Penn Badgleyis mostly known for his work in teen TV and movies in the late 2000s, but his best movies and TV shows are a combination of some of those well-known projects and several others that fans might not have seen. Badgley got his start as a child in local theater in Washington before making the move to California with his mother to pursue an acting career. While many of his early roles were in voice work on children’s radio or in one-off episodes of television, a soap opera gave Badgley his big break.
Badgley got his first big role onThe Young and the Restlessin 2000. He remained with the show for nearly a year, appearing in a handful of episodes. That role was enough to get Badgley a foot in the door of casting directors, and he was on his way. Since then, he has appeared in several TV shows with his most well-known beingGossip Girl. He has also appeared in teen movies, thrillers, and several indie projects that show how versatile of an actor he really is.
The Stepfatheris a remake of a 1987 horror movie, and it happens to be inspired by the real life crimes of John List. It’s not exactly Badgley’s best-reviewed movie from critics, but considering Badgley has spent most of his time in front of the camera in television shows that last for years, he has not had the chance to make a plethora of movies.
The movie follows Badgley’s Michael as he grows suspicious of his new stepfather. His mother rushed into a new relationship, marrying him after only six months, because she longs to find love that will last. Michael has been away at military school and is considered something of a troubled kid, so a lot of his suspicions are ignored.
Badgley carries a lot of the weight of the movie since he is the one looking into David’s behavior and the one where bodies begin to pile up around. While Badgley does an admirable job at playing the tense protagonist, he is not enough to save the movie from critics.
For a lot of actors playing teenagers in the 2000s, it seemed to be a requirement that at least one sports-themed movie ends up on their resume.Forever Strongis Penn Badgley’s. It is unique because the sport here is rugby, not football or basketball, which are the more popular options for teen movies.
The movie follows a young man (Sean Faris) who ends up in a detention facility after driving under the influence. While there, he plays for the facilities rugby team and learns a lot about what it means to really believe in a sport and a team. It’s a sharp contrast to his life before, where he plays with his father as his coach and his entire team is big into substance use and misbehaving. When he is released, he finds himself at odds with his old friends and team.
While much of the movie is fairly standard teen sports and coming-of-age fare,Badgley is in a unique position. He does not play one of the heroes in the movie. Instead, he’s something of an antagonistas his character is the best friend of Faris’ before Faris ends up in trouble.He shows himself as arrogant and entitled when he cannot get his way, and it is a very different role for Badgley, who often plays the comic relief or the good guy.
John Tucker Must Diewas much maligned by critics when it first premiered in theaters. It was dismissed as a typical teen movie, but it was a very funny script that addressed some of the double standards seen by young men and women in social circles.
The movie follows the new girl in school (Brittany Snow) who witnesses the most popular guy (Jesse Metcalfe) as he cheats on three girls (Sophia Bush, Arielle Kebbel, and Ashanti) and they all find out. She agrees to help the three of them get even by becoming his “perfect girl” with a plan to break his heart.
Badgley plays a supporting role as John Tucker’s younger brother. He witnesses his brother’s antics but mostly keeps to himself.Much of Badgley’s performance here is subtle as quite a few of his scenes involve him reacting nonverbally to the things going on around him. Badgley does a great job as presenting himself as a future leading man here despite being in a supporting role.
Do Overwas absolutely canceled prematurely…
Before there wasGossip Girl, the WB had a series starring Penn Badgley calledDo Over.The comedy series was canceled during the first season’s run as the network did not have much faith in the show, and that’s a shame because it could have been incredibly fun.
The series sees an adult transported back to his teen years. Though he still has the knowledge of the future, he has no idea how to get back to it, and he has to live out his life all over again. He does so alongside his best friend who he has a hard time convincing he is actually from the future. Joel sets out to correct the things that he knows will lead to problems in his future, but with limited success.
Do Overwas absolutely canceled prematurely, largely because it was on oppositeSurvivorandScrubsand simply could not compete with those ratings.It demonstrated that Badgley had a great sense of comedic timing and impeccable dry wit.Of course, if the show had not been canceled when it was, Badgley might not have been able to play Dan Humprey inGossip Girl, which is definitely one of his most iconic roles to date.
The Twilight Zonerevival, much like the original, is an anthology series. Each episode examines a strange story, usually one that reveals something about the human condition. Badgley appears in a single episode ofThe Twilight Zonerevival called “Homecoming.”
“Homecoming” sees a soldier recently discharged from the military return home where he plans to rebuild his relationship with his rebellious teenage son. He also, however, wants to keep him from discovering a secret. All the while, his son feels like the man who has returned home is not like the father he remembers.
Badgley plays the teenage son. Though Badgley has to play a son puzzled by his father’s behavior,he also has to play the part of a troubled teen and the slightly stereotypical for the time “emo boyfriend” of another teen character. Badgley manages to balance all of that while ultimately telling the story of a hero in the end.
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The Paper Storeis likely a movie that not many of Badgley’s fans have heard of because it did not get a huge release. The movie is adapted from the play 516. An indie film, the movie was shared at multiple film festivals before becoming available digitally through video-on-demand platforms.
