Penn Badgley was our favorite actor on the season premiere of Gossip Girl. He made us feel Dan's loneliness, awkwardness... and absolutely pining for Serena.

Below, the actor talks about the role:

Q: Can you tell me more about Gossip Girl and your character, Dan Humphrey?
A: Gossip Girl itself as a show, I think walks a nice line between you know flair and glamour and gloss and gossip. And all that that culture is. And then it also has a nice heart and soul to the show. That is most represented by the Humphrey family. Like Dan and his sister Jenny and his father Rufus. The Humphrey's, they live a much less-privileged lifestyle than the rest of the characters. So what they lack financially, they make up for (like any other family) in the more rewarding things. They have...

Q: Soul?
A: The heart and soul. So Dan being so sensitive with so much heart is an outcast. All his life, he has pined after the girl who represents...

Q: Everything that he does not.
A: Right, exactly. And it's also a lifestyle... he doesn't want to encourage it and he doesn't really agree with the extravagant life. You know what I am saying? So he kind of battles with that. The girl that he loves embodies everything that he...

Q: Doesn't.
A: You know? Doesn't have, yeah, but I don't think he wants that. He wants, I think, the social aspect of it all but he's not planning for Prada shoes or anything.

Q: Totally, totally. Are there any similarities between you and Dan?
A: I think definitely. I would like to think that I have the same integrity as his character. I am a little more socially-confident. I am not the loner.

Q: You're not the guy that hides behind the dress. (Laughs).
A: No. But I was very introverted as a kid. So there are more similarities in that way than people might at first think. But yeah, overall, I think we are very similar. And on a television show, over time, the character really becomes you or rather you become the character. You kind of switch into that mode very easily. As time goes on, you might see more similarities.

Read the full interview here.

Steve Marsi is the Managing Editor of TV Fanatic. Follow him on Google+ or email him here.