Articles by Marcmalkin

Technology

Lukas Gage on His Memoir, Borderline Personality Disorder Diagnosis and That Infamous Viral Audition Video

Lukas Gage is living his true authentic life like never before. The openly gay 30-year-old actor – best known for “The White Lotus,” “You” and “Companion,” among others – tells all in his new memoir, “I Wrote This for Attention.” He writes candidly and humorously about his traumatic childhood, substance abuse, STDs, checking into a mental health treatment center and his short-lived marriage to celebrity hairstylist Chris Appleton. “I’m an over-sharer,” Gage tells me during a Zoom video interview from his publisher Simon & Schuster’s offices in New York City. “I probably say too much. But I love memoirs where they overshare and maybe crossing the line, but they entice people to have conversations about things that may be taboo.” That includes revealing his borderline personality disorder diagnosis. “It’s very stigmatized and perceived quite negatively but I was so inspired after Julia Fox and a few other artists who I looked up talked about it. It made me feel less alone,” Gage says. “It made me feel like I didn’t have something to hide and be filled with shame. The two hardest things for me to talk about were the shame associated with my sexuality and the shame associated with my mental health stuff and I hated how small I felt when I would talk about it and I guess I just had that moment where I was like I am not going to hold back anymore, I’m not going to be apologetic for who I am.” As for the ill-fated romance with Appleton – Kim Kardashian officiated their wedding in Las Vegas – Gage says, “If I’m being completely transparent, that was a lot less hard for me to talk about than the mental health and my sexuality and the addictive behaviors and my family.” Gage grew up in San Diego. He and his two brothers were raised by his mother after their parents divorced and his father started another family with his new wife. Gage’s acting career began when he was 18. His big break was in the first season of “The White Lotus,” specifically for a scene in which his character Dillion is seen being rimmed by Armond (Murray Bartlett). But it’s what Gage did off camera while filming “The White Lotus” that first garnered him international headlines. In 2020, he released a video a clip from a Zoom audition during which director Tristram Shapeero didn’t realize that the actor could hear him criticizing his apartment because he wasn’t on mute. Read below for an exclusive excerpt from “I Wrote This for Attention,” where Gage details his decision to release the audition footage on social media. Auditioning is the most fucked-up thing you can do to an artist. You’re handed a few pieces of paper usually the night before and at 9 a.m. the next morning expected to sell your soul—with charisma. Prepandemic, it meant filing into a holding pen with your competition, all of whom look like rough drafts of you. Some are hotter, taller, or more experienced. Actually, maybe you’re a rough draft of them. Now, we all missed that room. At least you didn’t have to worry about all the technical problems of virtual meetings. So sitting with my castmates, it only felt natural for me to show them the audition video. I expected a few laughs. Which came. What I didn’t expect was how much it hit home. “I can’t believe you have a documented moment of how terrible actors can be treated,” Molly Shannon said. “I’ve been wanting to post it, but I feel like I would, like, get canceled?” “Why would you get canceled?” somebody asked. “Or blacklisted? I don’t know. I don’t want to ruin some guy’s life?” We stayed up talking all night, yet I was gripped with the feeling that I was peering over the edge of a cliff and trying to decide if I had the balls to jump. Outside, the sound of the waves gently crashing on the shore started to feel like they were egging me on. Maybe I should write a draft of something to post. I’ll just cosplay for a second, get everything out of my system. I started typing out a heartfelt message full of phrases like “shed light.” Then I deleted it all. It didn’t feel right. It felt too earnest, too cheap, too insincere. So I let instinct guide me. psa if youre a shit talking director make sure to mute ur shit on zoom mtgings It was a bit too strong, but fuck it, I told myself. Tweet. Copy. Paste. Post. I sat up in bed, listening to the waves growing more violent. You’re such a fucking idiot, they seemed to say. You shouldn’t have done that. I tossed the