Penn Badgley would 'certainly not recommend' child stardom

Penn Badgley would "certainly not recommend" being a child star.

The 38-year-old began his acting career at the age of 12, with his first film credit coming in 2001's The Fluffer.

In a recent interview with The Guardian, Penn recalled how he and his mother moved to Los Angeles after his parents got divorced and he began working as an actor shortly after his arrival in California.

"I would certainly not recommend it to anybody," he said of being a child actor in Hollywood.

The You star then noted that many of the young actors he grew up with came from broken homes and moved to Hollywood in search of "an opportunity to put a pause on the collapsing family dynamic, sort of have this escape, or this fantasy".

"There's a lot of ways in which I think it's objectively negative, in terms of the value system, for a kid to be growing up around," he said, explaining that if you do succeed, "You're succeeding despite your own delusions that it would work. It's a very weird thing."

Penn, who shot to fame at the age of 20 when he landed the role of Dan Humphrey in Gossip Girl, admitted he found stardom alienating.

"Extremely unnatural, just the way that people want to relate to you," he said. "It's not a new idea that fame has all these nefarious dimensions to it."

The star continued, "And in order to even appreciate or utilise the privileges that come with it, one has to really grapple with the ways in which it's completely disabled parts of you or your life, or your relationship to others and society."