Penn Badgley would do anything for love, including wearing disguises.
The Gossip Girl star and his wife Domino Kirke recently hared how they handle the public attention that comes with Penn's level of fame, with the singer noting that while some people crave the spotlight Penn is happy to avoid it.
"The best parts are watching the way he organizes it all," Domino said Oct. 11 on Stitcher's Podcrushed, the podcast Penn hosts with Nava Kavelin and Sophie Ansari. "The risky run with being with someone in the public eye is that they really take a lot from being recognized and needing and wanting that recognition. It's their fuel, needing that kind of validation."
Domino, though, explained that the 35-year-old actor sometimes needs extra help to avoid being spotted.
"Penn is very graceful when it comes to that part of his career, like living in New York City where literally we're inundated every time we walk down the street," she continued. "Sometimes it's like ‘Penn, you're famous. Can you please put some glasses on? Or a hat or something?'"
Referring to his You character's penchant for baseball hats as a disguise, Penn chimed in noting "the hat doesn't help anymore." However, Domino, who is also a birth worker, assured that what matters is the effort.
"The willingness he had to try, that's all I ever want from a partner in any capacity—business, friendship," she explained, "I feel like that is what I noticed about Penn right away."
But after five years of marriage, Domino—who wed the Easy A actor in 2017—shared that for her, it's important to keep noticing new things about her husband.
"When I feel like I know everything about Penn, and ‘Ugh, Penn's just doing a Penn right now,' I'm stunted," she said. "In romantic relationships, you have to stay as curious about them as you did when you met them."
On the podcast the pair also reminisced about how they met—which was though a mutual friend—as Penn was coming off of his Gossip Girl years.
"This is someone who is absolutely terrified, definitely processing a massive chapter of his life being on a show like Gossip Girl and what that did for him and his self-esteem or his insecurities," Domino said. "Just being that seen and that focused on by so many, millions of people."
Though she said it wasn't her job, she felt "felt this need to wrap him in, I just wanted to protect him."
Domino, who was then mother to son Cassius Riley,13, with ex Morgan O'Kane, said she was appreciative of Penn's enthusiasm to get to know her—in general and in her role as a mom—while he was trying to "carve out this other space for himself in the world." (The couple now share a 2-year-old son.)
"The fact that he was even willing to spend time with me as a mother and explore that was very moving to me," she continued. "I saw how many other places he could've gone, the kinds of women he could've been with, the spaces he could've entered into, that he just didn't based on who he is."