Penn Badgley opens up

by Ruben Nepales

Back in LA, we talked to “Gossip Girl” star, Penn Badgley, who opened up about his life with costar and girlfriend, Blake Lively. “When we’re apart, it’s certainly easier to just get by,” the actor said about the advantage of not being together in public. “When we’re together, they might recognize either of us. So, we’re always making jokes—and this is going to sound awful—about who’s the more famous one. Like, we never get it when we’re solo, so it must be the other one.”

“You have to, because it’s ridiculous,” Penn remarked on the importance of having a sense of humor about all the attention. “When you see these girls coming up, they can get a little crazy.”

Penn appears in the comedy film, “Easy A,” about a high school student (Emma Stone) who uses the rumor mill to advance her social and financial standing, and the thriller, “Margin Call,” which dramatizes a 24-hour period in the early stages of the financial crisis in the US.

“It’s important to do things apart, creatively and professionally,” he stressed. “Even more so because we’re not a unit—we’re separate people. However, you might be united in a romantic relationship, it’s totally different when it comes to professional matters.

“Blake and I are supportive of each other. There’s absolutely no competition or jealousy. Her career has taken off in a special way,” he said of Blake’s rise. She’s in the Ben Affleck-directed “The Town” and “Green Lantern.”

“We don’t work together a whole lot on the show,” he explained. “We have a lot of time apart, but we also have time together. That’s probably what gives us a good balance.”

Penn was asked about the irony in the fact that the “Gossip Girl” characters are rewarded for their sexual exploits, while in “Easy A,” a girl who spreads a white lie about losing her virginity finds that it’s not that easy to put out a raging rumor.

He answered, “Look at a character like Chuck Bass (played by Ed Westwick), who’s a complete whore and yet, he’s revered in ‘Gossip Girl.’ Whereas Emma’s character hasn’t even slept with anybody and yet, she’s ostracized.

“High school is much more vicious than college,” he remarked. “‘Easy A’ is set in high school, while ‘Gossip Girl’ has actually moved to the college world. In the latter, there are six of us, and we keep sleeping with the same people. In that world, nobody can really judge the other!”

Penn Badgley opens up
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Gossip Girl fans will surely wait for Penn Badgley's movie, even if Blake Lively is not his female lead.