phone away to the foot of the bed. For five minutes, I stayed there—naked, with the covers bunched beneath me, and my head peering over the mattress—waiting for the worst. But my phone remained silent. Maybe this is going to be okay. This will just be a fun reminder to try to make this process for actors a bit easier, I kept repeating before finally falling asleep. “WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?” Phoebe screamed at me over the phone when I woke up a few hours later. “What do you mean? I’ve been asleep.” “LUKAS, YOU JUST DROPPED THE MOST INSANE VIRAL VIDEO AND WENT TO SLEEP?” “WHAT DID I DO? WHAT AM I GOING TO DO?” “This is amazing,” she said. “Joe Jonas just gave you his full-throated support.” “Wait, really? Hot.” “Yeah! You need to listen to me. This is a good thing. You’re like fully viral.” “What if I don’t want to be viral, though?” “Why would you not want to be viral? Especially for something so funny.” “Well . . . what if they turn on me?” “Why would ‘they’ do that? They love you, and they hate him. It’s a no-lose situation.” “Exactly. I don’t like that. This is all getting way too out of hand. I just posted it to be funny, and now people are. . . freaking out. What if they find out who it is? I don’t want to ruin someone’s life—” “Relax. You didn’t name him. And you didn’t do anything wrong. You posted a funny audition tape.” “I don’t want to be known as the viral-audition-tape guy for the rest of my career.” “Lukas. People don’t have the attention span to care about anything for longer than, like, a day. Enjoy your moment in the sun, and also enjoy the literal sunshine in Hawaii.” My phone was practically a vibrator, perpetually buzzing with notifications. Every second brought another text, call, and email. For the first few minutes, I was excited. It felt like some primal itch that had been there my whole life had finally been scratched. Every ping was a microdose of approval. The praise was coming from everywhere—Seth MacFarlane, the Jonas Brothers, people I never expected to know I existed. Strangers around the world congratulated me on how composed, strong, and brave I was. In my heart of hearts, did I believe these things were true? Well, no, but— Then, an all-consuming dread started to set in: I’d spent my whole life begging to be seen, and now they’d seen me, and I wanted to hide. I was petrified that they were going to uncover “the truth.” What “the truth” was, I didn’t exactly know, like what if a nude of me in an unflattering position suddenly surfaced online. When I was back on set, the actors were supportive and happy to see me. Some were even proud. I avoided the producers like the plague—which was exhausting, considering we were in an actual plague. The familiar lights and sounds should’ve felt like routine. But they didn’t. All I could imagine was the discussion they’d have after work about what a liability I was. I just knew they were going to fire me and find someone else to get his ass eaten on camera. I stared at myself in the mirror, doing that cliché “splash water on your face” after something really traumatic happens. It didn’t help, it just broke my AirPods. I also got messages from other producers and directors; apparently all British people sound alike? Because they all asked me to confirm that it wasn’t them and that they didn’t deserve to be canceled. I answered some of their requests, confirming who it wasn’t. However, it only set off a chain reaction from strangers, demanding that I say who it was. This must be what real famous people feel like, I thought. So I went to the most trustworthy famous person available to me, Jennifer Coolidge. “Coolidge, what the fuck did I do?” I asked, cornering her at the breakfast bar. Then she stepped away from the pressed-celery juice, and gave me the best advice I’ve ever gotten. Words I’ve lived by ever since. “Who cares?!” she said, looking at me with a cheeky, conspiratorial grin. Who cares?! It was like she’d just handed me the meaning of life. And in that moment, God, I believed it. The next day, I told myself I wasn’t going to check my phone. That I’d give myself over to the universe, or whatever that meant. The moment I sat my ass in a beach chair, my phone rang. An unknown number. I ignored it. Then it rang again. The same number. And again. And again— “Yes? Hello? What do you want—” I said. “Lukas, this is COVID compliance. You tested positive. Please self-quarantine for the next fourteen days, and do not come into contact with anyone.” Fuck. I’d gone viral. Again.