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lUkas Gage is nothing if not a contemporary celebrity. A charming English director goes from complete unknown to viral infamy when he films a Criticizing their tiny apartment on ZoomThen the heavily drugged person performs anilingus on her. white lotusThen he married Kim Kardashian’s hair stylist before divorcing him after six monthsAnd now she has written a memoir at the age of 30, because why not? it is called I wrote this to attract attentionEveryone told him to name it something else.
“It’s too long, too polarizing, and people will hate me for it,” Gage says with a laugh from his (now slightly larger) apartment in New York. “But it also means I can beat people up a little: like, ‘Why did this young person who doesn’t really have a career write a memoir?'”
Of course, Gage has a career. But it’s a strange and twisty affair that flirts with reputation and, well, is the opposite of reputation. You should have seen him badly beaten by Jacob Elordi ExcitementOr as a confused Minnesotan in the fifth season FargoOr playing a sweet-natured cyborg in this year’s sci-fi chiller partnerHowever, if you’re gay or totally online – or, more accurately, some unholy combination of the two – then Gauge is synonymous with a cheeky Internet culture that loves nothing more than to feast on itself. For someone who isn’t (yet) a household name, Gage has often been caught in various waves of awkward digital reaction: He’s been with too many women to be a gay man, he’s done too much celebrity behavior to be a real actor, he was too comfortable getting married in an oversize faux fur coat and leather trousers.
“If you’re in the public eye, people will be attracted to you,” he tells me. “There’s going to be a bandwagon where you become the villain. It’s happened to me once and I’ll repeat it again, I’m sure. But once it happens and you come out the other end of it, there’s something very liberating about it. It’s like, wow, I survived that. I’m at peace.”
like a little her good friend julia foxWhose career has changed shape between legitimate work (e.g. uncut gems), memes (like “Uncut Jams”), and momentary madness (like dating Kanye West), Gauge exists in a strange no man’s land between pseudo-stardom and Internet infamy. Then again, a memoir serves as both a legitimacy-enhancing status symbol (Colleen Hoover, publicist of blockbuster Weepies, provides a glowing blurb) and a chance to uncritically control a narrative. Fox, who has his own painful memoir down the drain One of the unexpected non-fiction works of 2023 was a big supporter of Gage’s own writing. “When she read it, she said she felt like we were soul sisters,” he smiles. “And that’s just what I wanted, because he’s a genius.”
People thought, ‘Oh, he’s just doing this for jobs and influence and to get to the top.’ But, in reality, it was detrimental to my career.
I wrote this to attract attention This may be the result of temporary unemployment (Gage pitched it to publishers during the 2023 dual actors and writers strike), but it’s also a boon for a rising star who has become almost more of a Twitter celebrity than an actual artist. The book gets to the core of him, from his tumultuous childhood in Encinitas, California, just 25 miles from the Mexico border, to his early struggles with drugs and alcohol and the sexual abuse he experienced at a pre-teen summer camp. It’s often a very funny coming-of-age story, rooted in the plastic excesses of the noughties (Curious flies through the air by Britney Spears; Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan are cultural touchstones), but it’s also bleak and bold. While young Hollywood is currently filled with Nepo babies and comfortably affluent people, Gage’s background is rocky and dangerous by comparison. His older brother struggles with addiction, his mother is attracted to casinos, his father is disappointed when four-year-old Gage slips in heels and Slacker Rabbit ears and dancing around their living room.
“We were a neurotic little unit that had a lot of love for each other but also a lot of issues,” he recalls. “I came from a world where people are punished for needing help, and faced systems that are constantly failing so many people.” At one point he is sent to a “troubled-teen” camp, which seems like a kind of legal torture center for teenagers. Today, he says, his relationship with drugs is nuanced. “I wouldn’t say they’re friends or enemies, but I grew up with them as roommates. They gave me some of the best nights of my life and some of the worst.” However, opiates continue to haunt him. “I know people in my hometown who are still struggling with them, and I’ve seen them cause the most trouble and the most harm overall. I hate, hate, hate them.”
