Lukas Gage recently opened up about coming out in an episode of the podcast Seek Treatment, which is hosted by writer Pat Regan and actress Catherine Cohen.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CtH4r1hSHNI/?img_index=1
It all happened around 2014 and 2015 when the actor auditioned for the live-action film ‘The Little Mermaid’, which was supposed to be directed by Sofia Coppola.
“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?,'” Gage recalled.
And to that, he unexpectedly came out. He continued sharing,
“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.”
Moreover, ‘The White Lotus’ actor was also asked if the neighbor in question was a “daddy” type.
“No, no. Just a neighbor that [was more] like a ‘bro,'” he answered.
Gage added,
“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.”
He then shared that the neighbor now lives in New York and has a boyfriend.
“We’re friends. He’s happy,” the ‘Down Low’ star further shared.
Source: out.com
Was he “forced” into this relationship? It sounds like he is more upset about having to hide the relationship than being in it.
I’m not sure why use ‘forced’ as far as a reason for being in a relationship. The question, probably picked or designed/suggested by Copola to the casting team, appears to be about vulnerability or what created difficulties (was ‘hard’) or a ‘hidden’ ‘secret.’ Being in the closet probably covered almost all those options for Gage. And he was in the closet up into just before his marriage even after the ass-eating episode from The White Lotus had seen the light of day.
I do think Gage was forced (or, at minimum, “heavily encouraged” by his representation/management team, and even possibly friends in the business) to remain in the closet before his career succeeded. I think it was probably some recognition from Bartlett (perhaps from his own time in the closet as an actor) that lead them to making what would have been a simple sex scene that most people would have treated the same way they ended up treating the Jack/Quentin scene. A year out, Leo Woodall (like Josh O’Connor and Paul Mescal) is going about his business, into something different by both suggesting the rimming versus something more like the Jack/Quentin scene.
But Lukas, getting rimmed on even “just” cable television and following that with being filmed receiving a golden shower, followed by writing and appearing in a gay murder movie, followed by ‘manic’ gay marriage were all a combination of a cry for help and the actions of someone who really doesn’t want to be in the closet and/or for whom being closeted is probably a far less healthy place to be than a cupboard was for pre-teen Harry Potter.