Note: This article contains spoilers for You season one.
Penn Badgley doesn't always have a great time filming his unsettling Netflix series You.
That's probably not massively surprising, since his character Joe Goldberg is a sadistic stalker who obsesses and sometimes kills the women he falls in love with.
Related: You season 2 star teases new character details
While chatting to Digital Spy and other media about returning to You for another go-around, the former Gossip Girl star confessed that playing such a dark character takes a huge toll on his psyche.
"There's a lot I don't enjoy about him," he told us. "To be honest, I don't enjoy nearly everything about him.
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"However, it ends up being a deep, deep psychological exploration for me. And it seems to bear fruit. There's a lot about him that I struggle with and yet I'm always trying to humanise him as much as possible."
In the show's upcoming second season, Joe has fled to Los Angeles after brutally murdering his girlfriend Beck (Elizabeth Lail) – but his vow to change his life with new flame Love (Victoria Pedretti) is threatened when vengeful ex Candace (Ambyr Childers) resurfaces.
Early reviews haven't been entirely kind to the West Coast reinvention of You for its sophomore season, with Digital Spy finding that it gets "some things very, very wrong" this time around in our own evaluation.
You season two lands on Netflix on December 26. Season one is also available via Amazon and iTunes.
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Justin is a freelance entertainment journalist and writer. He first joined Digital Spy as a freelance entertainment reporter in 2010 and also worked as a sub-editor for the brand, serving as Night News Editor from 2016 to 2024. Over more than a decade, Justin has covered numerous major entertainment events from the US and has interviewed a wide-ranging group of public figures, from comedian Steve Coogan to icons from the Star Trek universe, cast members from the Marvel Cinematic Universe and reality stars from numerous Real Housewives cities and the Below Deck franchise. Justin has also been on the ground to cover major pop culture events like the Star Wars Celebration and the D23 Expo. He's written for titles across the Hearst network, plus the likes of CBR and Us Weekly.
