Penn Badgley is back in another season of Netflix’s You, proving he can go from being super charming to incredibly creepy in no time at all as sociopath Joe Goldberg.
Now, the actor is showing just how simple it is for him to make the change from charming to creepy during an appearance on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert.
Colbert asked Badgley how he makes himself seem so scary on the show, “You, as this character, have this neat trick of going from charming to very creepy fairly smoothly.
“Is there a trick for making that turn from charming to creepy?”
Badgley responded, “It is shockingly simple,” adding, “It does not mean it’s easy,” in response to the audience’s laughter.
He then recalled a moment during a photoshoot during the first round of press for the show.
“My love interest in the first season – she’s not around anymore… Elizabeth Lail, she was already on set. They bring me in. She’s in a bed, under the covers, but she’s in her T-shirt and her underwear,” he said.
“I’m fully clothed in a windbreaker and a hat, which is, like, my character’s stalking outfit… I arrive on the mark. I do nothing but look up, and the entire crew behind the camera goes, ‘Oh! Woah, man! That is phenomenal! That is so creepy!'”
“And I did nothing,” he added.
Badgley then went on to explain that he didn’t need to try too hard to make Joe seem creepy, because the character is just that creepy on his own.
“If you put a fully clothed person, staring at a woman in her underwear in her bed, when he’s not supposed to be there, it’s inherently creepy.”
“So, you put yourself in a really questionable circumstance and then you do nothing,” he said.
Colbert then asked if he could do it for the audience, “Could you do this for us? Could you go from charming to creepy?”
And he did this:
Yep, seriously uncomfortable.
Colbert exclaimed, “Wow! That was wonderful, a real Charlie Manson vibe. “Badgley was shocked at the comparison asking, “Was it?!”
Yes Penn, it really was that creepy.
Watch the full conversation here.
You can watch You season two on Netflix now.