Interview with People

How long did you take to write these poems?

I write poems every day. I'm writing constantly. But I've been writing since I was 15 years old and around the time I started on [Victorious]. So, it was just a case of collecting poems from then and supplementing and adding around them for context. It's taken me 10 years to write this book, but [the theme] didn't reveal itself until maybe two years ago, a year ago. And then it started to take shape for me. Poetry for me is the most immediate form of artistic expression. So I just write and write, and I don't know what the thing's going to be, and then it sort of amalgams into a shape or a collection — or it doesn't, which is fine, too.

Specifically, what made you want to write this book?

I put up a TikTok in the silly early days of TikTok that intimated that I partied a little bit during that time in my life ... But 32 million people saw it, and they had 56,000 comments, and all the comments were just not understanding what it was like to be on that show or what that part of my life was like — or all of our lives were like. So, that got me thinking of like, "Oh, there's just so much that people don't know about that time."

It became sort of a curiosity of how best to tell that version of that story. And I had already been sitting on all these poems. The next thing was just filling in the blanks of what it was like for me during that time. I was in this weird place of being a heartthrob, but [it was] not so big and all-encompassing that it took over my life. I was able to observe. I kind of always considered myself first and foremost before anything else to be a sort of journalist.

Why was it important to start the book with the poem "Autopsia"?

Basically the beginning of this for me was the idea of the death of this version of myself. Because it's impossible to be 32 years old and be a teen heartthrob, it's not possible. So, I think I started with the idea that "this is dead." And then, so if that's the case, then what is this book? It's an autopsy of a thing. It's looking at what something was and the experience of living that very particular, very weird world, probably the last age of children's television — we were the last class, realistically — and observing it, cutting it open and taking a look inside. It became like self-autopsy.

There are several poems that grapple with suicidal thoughts and ideation. What was it like writing about such a vulnerable topic?

Well, I think being alive is complicated, and I think that if you are alive, and you are conscious and aware and present, being alive is exhausting and painful. A lot of poetry seems to me to be about reflecting on your trauma. And that's not what this book is to me, even though we dance into darker places. Life is absurd first, for me, before it's depressing. I don't think of writing poetry as healing. I think my poetry is better when it's observing and discovering as opposed to trying to fix and heal.

Throughout the book, there are a few poems about trysts with older women when you were a young adult. How do do you look back on that time now?

It's interesting to be in a position of being a young man in this situation and be in those dynamics. I think you retain your power a little bit more naturally as a man in those situations. And I think when you're a young man, specifically — and a journalist and a detective and an observer — there's a lot of roaming around the world, discovering. The idea of being with somebody who's older than you is probably an act of curiosity about the world. Being in your 20s, I think that whole section of your life is an act of curiosity.

There's a section of the book where you describe how your J-14 shoots happened at a house where gay porn was shot on opposite days and hint about a connection there. Were you just observing that was an interesting dichotomy?

I think the connection's poetic. I mean, very specifically, in the first line is "before all the sort of conspiracy theorists and psychopaths jump out of with the woodwork." I mean, it's just such a lazy comparison, and it's not always true all the time, but I think it was more interesting to be photographed in a place like that. The comparison was more poetic than functional.

You've talked about your experience on Victorious on TikTok a bit. Was it accurate that most of that time was blurred by partying?

I think that's a funny TikTok that a lot of people got really excited about and carried away with. Look, we live in a world right now that is so absolutely inundated with conspiracy, and it sells magazines, it sells books. I think that people want to believe more than is true.

Truly what it was, the answer to that video, is I was 19 years old in a new city, and my mom had ovarian cancer. So, she had to go back to Vancouver, and I was on my own in Los Angeles. When you're 19, on your own in Los Angeles and you have an apartment and a car, as a poor person having money for the first time, you're like, "Well, let's find out about life." That's sort of where most of that came from. I can't say with any kind of confidence that it's not something that kids do when they go away to college. If you ask most 24-year-olds what they did from the ages of 19 to 23 in college, most of them are like, "I don't know. I partied a lot." That's sort of what happened.

What helped you survive teen stardom?

Well, I didn't survive teen stardom. It's an amazing thing that happened to me. It's a positive thing mostly, I think. It has, of course, so many drawbacks. But, I think, by and large, it's been a huge benefit to my life. That's not to say that I don't have misgivings about the way that things happened and how you realize that you don't realize that you are imprinting a version of yourself onto the greater public before you're even ready to be a person. lt drastically re-courses your life in a way.

What's funny, too, is I always just wanted to be involved in the movies and films, and when you're 15, the only thing they'll let you do is act. They won't let you direct a movie. They don't let you write a movie. They'll let you act, though. And so as a young man wanting to be involved in the movies and wanting to get into it and being able to act, being accepted and getting on a big show, that becomes your life. But you always have to wonder what would be the case if that hadn't have happened. I think of it as a happening that has changed my life dramatically, and there's good and bad with any kind of change.

What's the most vulnerable part of Autopsy for you?

I think the most vulnerable part of the book is talking about what it's like to be commodified and seen as someone without any density or an internal world. When you're seen as an object or a fantasy, it erases the reality. I have idols myself. I have people I looked up to when I was a kid, and I've met some of them and I haven't met others. I met some of them, and it ruined it. It was better for me for them to be idols than it was to meet them and get to know them as people. But now that I've been in that position, I'd much rather be known as a person than a fantasy or something to fantasize onto.

The most vulnerable parts of the book are me having that experience as I mosey around the world — having people sort of project their version or fantasy onto who I should be or how I should be. And that's something that happens with "teen idol worship" [that] you can't replicate, really.

Which types of projects are you most interested in pursuing?

I think I'm going to direct another movie. I want to take my painting more seriously. But as far as collaborating with people, I mean, I have the best collaborator. My partner and I ... we make great stuff together. And that's a great joy to me. But I think directing is the next thing I'm going to be doing. I also have a TV show that is coming out on Amazon.

What's your relationship to fame like now?

That's the big question, right? I find it to be a currency that I think is possibly losing value, just generally. It's like, I have a bunch of money in a country whose GDP is crashing. I've only ever been interested in that idea of fame as a way of being able to get my art out to more people.

And there's different types of fame. I've been well-known in a very specific world, the world of "teen idol worship." But having fame from, or being acknowledged by people who my art has really resonated with, outside of just being idolized as a teen heartthrob, that acknowledgement holds more value to me than the idea of being famous. I would rather have less fame and more people who resonate with my work than the opposite. That, to me, is really what my relationship with it is now —it's sort of a vehicle to just making more things.

Autopsy is on sale now, wherever books are sold.