You Star Penn Badgley Weighs In On Juggling Between Roles Of A Father And Stepdad

Penn Badgley is opening up about his personal life. The actor recently reflected on his personal experiences when it comes to parenthood. Badgley had a nuanced take to share, considering he is both a father as well as a stepfather.

Penn Badgley says being a father and a stepfather are rather different experiences

Penn Badgley recently made an appearance on the latest episode of The New York Times' Modern Love podcast. The actor, who is married to Domino Kirke, opened up about his approach to parenting the duo's three-and-a-half year old son. Also thrown into the mix, is Kirke's first born, the fifteen year old Cassius, to whom Badley is the stepfather. 

He said, "I have an interesting situation where I have a biological son and a stepson". Speaking about Cassius, the actor shared, "His father is very much in his life -- so his father is his father, and I'm something else". He further added, "So I have two different kind of parental roles. My biological son is only three-and-a-half. So, that's a very different thing, too. I need to be able to more consciously show him my vulnerability as he gets older in those years".

Penn Badgley recalls how he managed to establish a connection with his stepson

Owing to Cassius being in his teenage years, establishing a rock solid connect with him was a tough toss for Penn. The actor however, managed to strike up an equation with Cassius, over a viewing of the Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt led 2014 sci-film, Edge of Tomorrow, a film which gave them a chance to connect with one another. 

Badgley said, "(Cassius) doesn't want to spend that much time with us anyway...I just knew it was important. It was like the stars had aligned so that my wife and my youngest son were asleep, and I was just like, 'This is a good time to do this. You're not going to play video games now. We're going to do this...He loved it".