Penn Badgley Reveals A Surprising Connection Between You & Gossip Girl
Add this to the list of Dan Humphrey and Joe Goldberg parallels.
It’s not too difficult to draw comparisons between Penn Badgley’s two most iconic TV characters. Ever since You began, fans have pointed out the disturbing similarities between murderous stalker Joe Goldberg and Gossip Girl’s stalker-y loner Dan Humphrey. But the connection between the two shows goes even deeper than just Badgley’s involvement and bookish outsiders. Gossip Girl is actually in the walls of You — literally. As Netflix’s bloody drama came to an end, Badgley unveiled the surprising physical connection between the two shows that will have you seeing so many iconic scenes very differently.
During an Architectural Digest tour of You’s set on April 28, Badgley confirmed that two central filming locations are the same stages that were used for important Gossip Girl settings. Turns out, the dingy basement that houses Joe’s infamous cage was a much more glam (but arguably still torture-filled) space over a decade ago on Gossip Girl.
"A little bit of an interesting note, this is where we shot Gossip Girl,” Badgley revealed while showing off the secluded room where Joe is at his most evil. “This is the same stage where the Waldorf suites or whatever, where they live, it was in this stage.”
While Blair Waldorf’s luxurious Upper East Side penthouse had to undergo a massive make-under to be turned into Joe’s subterranean torture chamber, it somehow makes a lot of sense for Blair’s home base to still be a place of devious manipulations.
Mooney’s bookstore is an even more intimately important set for Badgley, as he revealed that Joe’s workplace was once Dan Humphrey’s Brooklyn home.
“The stage with the bookstore is where the Humphrey loft was, so this place is extremely familiar to me,” the actor revealed.
It still strikes the star how he’s been filming his best-known work in the same spots for nearly two decades. “I was just standing outside looking at the trees, and I thought, ‘I’ve been looking at these trees for nearly 20 years now,’” Badgley mused while reflecting on his past with the Mooney’s stage.
