Lukas Gage
Photo: Corey Nickols/Getty Images
Lukas Gage pitched his memoir in the middle of the WGA and SAG strikes. “I think the birth of it was truly me being a little bit manic,” he says. But decisions during mania were nothing new for the actor. Gage has made a lot of big decisions while feeling a little “cuckoo.” Originally, he says he wanted to write a book of essays, but publishers were much more interested in a personal memoir — especially from someone comfortable with online overexposure and naturally candid (even if he is, at times, “unreliable”). In I Wrote This for Attention, out October 14, Gage charts his rise from attention-seeking child to attention-seeking adult with screwball details, willful humility, and plenty of lies. “It’s important to me to own up to it and admit that I’m a huge liar,” he says. “I just now turned 30, and I’m finally figuring out how to stop lying so much.”
Despite this clarity of persona on the page, the book is less desperate for eyeballs than the title promises. Only the last few chapters are about Gage’s time in Hollywood, including his Las Vegas wedding to hairstylist Chris Appleton, which was aired on season four of The Kardashians — Kim Kardashian officiated — and a paragraph on his friend and Euphoria co-star Sydney Sweeney, who can’t seem to stop getting attention of her own. The rest of the book is Gage unraveling his relationship with his childhood traumas, his mental health, and his desire for the spotlight. That’s really why he wrote this.
Toward the end of the book, you say that you accepted the book offer as part of a manic episode. How did this book really come to be?
It was the year of the strike, so I had a lot of free time. I always wanted to write a book as a kid, but the strike-mania and a not great mix of medications led to a premature book happening.
Did you do the initial reaching out, or did the editors come to you?
I wrote this proposal for a book of essays. It turns out it’s much more lucrative for publishers if you write a memoir.
How did you begin the writing process?
There are a lot of variations of what this book was. The first draft was a little bit cuckoo, hence my headspace. It was a little uneven. It still is a little uneven.
What do you mean by uneven?
In some areas, it’s not cohesive storytelling. We jump around. But that’s how my life felt. I felt like if I wrote down the events that had happened that led me to where I was, it would be like, Wait, how the hell did you get from there to there? What do you mean you got married on “The Kardashians”? When I got my shit together and I was in a levelheaded state of mind, the book actually became something important to me. I had to do a scavenger hunt of my own psyche for why I did certain things.
Do you feel like you learned about your life through writing this?
I had a lot more empathy for myself. I love that crazy nightmare suburban teen. I love that annoying ratty child who was desperate for attention. There was an understanding of why I am the way that I am.
You start the book by claiming “I killed a kid,” referring to an old version of yourself. Why start there?
Originally, that was in the middle of the book. I got bullied and had to leave different middle schools, and I started over as the tough kid who wasn’t tough, dyed my hair, and did all that shit. That theme kept reoccurring. There are all these different versions of myself that I’ve become and abandoned. I don’t want to say “façade,” because they all are parts of me, but I noticed how easily it was for me to have an identity crisis where I would just completely change who I was in order to survive.
But by starting with that, you’re teaching the audience not to trust you. How did you think of yourself as a narrator?
I am kind of an unreliable narrator. The first chapter is how much of a fucking liar I am, so you’re like, Oh, he’s admitting that I really can’t trust him. But as we get through the book, you see where the fibs and the storytelling and the shape-shifting to tell a narrative comes from. It’s important to me to own up to it and admit that I’m a huge liar. I just now turned 30, and I’m finally figuring out how to stop lying so much.
Do you feel like the book helped you?
I do. It was really important to me to not play the victim and to be fully honest about my part in every relationship I’ve had my downfalls in. I’m not trying to be an inspiration, but I wrote this to be honest and helpful. Now I’m not so defensive. When people call me out and say, “You lied” or “You’re actually being an asshole right now,” I can be like, “Yeah,” instead of being so defensive and trying to cover up my shit.
What do you think the public perception of your personality is?
