Penn Badgley

RJ here in the RBN Hollywood studio with Penn Badgley.

So I gotta figure out, how do you keep up with this crazy travel schedule? Cause we got you in LA now, but you just got here yesterday and you're you're leaving in a few hours again.

Well, it's you you're essentially just driven and flown wherever they say and it's like it's first-class accommodations. You're in like town cars. You don't really have to be responsible for anything. So it's so even though it might sound exhausting it can be. You just kind of like you go from one place to another and it's it's you you kind of don't have to think about it at all.

So let's talk high school now. So you did a lot of homeschooling. So did you ever have like the normal high school experiences?

Well, you know, homeschooling in effect is like no schooling. I mean it's it's it's there and you're being educated, but it's not the same. It's um, and I didn't do a lot of it actually. I was like, it was a couple years, but I really spent those years kind of just uh, my parents understood that I was like a bright kid kind of wanting to wanting to explore the creative side of uh, of of myself. So they let me just do a lot of theater. I worked at a radio station for a bit. Um, you know, I was doing voice-overs, I was painting, I was like just kind of doing all this different sort of stuff and uh, it it it it directed me to acting eventually. And then, you know, and I went to high school for a bit. I graduated early and then I I went to uh, college for a bit as well. But then, you know, this my career really started taking off.

So, you didn't have any of the the crazy experiences. You had an easy A or you have to dress up in some of these funny outfits.

No, I mean, you know, I certainly have had crazy experiences, but none of them were related to school. Right. So, you know, it's it's different.

I mean, some look we got the the one outfit you had to dress up in. I mean what was going through your mind when you actually had to had to do this?

Oh, yeah. Well that I just laughed when I saw it. I laughed when I mean it's just like it's an absurd that is why I was attracted to the role because I got to wear that. I got to be dressed in my blue body paint. It was it it it the character is absurd and kind of bizarre. But effortlessly cool in that and that's what I liked about him.

But you're the heartthrob on Gossip Girl that all the girls are in love with and now you're this guy. Yeah, how does that how does that work?

Well, I mean, that's you gotta keep people guessing and I definitely wasn't looking to uh, do the same thing. Although he does he does kind of have the same sort of vibe to him just because he's like the even though he's wearing crazy like that. He's like still the uh, he's he's um, kind of the straight guy. He's the one person who sees through the smoke and mirrors of all of the rumor mill in high school. Nothing you're doing. So I promise not to tell anyone. Can I kiss you right now? And he's able to just be real with uh, with uh, Emma's character.

So last thing we gotta talk about, you're you're getting pretty ridiculous shape here now. Huge, huge. You're busting out of the shirt as you said. So what what's the workout routine looking like? What are you doing right now?

Um, I do a lot of martial arts. Uh, I do a lot of martial arts and I'm actually really loving that.

Um, pretty amazing martial arts. No. And what makes it amazing? Like flips and all crazy stuff.

Uh, I actually was working on flips and like and handstands and and handsprings and uh, and all sorts of like gymnastic type stuff. You know, I'm flexible now, which I never used to be. So it's like it's just branching out to all this stuff to make it fun because like after a while lifting weights is just it's boring and it's vain and I and uh,

So what's your secret to keeping it fresh? Because I hate that. You go to the gym it's always the same.

It's it's really like it's it's uh, staying flexible and martial arts. It just it because it turns it turns it into about fitness and your body as opposed to like looking good, you know. And that's and that's you can't you can't be concerned about looking good for the rest of your life.

That is true. Well, there you go. Penn Badgley, Easy A and and now hopefully you'll be in ridiculous shape and you'll be huge as you said, right?

Yeah.