Penn Badgley said he had to “simulate sex by myself” and was “effectively humpin’ on the air” when he filmed a steamy scene in You season three.
Penn Badgley was left “humpin’ on the air” while shooting a sex scene on his own amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
The 38-year-old actor was filming a scene for You season three where his character Joe Goldberg got intimate with wife Love (Victoria Pedretti) but was fantasising about someone else but both social distancing requirements and stylistic choices meant he shot the footage without his co-star being present.
In excerpt from Crushmore: Essays on Love, Loss, and Coming-of-Age, published by Vulture, Penn recalled: “Mid-pandemic, early 2021: I’m filming the third season of my very popular, very beloved, very, very great Netflix series You, in which there are quite a few intimacy scenes, as we call them in the biz – simulated sex, or anything sexual like, say, masturbation (my show has plenty of both, for reference).
“We’re shooting a fantasy sequence, and as a stylistic choice, one that makes a lot of sense, the director has chosen to place the camera directly in front of my face…
“What this means for me, practically speaking, is that the director wants a close-up of my face as my character Joe is deep in dissociative reverie mid-coitus.
“The camera, a very large apparatus weighing just about seven hundred pounds – lovely coincidence – does not allow space for itself and my scene partner (Victoria Pedretti, who brilliantly played Love in seasons three and four of You, and who is more beloved than I am by many fans of the show).
“If anyone or anything has to go, it won’t be the camera; it will be my scene partner who sits this one out.
“This means that rather than simulating sex with her and looking at her while the camera watches us together, I’m going to have to simulate sex by myself, effectively humpin’ on the air, on a fake bed in a fake room, surrounded by a film crew.
“Oh, and I’ll be in the same nude thong I’ve been wearing all morning as we complete the scene, of course.”
Penn appreciated the episode’s “thoughtful and talented” director, Silver Tree, for her “deference”, because she approached him before the camera department about what the shot would need but he was concerned that he needed to look “straight down” the camera.
He explained: “You never let a mean girl know you’re look- ing. Looking in camera ruins a take. Looking in camera is crossing a great metaphysical threshold because you’ve acknowledged the audience.
“The spell so delicately, exhaustively, extravagantly cast is broken with only a glance — unless, in rare circumstances, it works. This is one of those rare circumstances, made rarer by the fact that I will be simulating sex with the camera and, by proxy, the audience.
“For me, it would be truly naive to not consider now, even briefly, that — like so many other moments captured of me performing on this show — this one may very well become a meme.”
Despite not liking the idea of looking down the lens of the camera, Penn humped his “a** off” regardless.
He continued: “The time has come for me to hump …
“I’m not home, but I can imagine that I am. There is no one in front of me, but I can imagine someone is.
“A moment ago there was only resistance in my body to do what was needed, but upon the utterance of one word – action – I am supremely present in the face of sheer absurdity.
“I look in camera. And I hump my a** off.”
‘I was humpin’ on the air’: Penn Badgley gets candid about intimate scenes during COVID-19 pandemic
