Penn Badgley Talks About His 'Two Different Kind of Parental Roles' as Dad and Stepdad: 'I'm Something Else'

The actor is dad to a son, 3½, whom he shares with wife Domino Kirke, and stepdad to his wife's son Cassius, 15

Penn Badgley is opening up about his role as a stepfather.

While appearing on the New York Times' Modern Love podcast, the You actor, 37, read an essay about a father who had to be vulnerable around his sons, prompting the star to share how vulnerable he is around his own kids. Badgley shares his son, 3½, with wife Domino Kirke, 40, and is also stepdad to Kirke's son Cassius, 15.

"I have an interesting situation where I have a biological son and a stepson," Badgley began. "And my stepson...his father is very much in his life, so his father is his father, and I'm something else. So I have two different kind of parental roles."

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Related: Penn Badgley's Toddler Recognized Him When the Actor Accidentally Turned on 'You' : 'Really Crazy'

"And then my biological son is only 3½. So, that's a very different thing, too. I'm going to need to be able to more consciously show him my vulnerability as he gets older in those years, you know?"

Later in the discussion, Badgley elaborated on the differences between his two sons, saying that he recently found a way to bond with his teenager. Noting that Cassius is older and "doesn't want to spend that much time with us anyway," the actor said he and his son watched The Edge of Tomorrow together.

"And it was one of those very male — we didn't talk that much because it was super late," he said. "But 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," Badgley shared. "And you want to talk about Modern Love? One of the ways you got to do that is watch things with people."

While appearing on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon last year, Badgley recounted a sticky situation with his toddler son when he almost saw his dad in You.

During the interview, Fallon asked if Badgley's son "knows his daddy plays a serial killer," which prompted the Gossip Girl alum to share his story.

"There was recently a day when I was doing something sweet with him, on my lap. And then I sat on the remote. You wouldn't think this, but it goes right to Netflix on the TV, and my face was right on the TV," he explained.

"And he was like, 'Daddy!' while I started to race around because the next thing he was going to see was something really crazy."

The actor was able to rush and turn off the TV before his son saw anything too wild, while Fallon joked he should have yelled at Siri to play Bluey.

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