You can't be serious.
Penn Badgley is just about ready to return as serial killer Joe Goldberg when You season four, part one premieres Feb. 9 on Netflix. But believe it or not, the Gossip Girl alum initially wanted to turn down the series from the very start.
"I didn't want to do it—it was too much," Badgley told Entertainment Weekly. "I was conflicted with the nature of the role. If this is a love story, what is it saying? What was key in me wanting to jump on board were my conversations with Greg Berlanti and Sera Gamble, the creators, and understanding Joe's humanity."
He continued, "I knew that I would be conflicted about the role from day one till the last day, and that is why they thought I would be good for it, I'm not psyched to play somebody of this nature."
But that's not the only piece of trivia floating around out there about You. For starters, while it's now a hit Netflix series, You didn't even start out on the streaming service—it actually aired its first season on Lifetime when it debuted in 2018.
Now entering its fourth season, Badgley will soon be joined by Tati Gabrielle, Lukas Gage, Charlotte Ritchie, Tilly Keeper, Amy Leigh Hickman and Ed Speleers. And the new season will drop in two parts, with the first debuting Feb. 9 and the second batch dropping March 9.
Read on to learn all the behind-the-scenes secrets you didn't know about You, below:
The word "You" is reportedly uttered 3,857 times in the show's first two seasons—1,879 in season one, and 1,978 in season two.
Shay Mitchell provided some of her own clothes for her season one character, Peach Salinger. "I actually loved dressing up like Peach, wearing heels and clothes," she told Glamour in 2019. "I brought so many of my own bags to New York and worked with the costume designer on producing this look. A lot of the clothes are mine, too."
You can really go to Mooney's bookstore, where Joe works in season one. In real life, it's called Logos Bookstore and is located in Manhattan's Upper East Side.
Victoria Pedretti originally auditioned for the role of Joe's first interest Beck, played by Elizabeth Lail. Pedretti would go on to play Joe's seasons two and three love interest, Love, of course.
For the subway tracks scene in season one, Penn Badgley and Elizabeth Lail had to take an 8-hour safety course, due to a New York law. But this meant, according to BUILD, they were then subway-certified for a year.
Greg Berlanti and Sera Gamble's adaptation of Caroline Kepnes' books You: A Novel and Hidden Bodies was originally in development at Showtime way back in 2015 before landing at Lifetime and eventually Netflix.
In fact, the original books even have Stephen King's seal of approval. "Totally original. Never read anything quite like it," he offered in a 2017 review. "Hypnotic and scary. A little Ira Levin, a little Patricia Highsmith, and plenty of serious snark. Cool stuff."
And last but not least, You returned for season four, part one Feb. 9 on Netflix. Part two then followed on March 9.