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Lukas Gage got some sound advice from Jennifer Coolidge after a director infamously dissed his apartment during a virtual audition.
“[She said] two words that are so simple: ‘Who cares?’” Gage, 30, exclusively tells Us Weekly while promoting his upcoming memoir, I Wrote This for Attention.
Five years later, Gage still keeps Coolidge’s words of encouragement in the back of his mind.
“It’s important to remember,” he says. “I do think it’s something that I try to live by and try to remember because things feel so big in the moment, but then in two days, you completely forgot that it happened. So I think if I can keep reminding myself that it’s not that deep, it’s not that serious, then I’ll be a happier person.”
In November 2020, Gage went viral for tweeting a video in which director Tristram Shapeero could be heard trashing the “poor” up-and-coming actor’s “tiny” apartment during a COVID-19 pandemic-era Zoom audition. Shapeero, 59, failed to realize his microphone was on until Gage retorted, “I know it’s a s***ty apartment. That’s why [you should] give me this job so I can get a better one.”
Gage did not name Shapeero at the time, but after the clip amassed millions of views, the director came forward to issue a public apology.
“I’m mortified about what happened,” he wrote in a Deadline article later that month. “While I can’t put the proverbial toothpaste back in the tube, I move forward from this incident a more empathetic man, a more focused director and, I promise, an even better partner to actors from the audition process to the final cut.”
Looking back, Gage tells Us that he believes everything happens for a reason.
“It all led me to where I was supposed to be,” he notes. “No regrets.”
Indeed, not long after the video went viral, Gage booked a recurring role in season 1 of The White Lotus, where he met Coolidge. He has since starred in You, Fargo and more TV shows in addition to movies including How to Blow Up a Pipeline and Road House.
Gage candidly looks back on his personal life and sudden rise to fame in I Wrote This for Attention, which hits bookstores on October 14.
“I’ve always wanted to do it,” he tells Us of penning a memoir. “As a kid, I wrote in my journals that I was gonna write a book. [When the 2023 writers’] strike happened, I didn’t know what to do with myself. I couldn’t write for screenplays. I couldn’t act. So writing the book felt like the only option. It felt like I had a lot of free time to do it, and it became this cathartic experience that I could use all that free time for.”
