn Badgley is reflecting on the “struggle” of separating his real life from his Gossip Girl character.

The You star opened up about his time playing the role of Dan Humphrey on the beloved high school drama, which ran on The CW from 2007 to 2012, during a Wednesday appearance on the Call Her Daddy podcast.

Asked by host Alex Cooper if he found it difficult to leave work at home, Badgley replied, “It was a struggle… When you do a film, you do it once and give it your all and then you move on… When you do a television show, you’re doing it constantly because of the nature of that show.”

Badgley admitted he found it difficult to separate his screen persona from his off-camera life as an actor in his early 20s.

“I was 20, 21, 22 so I didn’t have the emotional maturity to understand how to differentiate myself in terms of self-worth,” he said. ”What people seemed to think of Dan seemed to be what people thought of me.”

Alex Cooper pointed out that Badgley and Dan’s lives shared a few parallels, including the fact that he was living in New York City and in a real-life relationship with Blake Lively at the time, as their characters also dated on the series.

Badgley added that “celebrity culture” in the late-2000s during Gossip Girl‘s run was fueled by outlets “looking for a quick sound bite.” He recalled often being asked about his dating life at the time, which led to him feeling “like you’re constantly needing to prove yourself in some manner, otherwise what are you doing?”

He also noted that while he was working on Gossip Girl, “I had enough sense, enough intelligence, enough self-worth… I wasn’t losing myself,” but that the lack of daily detachment from the role “bothered” him.