Lukas Gage didn’t expect to walk so far. It’s Monday afternoon and he’s spent the morning camped out at Simon and Schuster in Midtown Manhattan, doing press for his upcoming memoir “I Wrote This for Attention.” But the day before, a short walk in his downtown neighborhood snowballed into a day of traipsing around the city with friends, and he clocked over 20,000 steps. 

Although typically based in car-centric L.A., Gage is currently living in downtown New York through mid-October while he shoots a film for Neon, the film production and distribution company that’s released “Anora,” “Parasite,” and “Assassination Nation,” which Gage was cast in. While he can’t disclose details of that project, he is ready to reveal some secrets in his debut nonfiction book, which covers addiction, family, mental illness, his foray into Hollywood and romantic entanglements. 

“The initial chapters that were sold were more present-day stuff that was happening. The sensationalized head-turning chapters,” says Gage. “The viral video and the wedding.”

Early in the pandemic, the easygoing 30-year-old actor lit up social media after posting a video from a Zoom audition in which the director, thinking he was muted, expressed judgement about Gage’s “tiny apartment.” Gage’s reaction? “Give me this job so I can get a better one.”

While he didn’t get that job, the actor did book “The White Lotus” and while filming the first season, and with encouragement from castmates, he posted the video.

And the wedding in question was his much scrutinized 2023 marriage to ex-husband Chris Appleton, officiated by Kim Kardashian. The breakdown of the relationship coincided with Gage’s borderline personality disorder diagnosis.

After those first chapters grabbed the publisher’s interest, Gage turned the clock back to his childhood in San Diego and wrote his way to the present day. After finishing the first draft of the memoir, he solicited feedback from family and friends and received encouragement from author and confidant Colleen Hoover.

“ Colleen Hoover was a huge reason why the book is happening,” says Gage. “She was like, you have to do it. You have to write it, and you have to do it in your own voice. You can’t use someone to do this. This is your story.”

Gage, a self-described lover of the memoir genre, is drawn to the sense of connection that emerges from the vulnerability of sharing deeply personal moments on the page. “ The places where I’ve felt like, ‘Oh god, am I oversharing? Is this gross or is this gratuitous, or is it just too revealing?’”

Family and friends told Gage that they connected most to these parts.

Those early reads by loved ones were revealing. Friends and family told Gage the writing helped  “understand you so much better, and I know why you’ve done some of the things that you’ve done,” he adds. “It makes more sense to them of who I am and what led me into where I’m at.”

Gage also learned a bit about himself along the way. “I was really hard on my younger self,” says Gage, who shares volatile childhood experiences including being sent to a wilderness reform camp and watching his brother struggle with addiction.

The content is heavy but told with a light hand and a bit of self-deprecating humor. Gage also wants readers to be entertained. “I had so much shame about my upbringing for a while and felt like I had to keep that part hidden because I wasn’t going to work or people would think I was a liability,” he continues. “Looking back on it, I could be way more empathetic with [myself], and love that kid, and be so grateful that he was a little impulsive and brash and a little bit wild and took chances.”

Since “Euphoria” and “The White Lotus,” Gage has gone on to star in the fourth season of “You,” and films including “Companion” and “Smile 2.” His upcoming projects include the “Prison Break” series reboot for Hulu, as well as a slate of rom-coms, notably the anticipated Netflix adaptation of romance writer Emily Henry’s “People We Meet on Vacation,” out in early January. He has seen the film, and yes, he loves it. “It gave me that sense of nostalgia of old rom-coms that I grew up loving,” says Gage, who will also star in upcoming Netflix rom-com “Voicemails for Isabel” with Zoey Deutch. 

Those newer acting experiences are missing from the memoir because the reality of writing about a life that’s still being lived means the last page is just that: a place to stop.

“ I’m not closing a chapter and reflecting on this life that I’ve had. I’m just beginning, and I’m gonna continue to have slip-ups,” says Gage. “But there was a real area of growth, that didn’t feel like a polished finished ending. It felt like a ‘To be continued.’”