Penn Badgley and Chace Crawford have recalled their time on cult TV drama Gossip Girl and revealed they now find it “uncomfortable” watching the show.
The series aired from 2007-2012, following the lives of upper-class students living on Manhattan’s Upper East Side.
It made stars out of Badgley and Crawford, who held a virtual reunion for Variety’s Actors On Actors series.
Badgley – critically acclaimed for his portrayal of a delusional serial killer in Netflix drama You – admitted he finds watching Gossip Girl “uncomfortable”.
The 33-year-old last watched it with his now-wife Domino Kirke, six months after they met in 2014.
Badgley, who played writer Dan Humphrey on Gossip Girl, said: “She had never seen it, and that’s the last time I can remember seeing an episode.
“I remember even then, it has nothing to do with the show, but it was very hard to watch. These snapshots of yourself when you’re 20, 21, 22 years old.
“Who can enjoy that? Sometimes it’s just uncomfortable.”
Crawford, who played Nate Archibald on Gossip Girl, agreed, saying you would have to “strap me to a gurney and pop my eyes open like Clockwork Orange” to get him to watch the show.
The 34-year-old said: “I don’t like really watching myself that much in general. So to go back and open that time capsule, I think there would be some nostalgic value. We’re doing that when you come to LA. We’ll have a drink.”
During the reunion it was also revealed Badgley’s then-girlfriend and his Gossip Girl co-star Blake Lively bought him his first iPhone in 2007 – but he was not impressed.
Crawford said: “Remember, ’07 was when the very first iPhone came out? I remember you got it. I remember you had it at a Halloween party.
“You had the first iPhone, and think about that now. I remember we were more about camera phones and this and that. There wasn’t social media.”
Badgley added: “Blake got me that. I literally was like, ‘I don’t want this thing. It’s so cumbersome, and it has all these apps on it.’”