Honestly, for me, acting is just a very spiritual thing where I’m just present with the words I read on the screen, and when it’s awful and it kind o… - Penn Badgley

There are so many facets to the ways we learn about ourselves, and then therefore treat ourselves and others; the stories that young boys and girls learn about themselves, and the way that that translates into the ways they treat each other. We learn these lessons at home, we learn them on television and in movies and books.

It's not entirely fair to put that on the viewer because we're purposefully creating a device that is meant to be provocative—and hopefully thought-provoking—but not just titillating.

It doesn't matter who you are as an actor; that's really always in the script. It wouldn't make sense a lot of times to drastically change things. It would threaten to change the story arc and all that kind of stuff. I think really what an actor does is an instrument, not a player.