Parade.Com Interview: ‘Lost’s Henry Ian Cusick on Joining MacGyver and Going from Bad to Good’

Thank you to Parade.com for this in depth interview with Ian!

 Henry Ian Cusick (Photo: Mark Hill/CBS)

Season four of MacGyver began with the introduction of former MI6 agent Russ Taylor (Henry Ian Cusick), who recruited the former Phoenix operatives to hunt down a bio weapon that he was responsible for putting in the hands of some seriously bad guys, forcing him to have a come-to-Jesus moment when he realized he needed the team to right his wrong.

Henry Ian Cusick as Russ Taylor (Photo: CBS)

“He was tapping into the eternal conflict that people have,” Cusick exclusively tells Parade.com. “He was thinking, ‘I’ll make some money out of it,’ but when he realized that a lot of innocent people were going to die, that’s when he had his epiphany and decided he was on the side of doing something wrong. Then once he starts helping MacGyver (Lucas Till), he realizes that he enjoys doing good.”

Russ went one step further then and used his ill-gotten gains to purchase the former Phoenix property and he is currently working on resurrecting the company to its former glory – at least for now. Cusick hints that Russ is a man who gets bored quickly, so who’s to say that he may well change his mind again, and go off and do something else.

That said, on tonight’s episode when Russ’ first love, Emilia (Amanda Schull), is kidnapped by the same rebels he fought during his private military contract days, he takes the Phoenix team to a small, impoverished town to rescue her and rid the town of the rebels for good.

“The episode really goes back into Russ Taylor’s past, where you see Emilia, and it’s about how things may or may not worked out,” he continues. “It’s a flashback episode. Not that far back. I would say maybe five years, you know? It’s fun going back in time. It’s probably not as wacky as the other Russ Taylors you’ve seen. Probably a little bit more military, but there’s always wacky moments with Russ Taylor, and I think, at the heart of it, it’s a good episode.”

Justin Hires, Meredith Eaton, Tristin Mays, Lucas Till, Henry Ian Cusick and Levy Tran (Photo: Mark Hill/CBS)

How did Russ get his hands on enough money to relaunch Phoenix?

He was a former MI6 agent that went a little bit rogue and started doing some, well, naughty things like selling arms, and that’s how he made a lot of money. Then he took it too far when he traded a bio-weapon that could potentially destroy the world and that’s when he goes to MacGyver and recruits him, saying, “I need some help tracking down this weapon that I sold, because I think I made a big mistake.” So, he has an epiphany and that’s how he becomes the Russ Taylor that you see in MacGyver now.

Russ doesn’t strike me as particularly a team player, but he does seem to be a bit of a genius, just not in the same way as MacGyver. He is great at solving puzzles, though. What are the skills that Russ brings to the team?

That’s a very good question. First of all, it would seem an abundance of money. If you want to set anything up, money is always good. Also, he’s got a can-do attitude. He never really gives up. He’s intelligent. He’s a pattern spotter. He can read people, and, of course, he’s been trained by MI6 in counterespionage and torturing people. So, he’s got a lot of strings to him.

He’s not a team player, but he needs these people to want to work for him. True they were really bored doing what they were doing when Phoenix was disbanded, and they love having these adrenaline careers, but how does he go about earning their respect, because there was that joke in the last episode that pep talks aren’t his thing?

I think there’s a lot of what you see is not all of what you get with Russ Taylor. I think he’s doing a lot. He’s certainly performing a lot of the time for anyone within close proximity. You see in an upcoming episode, which I’m looking forward to, that pretty much he’s not really who he seems. I can give you a hint. He seems very much like an English tough, and he’s not that at all.

Is he going to be obsessed with Codex all season, or will we take a break and have episodes where Codex isn’t part of the story?

Oh, Codex is very heavily featured up until episode 13, but it actually carries on, even now. We’re just shooting episode 20, and Codex is still lingering around. MacGyver‘s a procedural and serialized show now, with Codex being the overall arc, but we will have episodes of the week, so it sort of integrates both. I think it works quite well for the show to have a long-running enemy, and also have this episode of the week feel.

Lucas Till as Angus “Mac” MacGyver, Henry Ian Cusick as Russ Taylor (Photo: CBS)

We had a shock at the end of last week’s episode, where Matty (Meredith Eaton) looks like she might be Titan, the leader of Codex. Will that be resolved quickly?

When you see the episode, you’ll realize that Matty is, obviously, not a bad guy. She’s always going to be the good guy.

You’ve done several sci-fi shows, like Lost, The 100, and The Passage. This is more action oriented, although some of those have some action. What do you like about this show?

It’s not the action. It’s the comedy, really. The other shows that I’ve been involved with were always sort of existential threats to the world, and I was always angst-y and turmoiled, you know? In some sort of pain. With this show, it’s very freeing. Russ Taylor is a lot of fun to play. He’s like a blast of fresh air for me. He’s larger than life. For me, it’s been a great, fun show to be involved with. I’m really having a great time. I don’t think I’ve ever had so much fun with a character before.

Also, the crew has just been terrific. The cast is great. Every single one of them has been welcoming to a new performer to the show. They’ve been so welcoming and so easy to work with, so supportive. They’ve all been terrific and I’m having a great time, to be honest.

Of course, Atlanta’s not Hawaii.

It isn’t, but the thing about Atlanta that I’m enjoying is I’m out here with my wife and my sons, also. One of my sons also lives out there. It’s closer to Europe. One of my other sons lives in New York, and my other son’s in Edinburgh, so it’s easier to see them. Hawaii’s quite remote. I get to go back to Hawaii in summertime, so that’s the best of both, I think.

Lost ended a decade ago, but do fans still want to talk about the finale since so many of them weren’t happy with the ending?

Not really, anymore. Certainly, the people I’ve met have gotten over a lot of dislike of the ending and they just want to celebrate the show. Can you believe it’s been ten years? They want to celebrate the whole experience of Lost a lot more, I think now. We want to talk about it, because it was one of the first shows where people really hit the internet. Now, that’s very common.

Henry Ian Cusick as Russ Taylor (Photo: Mark Hill/CBS)

At that time, people weren’t doing that, and it really was water cooler TV. I love hearing about people who got to know each other and became really good friends because of the show. That, for me, is one of greatest takeaways about that show.

It’s still great hearing people saying how much they enjoy it. There’s a little bit of animosity about the ending, but I rarely hear that now. They want to celebrate it, because it’s been ten years, and it’s still relevant TV.

MacGyver airs Friday nights at 8 p.m. ET/PT on CBS.

Interview by: PAULETTE COHN