Gage is a careful conversationalist, and is much more soft-spoken and unsure of himself than I thought. He’s more honest and vulnerable than I imagined – he’s 30 now, but feels young. He first moved to Los Angeles to pursue acting at the age of 18, and in this he found a legitimate means of satisfying his lifelong thirst for attention. “I was a little boy who was desperate to be seen, loved and validated,” he says. “And then I became a man who is desperate to be seen, loved and validated.”
Gage’s relationship with fame is, by his own admission, meaningless. He lampoons noughties celebrities for their “authenticity” and feels they are much less inspired by “Instagram, iPhones and brand deals”, but he is also quick to include Tommy Hilfiger, Armani and La Mer skincare on his social media pages. He wants fame, but not the kind of fame that’s all about “masculinity and memes.” “Being recognized as an actor felt like the fulfillment of a dream I’d worked my whole life for,” he says. “But then being recognized as a public figure felt unearned and accidental. It felt revealing and loud, and where it all overlaps and intersects never really mattered to me.”
Point out the contradictions of all this, and – give Gage credit – he holds his hands up. Then he quoted Walt Whitman. “‘Do I contradict myself? Well, I contradict myself. I’m big and I’m crowded.'”
He laughs, rubbing his eyes. He apologizes. He woke up only an hour ago, and is sipping a smoothie.
“One thing I’m afraid of is that people say, ‘Wait, you said this then, and now you’re saying something else,'” he says. “But that’s only because I’m growing and changing all the time. My perspective on things will evolve or change, or make no sense, and I think that’s okay.”
A few years ago, Gage was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, which manifests as a pattern of mood swings, self-destructive, impulsive behavior, and unstable, short-term relationships. “It reframed everything for me,” he says. “My past relationships. Self-sabotage. All the ups and downs. Suddenly there was this map, and I could see patterns. It wasn’t like I was ‘chaotic.’
Part of him is nervous about it becoming public. “I don’t want to have a scarlet letter on me and walk around with this thing. But I also know that I’m not broken, and I’m not a liability. I can be a good person. I’m just built differently.”
In 2024, Gage appeared on Andy Cohen’s US talk show and described her short-lived marriage to hair stylist Chris Appleton in 2023 as “a manic episode” – it seemed a joke at the time, but her book confirms it to be more or less true. They loved each other, but moved on too fast. They met, got engaged, married and announced their separation in the span of nine months.
“I felt like I was swept away,” he says. “Part of me was rebelling against this reaction I was experiencing.” Online, Gage was accused of “queerbaiting” following a viral tweet that accused him of being a “non-LGBTQIA+ actor” who, despite this, had played queer characters on several TV shows. Gage was not out at the time, and was still privately exploring his sexuality. And, frankly, he was angry. Don’t believe he’s gay? Well, then watch her propel herself to a very well-photographed wedding with a Kardashian-adjacent male micro-celebrity.
“I felt criticized in this public way that didn’t feel authentic to me,” he says. “Then, suddenly, this relationship overshadows all the work I’ve done and the career I’m building.” Then He There was a reaction. “People thought, ‘Oh, he’s just doing this for the jobs and the clout and to make his way to the top.’ But, in reality, it was detrimental to my career. At the time, the feedback I was getting from casting agents was that I had too much of a public persona. People don’t let me audition for things…”
He stops, and restarts his thoughts. “I don’t know what I’m trying to say,” he whispers. We sit in silence for a moment. “On some level, I didn’t want to be closed off anymore. But the way I went about it was very polarizing. I’ve learned that it’s far more beneficial to not put so much of my personal life out there. It’s better to keep that secret.”
We are sitting silently.
“And then I, you know, write a book.” Gage laughs, rubbing his brow. I think it’s all too much for him. The gauge is famous but not. Straight but gay. Thirsty but scared. “I want fame, recognition and validation,” he says. “And then I figure it out and it scares me and I say, ‘Don’t look at me, I don’t want it anymore.'”
For now, at least, he is content with his contradictions. It is huge, and it is crowded.
‘I Wrote This for Attention’ by Lucas Gage is available now via 4th Estate