Although Penn Badgley is getting back to his romantic-comedy roots with You Deserve Each Other, he’s going for a more superhero physique on screen.
The actor, who stars in Amazon MGM Studios‘ upcoming adaptation of Sarah Hogle’s book, recently opened up about the “very fast” body transformation he underwent to star opposite Meghann Fahy in the Marc Silverstein & Abby Kohn-helmed film.
“It happened very fast. I signed on right before we had to go,” he told Fahy on his Podcrushed podcast. “I was mostly consumed with losing enough weight, so it just made sense for how maniacal this guy was supposed to be about his body.”
Badgley 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.”
In You Deserve Each Other, Nicholas (Badgley) and Naomi (Fahy) both realize they’re suffering from cold feet ahead of their nuptials to each other. But instead of breaking things off, which means they’d have to foot the bill, the pair tries to goad the other into ending the engagement.
“I never had to lose weight and get kind of ripped for a role, so I was just like, ‘Of all things, a f*cking comedy, of course,’” added Badgley.
Filming has completed on the rom-com, but no release date has been set.