Penn Badgley Relives The Awkward And Sweet Moments Of Adolescence In New Podcast

In their new Stitcher podcast, Podcrushed, Nava Kavelin, Penn Badgley and Sophie Ansari revisit the anxiety and hilarity of the awkward teen years. The three creators and hosts all bring their unique perspectives to the show. Badgley spent his middle school years as a child actor in Hollywood. Ansari is a former fifth grade teacher who grew up in seven different countries, and Kavelin is a former middle school director who spent her formative years in Puerto Rico.

Podcrushed begins each episode with a listener’s middle school story (stories can be submitted here), narrated by Badgley and complete with its own musical score. The hosts then welcome a celebrity friend to share an embarrassing middle school story, resulting in a range of tales from first crushes to personal grooming nightmares to schoolyard dramas. Their first guest is Badgley’s former Gossip Girl co-star Leighton Meester. Future guests include Amy Schumer, Andy Grammer, Ayo Edebiri, Drew Barrymore, Rainn Wilson, Shay Mitchell, Tati Gabrielle, Victoria Pedretti, and more.

I spoke with the three hosts about how they select the stories they share on Podcrushed and asked if these stories unearthed any memories of their own. We also discussed what their younger selves might think of the show.

Risa Sarachan: I love the concept of Podcrushed. How did the three of you come up with it?

Nava Kavelin: I used to work at a middle school in a role where I had to uphold discipline, and it always struck me that middle schoolers were uniquely funny and strange, in the best way. They did things you’d only do in that time of life, where you have enough agency to pull something big off, passionate feelings that are fueling you, and not enough foresight to realize something might be a really bad idea. I thought there might be an untapped treasure trove of stories from that time in people’s lives. I approached the others to pitch them the idea, and everyone was instantly on board, and helped shape it even further.

Sarachan: How many entries have you received, and how do you select the ones you share?

Kavelin: We received around 800 submissions for Season 1. Sophie and I read every single story and narrowed it down to 100 candidates we liked, and then Penn and David Ansari (one of our producers) jumped in and helped us pin it down even further. We tried to ensure a variety of different voices and experiences. We could have done 50 bad dance experiences, but tried to stick to one to two per classic school genre.

Sophie Ansari: I remember reading a story about a tweezing fiasco and laughing so hard that I immediately Facetimed Nava. She was in Puerto Rico at the time, but it was so good that I needed to read the story aloud to her so I could see her reaction. It was quite cathartic to read through all of the submissions.

Sarachan: Has working on Podcrushed made you reflect on your own middle school years differently? Has it unearthed any memories that you had long forgotten?

Kavelin: I think it’s made me feel more grace and compassion towards myself, and also made me reflect really deeply on how the media influenced my sense of my own self-worth.

Ansari: Absolutely. Penn and Nava like to joke that I have no embarrassing stories from middle school because I was “cool,” ha! But the stories are slowly coming to the surface for me as we dig into this time of life together. I realize that it’s taking me longer to retrieve and share those memories because they’re actually still quite raw for me, even at 28! My embarrassing stories are less funny and more so just… painful!

Penn Badgley: And that’s of course, unfair to Sophie and all cool people–everyone has at least a few stories from this time that make them shudder with insecurity. Somehow, I find I’m often in touch with this age because it’s when I began acting professionally, and I’m constantly being asked how I got into acting, and reflecting on how I got into this bizarre position. We did have a guest who I knew personally when we were both 14, Evan Rachel Wood, who read from her diary. I suppose that reminded me [of that time] with even more precision and pain.

Sarachan: Nava and Sophie, how do you feel your work in education has informed your work on Podcrushed? Do any of your former students listen?

Kavelin: I chose to work in education before because of my love for young people, and belief in the significance of that formative period of early adolescence to potently shape our lives. That same love motivated the creation of Podcrushed, and I hope the listeners will feel that in the episodes. I haven’t heard from former students yet – I hope they are listening!

Ansari: My biggest regret from teaching is not writing down more of the wacky things that students would say and do on a daily basis. It really is such a uniquely funny time of life that you get to peer into as a teacher. And with all the knowledge and experience of an adult, it becomes even funnier. I feel like working on Podcrushed has allowed me to experience that feeling from a new angle.

My former students are like tiny detectives! Many of them have already discovered my TikTok, so it’s only a matter of time before I hear from one of them about an episode of the podcast. I love it. Their support means everything to me.

Sarachan: Penn, how does working on this podcast compare with your work in film and television?

Penn: They’re not so comparable, to me, except very broadly as “storytelling.” The experiences are very different. If there’s any future for me in interviewing, rather than being interviewed, it’s an unexpected development that I welcome. It’s an art form unto itself where, yes, a narrative is being constructed, but I suppose it’s a lot more like journalism or stand-up. It’s commentary. Reflection. What I reflect on, as much as anything else, is how we represent young people in the media because I’ve been representing young people in the media throughout my entire youth. That’s not an exaggeration. In a sense, this show takes the pop culture milieu I’m known for and essentially allows me to relate more transparently, more authentically, to the genre itself. It feels like breaking the fourth wall.

Sarachan: Would your teenage selves appreciate this podcast?

Kavelin: Teenage me loved embarrassing stories and crush stories more than anything else. So I guess I haven’t evolved much!

Ansari: I’d probably wonder why a bunch of adults were so focused on middle school, when all I wanted was to be an adult! But really, I know that listening to it would have been the validation I needed that my feelings and experiences mattered.

Badgley: Hot take: my teenage self probably wouldn’t have gotten past the hosts, the name, or the premise. Or the persistent use of pink. But if I’d overcome those barriers, I not only would have enjoyed it, I literally was desperate for something like this: directly addressing the pain of coming-of-age with a heartfelt personal story, thinking about the myriad social forces contributing to that pain, all while managing levity and wholesomeness. It’s those two ingredients that get overlooked in an age of darkly serious programming for all ages, and I think there’s medicine in them.

Podcrushed is now available on Stitcher, the SXM App, Pandora, and all major podcast listening platforms.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.