Why Penn Badley Joined Gossip Girl After Turning Down Role

Penn Badgley almost didn’t become everybody’s favorite lonely boy.

The Gossip Girl alum shed more light onto why he nearly turned down the role of Dan Humphrey on the beloved TV series, which ended its six-season run in 2012.

“I had eight years of near financial independence, professional work. I was working. I was tired of television by the time Gossip Girl came around,” Penn told Alex Cooper on the April 23 episode of Call Her Daddy. “I famously said—I don’t know famously—but I’ve said many times, you know, I initially turned the role down, and I didn’t just kind of turn it down, I mean, I said, ‘So grateful you thought of me, wish you well, but no thanks.'”

“And they went on to try and cast the whole thing and cast Dan. And they evidently could cast everybody, but Dan,” he continued. “The point is not about Gossip Girl. The point is, by the time I was 20, I was feeling really disillusioned and dried up and tired of being in Hollywood, of acting. I’ve been doing it my entire, since I was 12. When you’re 20 years old, you’ve been doing something professionally since you were 12, that’s your life.”