Penn Badgley

Penn Dayton Badgley (born November 1, 1986) is an American actor, best known for his role as Dan Humphrey on The CW television series Gossip Girl. Badgley has also starred in a number of films, most notably John Tucker Must Die, The Stepfather, Easy A, and Margin Call. --- Badgley was born in Baltimore, Maryland. His father, Duff Badgley, worked as a newspaper reporter and also a carpenter; Duff was the Green Party candidate for governor of Washington state in 2008. His parents divorced when he was twelve. Badgley split his childhood years between Woodlake, Virginia and Seattle, Washington. He attended Woolridge Elementary, where his mother, Lynne, became PTA president before he transferred to the honors program at Swift Creek Elementary. He enjoyed playing youth soccer, where father coached. He attended Charles Wright Academy in Tacoma, Washington, and was involved with the Seattle Children's Theatre. He soon began doing voice-overs for children's radio stations. At age eleven, Badgley relocated to Hollywood and began pursuing an acting career. He also pursued a singing career during this time and recorded a pop single in 1998. At the age of fourteen, Badgley completed his California High School Proficiency Exam and began attending Santa Monica City College. He was later accepted to the University of Southern California, where he deferred admission due to contractual obligations. --- Badgley's first credit was voice work for the video game Mario Golf 64 in 1999, though he claims to have never played it himself. He followed this up in 2000 with voice work on Mario Tennis 64. His first screen acting credit was on an episode of Will & Grace and subsequently appearing on shows such as Daddio, The Brothers García and What I Like About You. Badgley's first major film credit was 2006's John Tucker Must Die, playing the role of Scott Tucker. In its opening weekend, the film grossed a total of $14.3 million, ranking third in the U.S. box office results for that weekend. As of November 2, the film has grossed $41 million domestically. Badgley's first notice came with his role as Phillip Chancellor IV on the soap opera The Young and the Restless, holding that role from 2000 to 2001. He was nominated for a 2001 Young Artist Award for Best Performance in a Daytime Series for his work. In 2002, he starred in the WB half-hour series Do Over as Joel Larsen, a 34-year-old man who gets a second chance to get his life right, thanks to a freakish accident that catapults him back to 1980, as a 14-year-old. He appeared on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno as this show opened. The series was canceled short of a full season. Badgley later appeared in Drive-Thru playing Van co-starring future castmate Leighton Meester. Wider audiences may recognize him from his next starring role as Sam Tunney in The Mountain (2004–2005), but was canceled after the first season. The same thing happened to The Bedford Diaries, another series where Badgely had a lead role. While the show was popular, it was canceled in its first season. --- In late 2007, rumors circulated that Badgley was dating his Gossip Girl co-star Blake Lively. In May 2008, after People magazine published photos of the two kissing while on vacation in Mexico, they became more open about their relationship. Badgley and Lively ended their three-year relationship in mid-September 2010. In October 2011, Penn Badgley began dating Zoë Kravitz but they were already linked together since July. It was announced in June 2013 that Badgley and Kravitz had split after two years of dating.