“Accountability is sexy, and ownership is how you run away from victimhood.” What a soundbite.

Lukas Gage is on my screen—as he so often has been over the last few years, with his roles on everything from Euphoria, You, and The White Lotus to Overcompensating, Road House, and Smile 2. This time, however, he’s talking to me: eye mask in place, laptop on his lap, and hair slightly disheveled—the latter in an I’m-just-vibing-at-home way, rather than in the someone-spent-20-minutes-fluffing-it style that Hollywood heartthrobs like him tend to wear.

We are discussing his new memoir, I Wrote This for Attention, out October 14, though it feels like I’m FaceTiming a friend. In full transparency, I’m not not: Gage and I have known each other for some time now. We met a few years ago, while filming the final episode of HBO Max’s Gossip Girl reboot. Gage was then just breaking out, his buttocks having recently gone viral after a scene in The White Lotus with Murray Bartlett.

On Gossip Girl, I was to interview Gage, who was playing himself, as he walked into the show’s version of the Met Gala. We were introduced outside his trailer a few moments before walking on to the set. I remember a charming, chill, fun guy who told me to relax and assured me I’d do great. Don’t get too attached to the lines, he said, “’cause I won’t!” I listened and we had a fun time.

Of all the things that made it into his memoir, our day together did not. But that’s fair enough—Gage has lived a life. I Wrote This for Attention is hilarious, painful, and reflective, covering his search for a sense of self as a young gay boy, his relationship with drugs and ego, and finally entering adulthood. Above all, it’s a story of queer self-invention, of what it takes to make something of oneself.