Even when he’s laid up in bed with Covid, Penn Badgley looks far too good for ordinary humans to relate to. “I’m pleading with people to believe that I’m like them,” he deadpans from under a duvet, fully aware of his pin-up status for fellow woke millennials. The actor, who is surprisingly charming as he speaks from his sickbed via Zoom, says that, despite swapping school for Hollywood at the age of 14, he was never exempt from the universal awkwardness, anxiety and heartbreak of adolescence. In fact, it’s only now that Badgley feels he can revisit those turbulent years – and he has decided to do it for his first ever podcast.
Podcrushed is a series in which Badgley starts each episode by reading out a listener-submitted story about their most poignant middle-school memory; the first is from a girl who pretended to have a heart attack in front of a crush rather than be forced to speak to him. Along with his friends and co-hosts – the super likable Sophie Ansari and Nava Kavelin (“We met when Penn was friends with my roommate, and I’d just have to act like it was normal that Penn Badgely was sitting in my kitchen”) – they reflect on their own experiences of excruciating crushes and low self-esteem. With celebrity guests, such as Badgley’s former co-stars Leighton Meester (Gossip Girl) and Victoria Pedretti (You) thrown into the mix, it’s frothy but thoughtful – and satisfyingly nostalgic.
