🔗 Share this article

There's a telling moment in Lukas Gage's new book where he refers to it a "premature autobiography". It's a humble joke, of course, but it's also true. Gage isn't extremely famous – at least not yet. Likely, though, if you've watched him then you won't have forgotten him. In 2020, he went viral after leaking an tryout recording where the filmmaker – forgetting he wasn't on mute – was caught criticizing his apartment. "These poor people live in these tiny apartments," he says, before Gage intervenes to let him know he can hear every word. The next year, Gage appeared in the debut installment of The White Lotus: in one moment, his character Dillon is caught by a hotel guest standing completely undressed in the office, while said manager engages in a sexual act on him.

"I thought: I don't have too much to do in the show so I'd better put my mark on it big," he remarks with a smile today. "I wanted to give people something to recall me for – and I did!"

Chaotic Roles and Life

Gage specialises in characters whose lives are chaotic and disordered – just like his own. That existence is all laid on the line in his memoir, which – here comes another self-deprecating joke – is called I Wrote this Book for Attention. Although comically entertaining, its subject matter is far from simple. We start with Gage's emotions of rejection by his father, then move on to drug use, molestation, domestic issues, dependency, personality disorders, shame, unstable relationships and heartbreak. What we don't get all that much of is the glamour of stardom. Gage freely acknowledges he is at the start of his profession. He has no great stores of knowledge to share on achievement. So what was the purpose of writing a memoir?

"I think it's cathartic for me to share my story," he says over a video link from New York. "During the Hollywood writers' strike I had the opportunity to really delve and go deep, so I just thought: screw it."

Early Life and Validation

Gage, 30, was raised in San Diego, and from an early age he was aware of his constant need for approval. He remembers a party where he appeared, aged four, wearing heels and Playboy bunny ears; in especial, he recalls being wounded by his dad's evident disgust at what he was doing. Their relationship never really recovered – Gage's dad left and became progressively distant with his sons (Gage has two older brothers) before settling down with a new family.

Gage struggled to fit in at school. He was a born actor, but this meant it was often hard to know who the true Lukas was. "I found myself constantly adopting different hats and identities, which I think was quite divisive for people," he states. It also had its benefits. Gage could easily adopt the persona of a straight-laced football player while privately filling his bag up with booze at the back of the local store. He was sometimes compensated by fellow pupils to call up and imitate their parents to get them out of class. "Transforming into different people was natural to me," he remarks.

Addiction and Household Challenges

The memoir addresses addiction – predominantly his sibling's battles with heroin that turn the admired sibling he looked up to into a frail zombie, but also his mother's fixation with gambling devices. An early win meant the family could afford to make the deposit on a larger house, but Gage laughs when I ask if she actually made money from betting. "Ultimately, how much she spent was certainly a lot more than that."

It is funny, he notes. Until she had gone through the book, his mum hadn't really reconciled with this aspect of her character. "She talked to my other brothers, like, 'Do you guys think this way too?' And they were all like, 'Of course, we've been saying this since we were kids.'"

Gage has a lot of love for his mum, who clearly raised her children up in difficult circumstances. But she had a difficulty reading it. "She believed as if she was unsuccessful as a mother and I did not want her to think that way at all. I believe like even though there's these turbulent things that happened to me, hard things, I actually loved the way that I grew up."

Finding Identity and Trauma

Gage didn't start to locate his true self until he was sent to an acting summer camp as a youngster, where being boisterous, theatrical and expressive was actually supported. The experience was transformative in good ways, but also in a terrible one. One night, he was joined in his shelter by a instructor who told Gage and a girl camper to kiss, remove their garments and press their bodies against each other while he pleasured himself. For a long time later, he tried to dismiss the shame it imprinted him with.

"As with a lot of people who undergo being molested, I felt like there was a willingness on my part because my body just checked out. I knew it was inappropriate. I knew that the situation should not be happening. But I just ploughed through it."

Doubt and Career Path

Gage is hard on himself in the book – and still is. He admits to looking for "harsh critiques" of himself on the internet. "I dislike that I don't always hold my performance and writing in the best light," he says. "I desire I could have more empathy with that part of myself."

Yet he acknowledges that this self-criticism motivates him forward too. In high school, he appeared in a wart-removal commercial and spent the day on set asking every query possible about mic positioning and the job of crew. Despite his mum's reservations, he left San Diego for Hollywood at the age of 18, residing in the Alta Cienega Motel where his idol Jim Morrison lived, on and off, between 1968 and 1970 (online comments – "Avoid completely from this DUMP!" – suggest it might not have been the most comfortable of accommodations).

Gage's major opportunity should have arrived when he landed a small role in Mad Men, as Sally Draper's crush. He told his whole family about it, but during a costume fitting he was forced to reveal the tattoos he'd had done on his sides, back and leg. "I had these representatives saying to me: how could you damage this? How could you mess this up? I don't think that was the greatest thing for a teenager to hear when they've just missed out on something that significant."

These days, such markings would be concealed in minutes, but at that time he was dismissed and starting over. The constant cycles of tryouts and rejections were harsh, but at least he had been trained well for them. "If I ever got rejected for a job, I would always feel: it's fine, it's not as bad as my dad leaving me for another household and child," he says.

Persistence and Breakthrough

Gage persevered. The story of how he deceived, pleaded and manipulated to get an audition for Assassination Nation, which ultimately led to a part in the hit show Euphoria (as Tyler Clarkson, bruised and in a neck brace) and then The White Lotus, could take up a book in itself. Gage recalls the strangeness of shooting The White Lotus in 2020, sequestered in a high-end Hawaii hotel while the pandemic and the US election unfolded. It was actually Gage, along with co-star Murray Bartlett, who pitched the idea that their sex act should be something a bit extra – and creator Mike White happily approved. Gage laughs recalling his mum's reaction. "She sent me a message, like, 'Such a cute bum, but maybe next time give me a heads-up that's going to occur when I'm viewing with my companions.'"

It was while on set that Gage shared colleagues the audition video in which his home was criticized. Their reaction – shocked, amused, supportive – convinced him to post it online. He wasn't ready for the feedback it received: countless articles, expressions of support from fellow actors and unknown people alike, and a campaign against the director in question, none of which Gage had any control over. "I felt like people were much more mad about it than I was, which puzzled me," he {