Actor Penn Badgley is perhaps most famous for portraying the artistic Dan Humphrey in the series Gossip Girl and the twisted anti-hero Joe Goldberg in Netflix's thriller series You, but he has a surprisingly strong connection with the world of Nintendo, too.
Back in 2013, just as Gossip Girl was coming to an end, Badgley revealed in an interview with The Guardian that as a child, he supplied the voices for characters in the N64 titles Mario Tennis and Mario Golf. "I had to do all the [makes bonkers yelps and video game SFX] noises, all that shit," he recalls.
That's cool enough, you'd assume – but Badgley's link to Nintendo goes beyond that.
Aged 13, Badgley was hired to portray a teenage "Pokémon teacher" called Jimmy who tried to educate a room of parents on how to play the Pokémon Trading Card Game.
More recently, Badgley discussed both his N64 voice work and the TCG role with Captial Radio in the UK.
Badgley explains that, as he was based in Washington state, he was close to Nintendo's office in Seattle and was, therefore, one of the many young local actors available for voice and commercial work.
He reveals that, prior to getting the roles, he wasn't a massive gamer – although his parents did eventually relent and purchase him an N64 with Castlevania and Star Wars: Rogue Squadron. He admits that he "didn't even know what Castlevania was" and that, even today, he has never played the N64 games he starred in.
The Pokémon Trading Card Game video was, as Badgley claims, a promotional tool used by Nintendo to encourage more people to take up the game, rather than just swap the cards with one another.