Actors frequently go through all kinds of things to be able to fully embody a character, from learning fight choreography and languages they’ve never spoken before, to transforming their bodies in one way or another to more accurately fit the person they’ll be playing. You star Penn Badgley experienced that recently when he signed on to star in his 2026 movie schedule entry, You Deserve Each Other, and has now spoken out about the pressure he felt to lose weight for his role.
What Did Penn Badgley Say About The Pressure To Lose Weight For His New Movie?
If anything, Penn Badgley has never seemed like someone who’s had any issue maintaining a lean physique, much less been an actor who’d be required to lose weight for a role. However, as the Gossip Girl talent recently relayed on his popular Hollywood star-led podcast, known as Podcrushed, his part in the upcoming rom-com, You Deserve Each Other, definitely made him feel like he needed to drop some weight. As he said while talking to his co-star in the film, Meghann Fahy:
I signed on right before we had to go [shoot the movie]. I was mostly consumed with losing enough weight so that it just made sense for how maniacal this guy was supposed to be about his body.
I can imagine that signing on for a part within days of shooting can be stressful under even the most standard circumstances. But, when you add any kind of transformation-for-the-character aspect that stress is probably dialed up by quite a bit.
The new film is a book to screen adaptation of Sarah Hogle’s novel of the same name, which focuses on a couple that’s planning their impending wedding, but who secretly have come to hate each other. So, they both begin to attempt to undermine the nuptials by doing things to force their partner’s hand to call the whole thing off. Apparently, Badgley’s character is a bit obsessive about fitness/how his body looks, and that’s what made the Easy A actor “consumed with losing enough weight.” He continued:
The way he is written on the page is truly, like, I should have had a shredded eight-pack. I should have had a Marvel body. And I had like a real-life good body, you know what I’m saying? There’s a difference.
He definitely makes a good point when it comes to “real-life good” bodies and the “Marvel body” we’ve seen on so many of the actors who’ve played superheroes over the past 15 or so years. The expectations for people like Chris Hemsworth (who toned down his workouts for Avengers: Doomsday), Brie Larson, and Charlie Cox to completely transform their bodies with intense workouts that lead to a lot of visible musculature is well known.
It doesn’t typically apply to actors who star in romantic comedies, though (especially not in the extreme), and Badgley noted that he’s never felt the pressure to tone up for a job before, adding that he thought, “Of all things, a fucking comedy, of course” when realizing the appropriateness of him getting “kind of ripped” for the role. Luckily, it at least sounds like the pressure didn’t really come from anyone else, and it seems that the film will be a funny one to look for when it finally debuts.