You season 4: Penn Badgley requested for sex scenes to be dropped from Netflix series

The 'You' star revealed he made an unorthodox demand about the show’s intimate scenes. Photo / Getty Images

Penn Badgley asked for sex scenes to be dropped from You.

The 32-year-old actor - who has a son, James, aged two, with wife Domino Kirke - knew it would be difficult to bow out of on-camera intimacy because of the raunchy earlier seasons of the drama, in which he plays charming killer Joe Goldberg, so he was thankful that showrunner Sera Gamble was more than happy to comply with his wishes.

Speaking on his Podcrushed podcast, Badgley told co-host Nava Kavelin: “I asked Sera Gamble, ‘Can I just do no more intimacy scenes?’

“This is actually a decision I made before I took the show. I don’t think I have ever mentioned it publicly. One of the main things was, do I want to put myself back on a career path where I’m always playing the romantic lead?

“Fidelity in every relationship, including my marriage, is important to me.

“It’s got to the point where I don’t want to do that.

“So I said to Sera, ‘My desire would be zero - to go from 100 to zero.’

“But I signed this contract. I signed up for this show. I know what I did. You can’t take this aspect out of the DNA of the concept. So how much less can you make it, was my question to them.

“She didn’t even bat an eye. She was really glad that I was that honest. She was sort of almost - I want to say empowered, it had a really positive response. They came back with a phenomenal reduction.”

Season four of You sees the action switch to London, and Badgley had a “great time” shooting in the UK last year, though it meant being separated from his wife and son.

Penn Badgley knew it would be difficult to bow out of on-camera intimacy because of the raunchy earlier seasons of the drama, in which he plays charming killer Joe Goldberg. Photo / Netflix

He told BBC Newsbeat: “I wasn’t able to be with my family as much as I would have liked to.

“Apart from that, it was a great time, I remember it so fondly. I do truly love something of the culture there.

“My wife is British, she was born and raised there until she was a teenager, so I just really truly did enjoy it.”