Penn Badgley

About

Penn Dayton Badgley (born November 1, 1986) is an American actor and producer. He is known for his roles as Dan Humphrey in The CW teen drama series Gossip Girl (2007–2012) and as Joe Goldberg in the Netflix psychological thriller series You (2018–2025).
Badgley came to prominence playing Phillip Chancellor IV on the soap opera The Young and the Restless (2000–2001). He then featured in the comedy films John Tucker Must Die (2006), Drive-Thru (2007), and Easy A (2010), the thriller films The Stepfather (2009) and Margin Call (2011), the biographical film Greetings from Tim Buckley (2012), and the drama film The Paper Store (2016).

Penn Dayton Badgley was born on November 1, 1986, in Baltimore, Maryland, the son of Duff and Lynne (Murphy) Badgley. His father had worked as a newspaper reporter and then as a carpenter and home builder and was the Green Party candidate for governor of Washington State in 2008. Badgley has stated that his first name comes from the brand of tennis ball his father was holding during his mother’s first sonogram.
An only child, Badgley attended Woolridge Elementary (where his mother served as a PTA president), before transferring…