Do You Remember ‘You’ Star Penn Badgley on ‘The Young and the Restless’?
Fans of You, which returns to Netflix today for its fifth and final season, likely know Penn Badgley from his first TV star turn as Dan Humphrey, a very sensitive (and very un-Joe Goldberg-like) Brooklyn teen dropped into adolescent high society on 2007’s Gossip Girl. But before he was in an eternal break-up and make-up cycle with Serena van der Woodsen, Badgley got his first major break as Phillip Chancellor IV on The Young and the Restless in 2000.
Born in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1986, East Coast native Badgley moved to Los Angeles at age 11 with his mother following his parents’ divorce. He immediately began pursuing acting work, making his small screen debut on a 1999 episode of Will & Grace. But he landed his first ongoing role at the age of 14, playing Phillip “Chance” Chancellor IV, the son of Y & R‘s Nina Webster (Tricia Cast) and Phillip Chancellor III (Thom Bierdz).
@alwayscandid He was the cutest 🥰 #alwayscandid #WillAndGrace #PennBadgley ♬ original sound – AlwaysCandid
Badgley was far from the first child actor to play the young offspring of the thought-to-be-dead Phillip Chancellor III. In fact, the role had already been played by Andrew and Clark Rogers, Chuckie and Kenny Gravino, Scott and Shaun Markley, Thomas Dekker, Courtland Mead, Alex D. Linz, and Nicholas Pappone before Badgley took on the role from May 12, 2000, until February 1, 2001.
Badgley was nominated for a Young Artist Award for Best Performance in a Daytime Series for his time as Chance, but was eager to move on to other roles. Badgley was the final “child” version of Chance Chancellor — after he completed his run, the role was dropped from the series for several years, then picked up by John Driscoll in 2009.
Badgley went on to star in the little-known 2002 WB comedy The Do-Over, the little-known 2004 WB drama The Mountain, and the little-known 2006 WB drama The Bedford Diaries, as well as the 2006 teen comedy John Tucker Must Die, before becoming a member of the Upper East Side elite (and, 13-year-old spoiler alert: the alter ego of Gossip Girl) in 2007.
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