The Paper Storeis both a story of a college romance and a story of revenge. Those two ideas are tied together. It follows a young woman (Stef Dawson) who drops out of college, but sells college papers to students. A grad student (Badgley) hires her to write his assignments for him so he can focus on his thesis. The two also end up in a romantic relationship, but a professor catches on to what they’re doing.
Dawson and Badgley’s characters have an intense relationship - both physically and in their verbal debates. While Dawson’s narrates the movie, the movie also makes it clear she is an unreliable narrator, which makes some scenes the kind of exchanges that viewers should question.Neither of the characters are played to be likable, but instead, pretentious though knowledgeable. It makes them an interesting pair and they have fantastic chemistry in their scenes.
The Oxford International Film Festival awarded Badgley Best Actor for the movie.
Movies that center on financial storylines, andmore specifically Wall Street storylines, have to carefully tread a line. They have to make the information in the movie accessible to the general public who has no interest in investments or stock trading, but they also have to make the movie exciting enough to keep a wider audience interested.Margin Call, for the most part, is able to do that.
Inspired by the financial crisis of 2008, the movie follows an ensemble who work for an unnamed firm as they realize that financial disaster is on the horizon. The impending disaster is brought to the attention of another, and the information slowly spreads through a small group of employees who debate how to make sure that the firm comes out on top. It’s a story that breaks down how much corporations care about corporations rather than people.
Badgley plays a junior analyst who is brought in to double-check the work. Though he does his best to help, he ultimately comes to the realization that he is likely to lose his job.Badgley plays the role with an intelligence and an anxious undercurrent that fits the movie’s thriller-like tone.
Easy Ais a loose modern adaptation of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter. The movie takes the judgment of a puritanical society and places it on the shoulders of a modern teenager,played by Emma Stonein one of her best roles.
Olive (Stone) is a smart high schooler who actually does the assigned reading compared to her classmates, who prefer to watch the movie adaptations. When a misunderstanding with her best friend (Aly Michalka) leads to everyone believing that she slept with a boy in college, she becomes the girl who helps the guys who do not have any dating prospects. She agrees to pretend to date them or hook up with them in exchange for gift cards and cash. Badgley is the one boy who sees through the ruse.
Todd does not have a huge role in the movie, but he does appear in the background of classroom scenes and is always there for Olive when she seems to need a friend.Badgley’s role as Todd is charming and sarcastic, and part of what makes his time in this movie so great is that it seems like he is up for anything. That includes being the school mascot and painting his entire body blue for scenes.
It might be easy to dismissGossip Girlas a guilty pleasure series that is more scandalous than it is critically acclaimed, but the truth is that the show had an impressive cast. They were able to make even the most outlandish storylines seem real.Penn Badgley, playing one of the few characters not born into wealth, was a grounding force for much of the show.
The series follows a group of teenagers on New York’s Upper East Side as they attend a prestigious private high school, and then, as they head to college. Their every moment is watched by an anonymous blogger who posts scathing comments about their personal lives online. By the end of the series, it is revealed thatthe anonymous Gossip Girl is actually one of their own.
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Badgley begins his time as Dan on the show as an intelligent student on the outside looking in at the popular crowd. He quickly develops a crush on one of the most scandalous of the popular kids, and he uses his experiences with her and her friends to inspire his eventual writing career.Dan is not always the most likable of characters, but Badgley is able to make him charming and convincing. The audience believes him when he cannot help but fall for the same women who give him the most grief, and they empathize with every sarcastic comment he makes.
Youhas capitalized on the interest in true crime without actually being a true crime story. The story is based in fiction, but told from the point of view of the person committing the crimes, and that makes it unique from so many other crime dramas that have cropped up in the wake of more interest in true crime docuseries.
A role like Joe demonstrates that Badgley is an immense talent who should have his pick of roles.
Youfocuses its story onJoe Goldberg(Badgley), who could be the hero of a romantic comedy when the show first starts - he is the manager in a bookstore who has a meet-cute with a beautiful woman and quickly falls for her. Joe, however, proves himself to be the stuff of nightmares as he becomes obsessed and stalks the woman in question and murders people that would stand between them. While each season introduces new locations and characters, the idea is the same, that Joe’s obsession takes over and he cannot help but give into his darker impulses.
Joe is the darkest role that Badgley has ever played,and he is a great casting choice for the role. At this point in his career, the audience is used to seeing him as a romantic lead. He is always charming, if a little sarcastic, and he often still has those traits as Joe. That’s what makes his character dangerous.Even Badgley was conflicted about playing the character initially.He explained toEntertainment Weeklyin 2018:
I didn’t want to do it — it was too much. I was conflicted with the nature of the role. If this is a love story, what is it saying? It’s not an average show; it’s a social experiment… what was key in me wanting to jump on board were my conversations with Greg Berlanti and Sera Gamble, the creators, and understanding Joe’s humanity. I knew that I would be conflicted about the role from day one till the last day, and that is why they thought I would be good for it, is that I’m not psyched to play somebody of this nature.
The darkness of Joe inYoumakes the character a complete turn for Penn Badgley, which is why it is his best project to date.A role like Joe demonstrates that Badgley is an immense talent who should have his pick of roles.
