Penn Badgley Was ‘Financially Independent’ at 15, ‘Close to Broke’ Before Gossip Girl ArticlePure

Penn Badgley says he became financially independent at just 15 years old, earning enough to be the breadwinner for his family — but he was “close to broke” before landing the role of Dan Humphrey on Gossip Girl. 

Badgley, who started acting at age 12 on The Young and the Restless and other projects, spoke about his childhood and teenage years during an appearance on the Wednesday, April 23, episode of Call Her Daddy.

“I was financially independent by 15,” he said. “I wasn’t always the breadwinner, but I’ve always needed to and wanted to provide support for my parents since then.”

Elsewhere in the episode, host Alex Cooper noted that You star Badgley has since had a string of “awkward, nice-guy roles.”

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“That’s true, starting at 20 years old,” Badgley, now 38, said. “I had eight years of near-financial independence — professional work — I was tired of television by the time Gossip Girl came around.”

Badgley then noted that he initially turned down the role of Humphrey, saying he was feeling “disillusioned” by Hollywood.

“When you’re 20 years old and you’ve been doing something professionally since you’re 12, that’s your life. That’s your whole life,” he said, adding that he had “a tiredness about me at 20 that I think is not typical for a 20-year-old, because I had been working for so long.”

Asked what changed, Badgley said, “I was close to broke, although I was looking forward to figuring that out.”

“The future was a real unknown and I think the stakes [were] high,” he continued, noting that he was also eager to move to New York City, where the show was filmed and took place.

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The actor went on to appear on all six seasons of Gossip Girl, which followed a group of wealthy Manhattan teens. 

On Call Her Daddy, he acknowledged that the popularity of the show has come to define him as an actor, despite the fact he’s worked on dozens of other projects, including the currently popular You.

“I’m going to be 39 this year. Next year, I will be 40,” he said. “I will still be answering questions about this show I decided to do when I was 20. And whatever. That is what it is … It sets you on a certain track that you have to in a sense resist. Work with it, interface with it. Otherwise, it just sort of takes you on its ride.”

Elsewhere in the interview, Badgley told Cooper he lacked the “emotional maturity to understand how to differentiate” himself from Dan “in terms of self-worth” when he was filming the show in his 20s.

“What people seemed to think of Dan seemed to be what people thought of me,” he noted. “And now I had enough sense, enough intelligence, enough self-worth … I wasn’t like losing myself. But it bothered me.”