Penn Badgley Thinks "Fame" Stands for "F--king Awful, Man, Extremely"

The You actor and Gossip Girl alum made his comments to Gina Rodriguez for Variety.

By Corinne Heller Jun 07, 2019 5:46 PMTags
Watch: Have You Seen Penn Badgley From "Gossip Girl" Lately?

You actor and Gossip Girl alum Penn Badgley has been famous for more than a decade. But he isn't that into it.

"It's boring to me," the 32-year-old told fellow star Gina Rodriguez, 34, in a Variety piece published on Friday. "Fame stands for, I have an acronym for it that I just came up with, 'It's F–king Awful, Man, Extremely'...You're dancing on a razor's edge."

"Just like, 'Don't cut me! Don't cut me!'" Rodriguez said.

When he asked her how quickly did it feel for her, she replied, "I was 30, so I had been poor for so long. I had been a struggling actor for so long. I had not paid off my NYU debt. It always feels immediate, because you're like, 'Oh, I've been struggling for 13 years' to 'Yay! I get to pay my rent.' The one thing about fame is that it's a constant test of the ego."

"And when you falter, it's very public," Badgley said. "When you break up, it's public."

Watch
Penn Badgley, Elizabeth Lail & Shay Mitchell Talk New Series "You"

The actor starred in Gossip Girl between 2007 and 2012. He now plays the main character, a stalker, in Netflix's romance-thriller series You, which debuted in 2018. Season two is now in the works.