There is this version of myself that’s this thirsty, excited kid who is like, Oh my God, I’m with Jimmy Kimmel, I’m with Kelly Clarkson. When you’re doing that, you are performing for an audience. There’s a version of myself on Instagram who is doing brand deals and on vacation, and it looks really great. But you don’t see that other part of me that has a lonely existence when I go home and spiral.
In the book, you’re more sarcastic and self-critical, with a lot of asides to the audience. Is that closer to you?
All of those personae are real aspects of me. I talk about the most fucked-up shit that’s happened to me with a joke. Then I tell the most mundane stories with this overembellished, exaggerated tone. I wanted to entertain, too. I don’t want it to be flowery or overly sentimental or precious or saccharine — even if some people are like, Oh, what you described is a little jarring.
Have people who read the memoir said that?
I’ve had people say that about certain parts, whether it be about some of the sexual-molestation stuff or the mental-health stuff. But that’s authentic to myself. I have some ownership of it and how it affects me. It’s a way for me to deal with shame. I don’t want to feel small.
How did you choose what you wanted to include in the book? It was much more focused on your adolescence versus your time in Hollywood.
To be fully transparent, the last three chapters of the book with the Hollywoodish stuff is what I sold the book proposal on. They’re my least favorite part and the least interesting to me. I’ve told those stories. People want that “behind the curtain” and “inside baseball” view of it, but for me, the younger childhood stuff is so imprinted in my DNA.
You get into your difficult relationship with your father in the book, including that he and your mother sent you to a troubled-teens camp. How do you think he’ll perceive the book?
I don’t know if he’s going to read it. I wanted to be careful about how I portray everybody. I come for everyone a little bit, and then I show some good qualities.
He has the hardest time of it, though.
I tried to write what I felt at that age, and I hated my father. I think that there’s some humanity in him, though. In the conclusion, I see myself in my father. I acknowledge that even though I can hate him as a person, I still love him as my dad.
Can you describe why you didn’t want to initially come out to the public?
I truly felt like no one gave a shit. I was a nobody. Why do I have to give a press release about it? I also felt that rebellious side of me that’s like, I’m literally not going to do it even more now, because you guys are asking for it. Fuck you. But, I have to be honest, there is another part of me that … We have made progress in the industry with letting certain people play certain things, but I knew that I was going to lose out on things once that happened. I had to sit with it and have a moment where I’m like, Do I live a lie and try to keep this up for as long as I can, or do I fucking be honest? If people don’t want to work with me for that reason, then they’re not the people I want to work with anyway.
How was it to write those Hollywood chapters you didn’t want to write?
To me, it feels a bit surface level, because I felt very surface level at the time. I wanted to be authentic to what I was feeling at that time. I originally wanted to do essays, and I thought I would write about virality — less personal and more of a statement about the internet. But now that’s scattered weirdly in the end. The publishers really wanted a personal-memoir narrative to it.
How did you approach working on the Hollywood chapters?
Well, you have to just stop having resistance. Which I still have. Talking about the viral video or the marriage, it’s like, Oh God, that question again; how many times have I answered it? I’ve overshared already, and I’m bored by it. And I’m sure it’s going to become clickbait when it comes out. I was honest about how out of control the internet can become, and how you can also shift from being the hero of the internet one day to being completely hated by everybody.
You don’t spend much time in the book focusing on Kim Kardashian or other major celebrities. Why not?
I don’t know them as intimately as a lot of these other people in my life. That was a five-month period where I was in that world and I wasn’t fully there. I didn’t feel like I had much to say about it. And also, I’m not in contact with those people, and I’m not going to probably get their approval of reading it, and that’s important too.
You’ve played yourself on TV twice now, on Gossip Girl and The Other Two. What is that version of “Lukas Gage” like, and how does he differ from the you that you want to come across here?
That is the most exaggerated, attention-seeking, and performative version of myself. That’s a version that we see on Watch What Happens Live! but on steroids.
