Penn Dayton Badgley (born November 1, 1986) is an American actor. He is known for his role as Dan Humphrey on The CW's series Gossip Girl (2007–12) and has also starred in a number of films, including John Tucker Must Die (2006), The Stepfather (2009), Easy A (2010), Margin Call (2011), and Greetings from Tim Buckley (2012).