Penn Badgley is an actor with numerous abilities, but it’s fair to say his cockney accent might use some work.
The 36-year-old Gossip Girl star portrays homicidal psychopath Joe Goldberg in the mega popular Netflix thriller, which is set in London for season 4.
Penn spoke on The One Show on Tuesday, ahead of the release of the highly anticipated second installment.
The Paper Store actor expressed his delight at being located in the UK for the thriller’s production, noting that his wife, singer Domino Kirke, is British.
When Penn informed the studio that he lived with Domino’s family while filming You, he didn’t seem to have picked up the British accent.
Yet, after being pushed by hosts Lauren Laverne and Alex Jones on the BBC show, he was more than glad to give his interpretation on cockney speech.
‘It really is polarising,’ he explained. ‘Some people find it charming, which is to say maybe just me, and then others really hate it.’
Penn began his London accent by saying, ‘It’s a bit up here,’ referring to his high-pitched voice, ‘It’s like this,’ before shrugging.
His Tilly Keeper, who portrays the thriller’s affluent socialite Ladt Phoebe, remarked that it was a “ode to Joe Pasquale.”
‘It took me a second to know you were doing it,’ Lauren, 44, confessed, while the studio broke out into laughter.
Back in the, er, ‘cockney accent’, the Easy A star said: ‘What do you mean? Can you not tell?’
‘It’s quite high,’ Lauren responded.
Joe continued: ‘Truly, I’m deflecting from trying to do a real accent because I could do it if I committed to it for a role. I don’t want to offend anybody.’
He joked: ‘I don’t want to do it for free!’
Penn has been portraying Joe since 2018, however he previously stated that for season 4, he requested that the sex scenes be toned down.
‘I asked Sera Gamble, the creator, “can I just do no more intimacy scenes?”’ he said. ‘This is actually a decision I had made before I took the show.
‘I don’t think I had ever mentioned it publicly, but one of the main things is like, do I want to put myself back in a career path where I’m just always a romantic lead?’ he added while speaking on his podcast Podcrushed.
‘Like, fidelity, in every relationship, and especially my marriage, is crucial to me,’ he added. And it’s just gotten to the point where I don’t want to do it anymore.’
The One Show airs weekdays from 7pm on BBC One.