Lukas Gage will not succumb to the pressures of labeling.
The You actor told The New York Times that he feels pressured "all the time" to identify with a certain LGBTQ+ label in his career. "An agent that dropped me was like, 'Stop dyeing your hair, stop wearing weird clothes, and pick a lane: gay, bi, or straight. It's too confusing,'" Gage shared. "I understand representation and voices that need to be heard, but I don't want to do anything on anyone's accord but my own."
"Let me do it when I'm ready. And it's acting. I feel like everyone should get the opportunity to play whatever they want," he continued, adding, "I'm a pretty open book about most things in my life, but I have a problem with the culture of everyone needing to know everybody's business and nothing can be sacred. It's a weird line that I'm still trying to figure out."
Though the actor has never addressed his sexuality publicly, Gage has played several LGBTQ+ characters, including on Love, Victor, The White Lotus, and, most recently, You. Last year, when a Twitter user criticized casting Gage in LGBTQ+ roles as a "non-LGBTQ+" actor, he responded, "You don't know my alphabet." (Gage offered a simple "no" when asked to "enlighten the world.")
Elsewhere in the interview, Gage revealed that he originally auditioned for the lead role of serial killer and stalker Joe in You, which ultimately went to Penn Badgley. The Gossip Girl alum recently made headlines for stating that he no longer wanted to do sex scenes, citing "fidelity" in his marriage. While Gage respects Badgley's views on the matter, he said it would be a "disservice" to exclude them.
He called the discourse surrounding abandoning sex scenes "a little weird," adding, "I get a lot of backlash in my DMs about it, saying, 'That's so disgusting.' And that pisses me off because I don't want to yuck anyone's yum. But a lot of people can have a hard time separating the actor from the character, and then, suddenly, people are coming up to me at Starbucks asking [if the scene was real]. People forget it's make-believe."