Why did Jameela Jamil drop out of ‘You’ Audition?

Jameela Jamil revealed that she dropped out of an audition for Netflix’s You because her character was too “sexy”.

You follows serial killer Joe Goldberg (Penn Badgley) and his obsession with women.

Season four sees Joe move to London to start afresh as a professor.

The show has seen plenty of racy scenes but Jameela revealed that such scenes actually put her off from joining the popular series.

On the Podcrushed Podcast with Penn, Jameela said:

“I don’t do sex scenes.

“In fact, I was supposed to audition for the most recent season of your show and the character was supposed to be quite sexy and I pulled out of the audition because I’m so shy about anything sexy.”

In February 2023, Penn revealed that he had asked for fewer sex scenes in the latest season out of respect for his wife Domino Kirke.

The revelation seemed to imply some regret on Jameela’s part for her decision to drop out of the audition.

Jameela continued: “And then you f***ing came out and was like ‘yeah I’m not doing sex scenes anymore and I’m going to protect myself!’

“F***ing hell, I didn’t even know that was a boundary we could draw! That’s fantastic.

“But then I was like – I should have gone and done the f***ing show!”

Penn suggested that Jameela could always join for season five, adding:

“It’s not a sex show anymore!”

Jameela Jamil went on to say that she skips sex scenes even when watching them on her own due to her “shyness”.

She added: “It’s not a shame but I feel like there’s an awkwardness around it.”

Previously, Penn said about his own aversion to sex scenes:

“This is actually a decision I made before I took the show. I don’t think I have ever mentioned it publicly.

“One of the main things was, do I want to put myself back on a career path where I’m always playing the romantic lead?”

“Fidelity in every relationship, including my marriage, is important to me. It’s got to the point where I don’t want to do that.

“So I said ‘my desire would be zero, to go from 100 to zero’.

“But I signed this contract. I signed up for this show. I know what I did. You can’t take this aspect out of the DNA of the concept.

“So how much less can you make it, was my question to them.

“She didn’t even bat an eye. She was really glad that I was that honest. She was sort of almost, I want to say empowered, it had a really positive response. They came back with a phenomenal reduction.”