So much tea, and it was all spilled!
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Dead Boy Detectives, Road House, and Fargo star Lukas Gage spilled quite a bit of tea about realizing his sexual orientation and the subsequent coming-out journey that followed.
Gage appeared as a guest on the May 7 episode of Seek Treatment, a podcast cohosted by Hacks writer Pat Regan and The Lovebirds actress Catherine Cohen. During the interview (which seems to have been recorded prior to the 2024 edition of Coachella) Gage opened up about his sexual awakening, reflected on his time being the closet, and revealed who is his biggest celebrity crush.
Spoiler alert: it all connects to auditioning for Sofia Coppola's live-action The Little Mermaid film that never ended up happening!
Lukas had a relationship with his neighbor that lasted for three years.
The topic of Gage's sexuality came up when the Down Low actor remembered that his longtime friend, Cole, "ripped [him] to shreds" after his first interview on Seek Treatment. For context, the podcast has a segment where Regan and Cohen ask their guests to answer, "Who were you, who are you, and who do you want to be?"
"I think I was still kind of closeted at the time that we interviewed," he recalled. "[So] I was like, 'I'm a little surfer stoner boy from San Diego.'" Regan asked Gage if he was willing to share his coming-out journey, and the actor agreed. "It's actually a really good story."
Gage started:
"I had an audition for The Little Mermaid, the live-action [film directed by] Coppola, which didn't end up happening. But it was in development. And then, for the audition…" Cohen quickly chimed in that Gage would've been a great Prince Eric, to which he replied: "I think that was the role. It's the one that got away."
Coppola was attached to direct Universal Pictures' Little Mermaid between 2014 and 2015. Gage, who was born in 1995, was around 19 and 20 during that period of time.
"So the audition was like, you have to read a set of sides and then talk about a story," he continued. "They [asked], 'What was a vulnerable thing that happened to you? What was something that was hard for you, or a secret you were hiding?' I immediately start bawling, and I talk about how I'm sleeping with my neighbor and hiding it from everybody… my whole family. I was like 19, 20."
When asked if that neighbor was a "daddy" type, Gage clarified:
"No, no. Just a neighbor that [was more] like a 'bro.' We would listen to records and play PlayStation together. I just kept coming over to his apartment (…) and after like a month or two, he was like, 'All right. Well, I'm going to kiss you now.' And then we dated for three years."
Gage went on to say that the neighbor currently lives in New York and has a boyfriend. "He has a nice boy that he's with now," he added. "We're friends. He's happy."
He used to have girlfriends and didn't realize he was gay until later on in his life.
After leaving the Little Mermaid audition feeling emotional, Gage decided to pick up his phone. "I call my mom and I just start crying… and I tell her, and she was like, 'Shut up. Why are you crying? I'm coming up there right now.'" he recalled. "And we went out to dinner. We did the spicy challenge at Jitlada. If you beat the spicy challenge, the meal is free."
Later in the episode, Cohen and Regan asked Gage to answer their podcast's famous question again — "Who were you, who are you, and who do you want to be?" — but this time from his current perspective in 2024.
"I was a deeply conflicted, closeted little troublemaker," Gage replied. "I kind of switched from really wanting attention and being an attention whor* to also being deeply insecure and shy as well. It was like a weird thing for a long time. It was a back-and-forth."
Regan then asked Gage when did he know that he was gay. The actor explained:
"I honestly… I swear I'm not making this up… I wish I knew earlier. But I had girlfriends that I was obsessed with till I was like 18 or 19, when I met my neighbor [laughs]. I loved them, oh my god. There was one in particular, she had a lower back tattoo that said 'trust no b*tch.' So iconic. She was like 15 and I was 16. 'Trust no b*tch' with a money sign after the b*tch. She was ahead of her time. She looked like Lindsay Lohan. (…) I did not deserve her. I was so obsessed with her."
Gage and this girlfriend were together for two years, and during that time period, she actually suggested that he might be gay. "One time when we were having sex, she was like, 'I think you might be gay,'" Gage recalled. "She was like, 'You're definitely bi, maybe gay.'"
Lukas doesn't think that he could date someone right now.
"That's who I was," Gage followed up. "Now, who I am… I'm in like, my doing-the-work era. I'm real deep into The Artist's Way right now. I'm revisiting that."
Though he's always wanted to be alone, Regan revealed that he sometimes feels a sense of existential dread. Gage replied, "Mine goes in and out. Either I need to be with someone all the time and have to be really codependent… or, right now, I'm really enjoying my freedom."
Regan added that he couldn't date someone right now. Gage felt the same way, noting: "Same. But never say never, you know? Be open to the opportunity, just in case."
Lukas revealed his dating status and brought up his celebrity crush.
Gage confirmed that he is very much single right now. But despite enjoying his "freedom," the White Lotus actor also talked about going on dates and how he meets people.
"Not so much on the apps," he said. "I've done a little Instagram. Instagram is my app [for dating], I think. Or like IRL."
Toward the tail end of the interview, Cohen asked Gage who he considers to be his biggest celebrity crush.
"Colin Farrell," the actor replied. "I love Irish and Scottish. They're hot. And fun."
You can watch Lukas Gage's full interview on Seek Treatment in the video below.
