The actor "struggled" because "what people seemed to think of Dan seemed to be what people thought of me" It was hard for Penn Badgley to know if he was himself or if he was Dan Humphrey for a while.

Penn Badgley recently opened up about the circumstances that led him to play his most popular role to date, Dan Humphrey, in the widely loved series Gossip Girl.

Penn Badgley is opening up about the challenges of dating his "Gossip Girl" co-star Blake Lively while working on the hit series. Badgley, who played Dan Humphrey, dated Lively, who played Serena van der Woodsen, from 2007 to 2010, mirroring their characters' onscreen romance.