Here’s Why ‘You’ Star Elizabeth Lail Said She Enjoyed Shooting Scenes in a Cage
You transcended its origins as an under-the-radar gem on the Lifetime channel to become a huge hit on Netflix. The show’s fan base constantly makes memes about its wild events and shamelessly thirsts after Penn Badgley, even though Joe Goldberg is a possessive monster easily prone to violence. The dissonance between the content of the show and the perverse enjoyment people get from it also extends to the actors on screen. Guinevere Beck (Elizabeth Lail) was one of Joe’s first victims on You with her time held captive in a cage playing a big party on her demise. Despite the horrific nature of the setup, Lail considers these scenes as her favorite moments filming You.
Beck was Joe’s obsession during the first season of ‘You’
Beck was a humble MFA student with dreams of a writing career before becoming the object of Joe’s disturbed affection. He kills multiple people close to her and worms his way into her life to trick Beck into “loving” him.
Near the end of season one, she discovers the depth of Joe’s insanity after finding his stache of murder mementos. Joe’s reaction to this is to use what we now know is one of the go-to moves in his playbook: keeping people captive in a cage. Beck’s attempt to flee is cut short by Joe and while her death is never shown on screen, she only appears in season two as a ghost leaning on Joe’s guilty conscience.
The weight of Beck’s death pops up again in the penultimate episode of season four when she and fellow victims Love Quinn (Victoria Pedretti) and Gemma Graham-Greene (Eve Austin) show up in his Valium-induced nightmares to convince Joe that the only way to atone for his crimes is to kill himself.
Elizabeth Lail had a great time hanging out in the cage
Lail and Badgely were guests on an episode of the Podcrushed podcast. She is asked to name her favorite scene of the series to film and Lail picks out Beck’s captivity in Joe’s cage. Bringing those moments of terror to life was an entertaining exercise for the actor.
“For the week I was in the cage, even though that seems like a weird thing to enjoy. It’s intense, and you can kind of just live in that intensity,” Lail said. “I would just stay in the cage and I would just lay down, and people would work around me. There’s something about the cage that feels theater-esque because it’s dark around [the set] and then the lights are on.”
Many actors would give the same answer as Lail in this situation. Finding the right emotional tone in such an extreme setting is a challenge that many performers find attractive. It can be fun to explore these sorts of scenarios without having to deal with an actual stalker.
Where will ‘You’ go after the events of season four?
We’ve known since the start of You that Joe is a killer. But the revelations of season four pushed his actions to an even darker place.
Joe’s attempt to reinvent his identity as a London-based professor is successful in the worst way possible. Rhys Montrose (Ed Speelers), the “Eat the Rich Killer” wreaking havoc in his social circle, turns out to be a projection of Joe’s mind to help him dissociate from his murderous compulsions.
Netflix renewed You for a fifth and final season. Star Badgely said he is excited about seeing Joe potentially face some consequences.
It feels to me like Joe needs to get what’s coming to him, and now he has further to fall because he has all this power and wealth,” he told IndieWire. “But of course, that’s not up to me. I don’t know where it’s going. But to me, with this concept and with this character, we always wanted to be responsible and it’s not just the kind of thing we can let keep going because it’s doing well.”
