Penn Badgley’s Most Candid Quotes About Fatherhood Through the Years: ‘A Strange Blessing’

Credit: Marion Curtis/StarPix/Shutterstock

Penn Badgley's Most Candid Quotes About Fatherhood Through the Years: 'A Strange Blessing'

Daddy duty! Penn Badgley and wife Domino Kirke welcomed their first child together amid the coronavirus pandemic — and they are grateful for the quiet moments they got to spend locked down with the little one.

“The great bounty that we got out of it was our son,” the You star said during an October 2021 appearance on SiriusXM's The Jess Cagle Show. “I [also] have a stepson who’s 12, and his experience was, I think in a sense, different because they’re so social at that age, but our baby is, like, chilling. He’s only been with us and he loves it.”

Badgley and Kirke, who wed in 2017, announced in February 2020 that they were expecting their first child together after previous miscarriages. Their rainbow baby, son James, was born the following September.

After James’ arrival, the John Tucker Must Die actor was able to use his pearls of fatherly wisdom on the small screen when his You character similarly became a first-time dad. (In the Netflix show’s third season, Joe and Love welcomed son Henry.)

“I certainly had the great bounty of drawing on my own experience, becoming a new biological parent, and that was quite natural,” Badgley recalled to Elle in October 2021. “There are some definitely sweet moments where I was able to do that, but I think by and large, [Joe’s] paternal instinct is at best primal. I think to be a good father or a parent, you need to really rise several orders above primal, but he's at least primal, I guess.”

While the Easy A star quickly adapted to new fatherhood after James' birth, he previously got a taste of parenting while bonding with Kirke’s eldest son, Cassius, from a previous relationship.

“He’s a really good stepdad,” the “Half Blood” songstress exclusively told Us Weekly in October 2019 of Badgley. “He doesn’t have to be ‘dad’ so he can have more fun with him. It’s really nice. The stepparent thing is definitely uncharted territory for me ’cause I didn’t grow up with one, but … he takes care of him really well.”

The DOMINO musician, who welcomed Cassius in 2009, also gushed to Us of watching her son evolve into his own person. She added at the time: “Boys at 10 have the same amount of testosterone as they will have when they’re 18, so there’s a sass, but when I speak to him on the phone, he’ll be like, ‘Hey mom, you sound tired. You should go to bed.’ And I’m like, ‘Yeah, OK, thanks.’ Like, ‘Whoa, who am I talking to?’”

Scroll below for Badgley’s rare insights into becoming a father and raising children:

Credit: Marion Curtis/StarPix/Shutterstock

Penn Badgley's Most Candid Quotes About Fatherhood Through the Years: 'A Strange Blessing'

Daddy duty! Penn Badgley and wife Domino Kirke welcomed their first child together amid the coronavirus pandemic — and they are grateful for the quiet moments they got to spend locked down with the little one.

“The great bounty that we got out of it was our son,” the You star said during an October 2021 appearance on SiriusXM's The Jess Cagle Show. “I [also] have a stepson who’s 12, and his experience was, I think in a sense, different because they’re so social at that age, but our baby is, like, chilling. He’s only been with us and he loves it.”

Badgley and Kirke, who wed in 2017, announced in February 2020 that they were expecting their first child together after previous miscarriages. Their rainbow baby, son James, was born the following September.

After James’ arrival, the John Tucker Must Die actor was able to use his pearls of fatherly wisdom on the small screen when his You character similarly became a first-time dad. (In the Netflix show’s third season, Joe and Love welcomed son Henry.)

“I certainly had the great bounty of drawing on my own experience, becoming a new biological parent, and that was quite natural,” Badgley recalled to Elle in October 2021. “There are some definitely sweet moments where I was able to do that, but I think by and large, [Joe’s] paternal instinct is at best primal. I think to be a good father or a parent, you need to really rise several orders above primal, but he's at least primal, I guess.”

While the Easy A star quickly adapted to new fatherhood after James' birth, he previously got a taste of parenting while bonding with Kirke’s eldest son, Cassius, from a previous relationship.

“He’s a really good stepdad,” the “Half Blood” songstress exclusively told Us Weekly in October 2019 of Badgley. “He doesn’t have to be ‘dad’ so he can have more fun with him. It’s really nice. The stepparent thing is definitely uncharted territory for me ’cause I didn’t grow up with one, but … he takes care of him really well.”

The DOMINO musician, who welcomed Cassius in 2009, also gushed to Us of watching her son evolve into his own person. She added at the time: “Boys at 10 have the same amount of testosterone as they will have when they’re 18, so there’s a sass, but when I speak to him on the phone, he’ll be like, ‘Hey mom, you sound tired. You should go to bed.’ And I’m like, ‘Yeah, OK, thanks.’ Like, ‘Whoa, who am I talking to?’”

Scroll below for Badgley’s rare insights into becoming a father and raising children:

Credit: Courtesy Domino Kirke/Instagram

October 2021

“I was curious [how] my new fatherhood would influence my experience with Joe and acting with him,” he told Access Hollywood. “But sometimes, it was almost not helpful because I was having such a light and joyful experience [and] still am, and Joe was, like, so petrified and so scared. Of course, I can identify with the fear, but he’s just so morbid in his obsessive self-preservation and primal instinct that sometimes I almost found it harder.”

Credit: JOHN P. FLEENOR/NETFLIX

October 2021

Badgley opened up to InStyle about becoming a first-time “biological father” amid the pandemic.

“It’s just been us, my wife and I, taking care of him," he told the outlet. "And as a result, in some ways, we're thrilled, there's a beautiful joy and lightness to our connection with him. He seems to reflect that. And at the same time, it's so hard.”

Credit: Courtesy Domino Kirke-Badgley/Instagram

October 2021

While filming You season 3, the Margin Call actor enjoyed speaking with costar Scott Speedman about their respective parenting journeys. (The Felicity alum, for his part, became a dad in October 2021 when he welcomed daughter Pfeiffer Lucia with girlfriend Lindsay Rae Hoffmann.)

“It was so sweet. It was just like there's a world where it was just two men talking about the vulnerability of fatherhood,” Badgley recalled to Elle of their downtime on set. “It was one of my most memorable experiences of the season, and it was a very quiet, lovely day of work. We didn't get a lot of that. I think it's not always so quiet and sensitive. … There's a soft spot in my heart for him.”

Credit: Greg Allen/Invision/AP/Shutterstock

October 2021

While speaking with Jess Cagle on his eponymous radio show, the Maryland native gushed that James is “very happy and very joyful.”

He added: “We had a chance to be with him in a way we wouldn’t have and that is a strange blessing in [itself]."

Credit: Broadimage/Shutterstock

February 2023

The “Podcrushed” podcast host offered a rare update on James’ milestones following his 2nd birthday.

“He’s talking a lot. He says ‘you’ instead of ‘me,’ like instead of saying ‘I’m hungry,’ or ‘I’m finished’ he’ll be like ‘are you all finished?’ and I’ll be like ‘are you all finished’ and he’ll be like, ‘yeah,’” Badgley told Access Hollywood. “It’s very funny, yeah [it's cute]."

Credit: The Tonight Show/Youtube

March 2023

“There was recently a day where I was doing something really sweet with him, you know, like in my lap and then I sat on the remote,” Badgley recalled during an appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. “It just went right to Netflix on the TV — and my face was right on the TV, and he was like, ‘Daddy!’ And I started to race around because the next thing he was going to see was something really crazy [on You].”

While the “Podcrushed” host was ultimately able to switch the program, he admitted to Fallon that he wasn’t sure how to tell his baby boy about his killer You persona.