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There's a telling moment in the actor's latest publication where he calls it a "premature celebrity memoir". It's a self-deprecating quip, of course, but it's also true. Gage isn't megawatt well-known – at least not yet. Chances are, though, if you've watched him then you will remember him. In 2020, he became an internet sensation after sharing an tryout recording where the filmmaker – not realizing he wasn't on mute – was heard judging his apartment. "These poor people live in these tiny apartments," he says, before Gage intervenes to let him know he can listen to every word. The following year, Gage appeared in the debut installment of The White Lotus: in one scene, his role Dillon is caught by a visitor standing completely undressed in the manager's office, while the manager performs anilingus on him.

"I thought: I don't have too much to do in the show so I'd better make an impression on it big," he remarks with a grin today. "I aimed to give people something to recall me for – and I did!"

Messy Characters and Life

Gage specialises in roles whose lives are messy and disordered – just like his own. That life is all revealed in his memoir, which – here comes another modest remark – is titled I Wrote this Book for Attention. Although humorously engaging, its subject matter is far from simple. We start with Gage's feelings of rejection by his father, then move on to substance abuse, sexual abuse, domestic issues, addiction, personality disorders, shame, unstable relationships and heartbreak. What we aren't shown all that much of is the glamour of fame. Gage freely admits he is at the start of his career. He has no vast reserves of wisdom to impart on success. So what was the reason of writing a memoir?

"I think it's cathartic for me to tell my story," he explains over a online call from New York. "Throughout the entertainment industry strike I had the free time to really dig in and go deep, so I just said: screw it."

Early Years and Validation

Gage, 30, grew up in San Diego, and from an young age he was cognizant of his constant need for approval. He recalls a gathering where he appeared, aged four, wearing high heels and Playboy bunny ears; in especial, he remembers being wounded by his dad's obvious distaste at what he was doing. Their bond never really healed – Gage's dad left and became progressively remote with his sons (Gage has two siblings) before starting with a new family.

Gage struggled to fit in at school. He was a born actor, but this meant it was often challenging to know who the real Lukas was. "I found myself constantly trying on different personas and identities, which I think was quite polarising for people," he states. It also had its benefits. Gage could effortlessly adopt the character of a clean-living football player while secretly stocking his backpack up with booze at the rear of the shop. He was sometimes paid by fellow pupils to call up and pretend to be their parents to get them out of class. "Transforming into different people was effortless to me," he says.

Dependency and Family Struggles

The book deals with dependency – predominantly his older brother's battles with drugs that turn the admired brother he idolised into a frail shell, but also his mother's fixation with casino slot machines. An initial jackpot meant the family could manage to make the deposit on a larger house, but Gage laughs when I inquire if she actually profited from betting. "In the end, 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 siblings, like, 'Do you guys think this way too?' And they were all like, 'Naturally, we've been saying this since we were kids.'"

Gage has a lot of affection for his mum, who obviously raised her children up in difficult conditions. But she had a difficulty reviewing it. "She felt as if she was unsuccessful as a mother and I did not want her to feel that way whatsoever. I believe like even though there's these turbulent things that happened to me, tough things, I truly appreciated the way that I grew up."

Finding Identity and Trauma

Gage didn't begin to find his true self until he was sent to an performance program as a child, where being loud, theatrical and expressive was actually supported. The time was transformative in positive ways, but also in a terrible one. One night, he was joined in his shelter by a instructor who instructed Gage and a female participant to kiss, remove their clothes and rub their selves against each other while he masturbated. For years afterwards, he tried to ignore the shame it imprinted him with.

"As with a lot of people who experience being abused, I felt like there was a complicity on my part because my body just checked out. I knew it was wrong. I knew that the circumstance should not be taking place. But I just endured it."

Doubt and Career Path

Gage is tough on himself in the book – and continues to be. He confesses to looking for "dark reviews" of himself on the internet. "I dislike that I don't always hold my performance and work in the highest esteem," he says. "I desire I could have more empathy with that part of myself."

Yet he acknowledges that this doubt drives him forward too. In high school, he featured in a wart-removal commercial and spent the day on set asking every question possible about mic positioning and the job of grips. Despite his mum's concerns, he departed San Diego for Hollywood at the age of 18, staying in the Alta Cienega Motel where his hero Jim Morrison lived, on and off, between 1968 and 1970 (Tripadvisor reviews – "Avoid completely from this place!" – indicate it might not have been the most luxurious of lodgings).

Gage's big break should have come when he landed a small role in Mad Men, as Sally Draper's love interest. He told his whole family about it, but during a costume fitting he was forced to reveal the tattoos he'd had inked on his ribs, spine and leg. "There were these agents telling to me: how could you damage this? How could you mess this up? I don't think that was the greatest thing for a young adult to hear when they've just lost something that big."

These days, such tattoos would be concealed in minutes, but back then he was shown the door and starting over. The constant cycles of tryouts and refusals were brutal, but at least he had been trained well for them. "Whenever I got rejected for a job, I would always feel: it's fine, it's not as bad as my dad rejecting me for another family and child," he remarks.

Persistence and Success

Gage continued. The tale of how he lied, pleaded and cheated to get an audition for Assassination Nation, which eventually led to a role 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 remembers the oddity of filming The White Lotus in 2020, sequestered in a high-end Hawaii hotel while the health crisis and the US election raged on. It was in fact Gage, along with co-star Murray Bartlett, who suggested the idea that their sex act should be something a bit extra – and show runner Mike White readily approved. Gage laughs remembering his mum's reaction. "She wrote me a message, like, 'What a cute rear, but maybe next time give me a warning 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 apartment was criticized. Their reaction – shocked, amused, encouraging – convinced him to share it online. He wasn't ready for the feedback it received: countless articles, expressions of backing from fellow actors and strangers alike, and a crusade against the director in question, none of which Gage had any say over. "I thought like people were much more angry about it than I was, which puzzled me," he {