How do you feel about the term attention whore?
I love it. People are wanting worse things than attention. Everyone does something for attention.
But you say you want attention, it’s even in the title of the book, but then you don’t talk about any of your famous friends. Even if it is clickbait, that feels like the thing that would actually garner you the most attention. How do you feel about that tension?
Part of the title was also beating people to the punch. It’s like, Why did this actor who is way too young and not successful enough write a memoir? I did it for attention. I’m literally spelling it out for you guys. I started the proposal with that. If I’m going to do it, it has to be that title.
Did they ask you for the paragraph about Sydney Sweeney, or did you write it on your own?
What do you think?
I think they asked you for a paragraph about Sydney Sweeney.
Correct.
What is it like to write a paragraph about your friend that’s been specifically requested?
There’s a part of me that pushes back, but then there’s a part of me that’s like, I have to hear why that will get people to read the book. She’s this huge name, and I have to accept it. Then I have to be as honest as possible about what I felt at that time about her: How can this serve the story? I’m in a bubble, and she’s the only anchor I have to the outside world.
It’s interesting that you picked up on that, because, as an actor, if someone gives me a bad critique on my performance, I’m like, It was the director’s fault or the script or whatever. With a book that you wrote, you’re like, I can’t really blame anyone. But … it was my first book and I had to listen to people who have been doing this for so long and know this world.
You don’t talk about being queer very much in the book. You don’t go deeply into describing when you realized you liked men.
Honestly, the truth is I didn’t have that moment. It was so fucking confusing for me. I talk a little bit in the book about telling my mom, “I don’t know what I am. I think I’m gay.” I have a cousin who came out when he was 11 as gay and said he knew since he was 5, and I was like, I wish it was that clear. I don’t know if it had to do with repressed feelings or it had to do with the molestation. Did I like it or didn’t I?
I also genuinely loved the girlfriend who I talk about in the book. I’m still trying to figure it out. It’s the same thing with the mental- health stuff. I had a hard time labeling. I don’t want to define it, and I don’t want to print this thing on me. “Borderline personality disorder” felt like an albatross around my neck. Now, I think I love that I am mostly gay. I’ll say, I dunno, 10 percent fluid or whatever. And I embrace my borderline.
Do you think of your job as being an actor or being a celebrity?
Actor.
But writing a book is an act of celebrity.
I think what sets this book apart, though, is that I don’t view myself as a celebrity. I view myself as a working actor who has a weird parasocial relationship with the fame and virality. I’m still auditioning. I’m still not a leading character. But I’ve dipped my toe into this weird world where anyone can be famous in five minutes, and that can be fleeting.
You play a gay robot in Companion and a hot mess in How to Blow Up a Pipeline. It seems like the celebrity might help you book those roles.
People would be surprised that some things were a detriment and made me lose out on roles. The virality and the “marriage on The Kardashians” was such a moment that, yes, you think of me, but then you also think, Is he a liability? and Can we lose him in the character because we know so much about his personal life? People are like, You did that to get famous and to get jobs. And I’m like, “Those are different. ‘Get famous’ and ‘get jobs’ are different.”
Are you worried about the book affecting things, then?
I’m scared about being misunderstood.
How do you think you’ll be misunderstood?
I lead with humor. I am blunt about certain things. But I don’t need to know everyone’s opinions. There’s a fear of being misunderstood, but there’s also a cathartic freedom. Ultimately, I know I’m inviting criticism with this book, and I know I’m inviting criticism with the title of the book. It feels wrong to say I don’t give a shit anymore. I do care what people think.
Are you going to read reactions?
I would be lying if I said I’m not. But I can tell you that there’s not that self-obsession that was once there. Do I get stuff sent to me by the editors that I have to read? Yeah. Do I obsess over a line or two and go, “Oh shit, I didn’t mean it like that?” Of course. But there’s not this active search for negativity anymore.
Related