Penn Badgley, who plays Joe Goldberg in the Netflix series “You,” fought to be nearly naked in the show’s season finale. He felt it was necessary to portray the true nature of his character as a sexual predator. In the intense final sequence, Goldberg is caught by his lover Bronte after a chase in the woods.
He is wearing only boxer briefs, while Bronte is fully clothed. Badgley believed this visual contrast was crucial to show the depths of Goldberg’s dark character. “He needed to be seen in that way to be kind of saying to everybody, is this what you needed to see in order to realize who he is?” Badgley said in an interview.
Previously, Badgley had concerns about filming intimate scenes for both professional and personal reasons. Showrunner Sera Gamble had respected his wishes, leading to fewer sex scenes in the series. However, for the final season, Badgley felt a return to a more explicit portrayal of Goldberg was essential for the story’s impact.
“In order to do that, the truth is we really had to return to form with him being a romantic icon,” he stated. The show’s creatives initially resisted the idea of Goldberg being shirtless in the finale’s fight scene.
Badgley’s final fight scene explained
“It was probably the only time I’ll ever fight to be in a state of undress,” Badgley remarked. Co-showrunner Justin W. Lo praised Badgley’s commitment to embodying the character’s primal side.
“He just was like, ‘I just need to be awful. Can we see him punch her? Can I not have my shirt?
Can I just be as awful and animalistic as possible?'” Lo said. Badgley emphasized that Goldberg’s lack of clothing wasn’t meant to be sexualized but to highlight his raw, predatory nature. “We need him to visually become the sexual predator he’s always been,” he said.
During filming, Badgley altered Goldberg’s typically deep, seductive voice and did burpees between takes to keep his blood pumping. “For two weeks, it was just [me] in the woods at night, in my underwear, just exhausting myself,” he said. The decision to have Goldberg nearly naked in the finale underscores the complexities of his character and enhances the dramatic tension leading to his eventual downfall.
