Locked in a Room With MacGyver: Can Lucas Till Live Up To the Hype?

Screams as the door shuts and the lights go out. A group of reporters has been locked in an escape room with the cast of MacGyver. We’re given 50 minutes to solve a deluge of puzzles. Despite the squeals of surprise at the darkness — none of which came from stars Lucas Till, George Eads, or Justin Hires — there’s nothing for the writers to be afraid of. The pressure’s all on Till. After all, how disappointing would it be to get beaten by a bunch of lateral-thinking puzzles when you’re playing the guy whose name has literally become a word for beating lateral-thinking puzzles?

The Measure of a Man
The real-life Lucas Till isn’t too far off from his onscreen persona: lighthearted and affable, but in the blink of an eye, studious and determined. Once the lights come back up, he’s scanning the room with a serious demeanor. The space is filled with different kinds of padlocks. Sadly, MacGyver’s preternatural ability to pick locks is not a trait he shares with Till.

“He’s really into rehearsing,” says Eads. They’ll run lines and pore over the script for hours when they’re not on set. “That way, we won’t get to set and have any anxiety about where the day’s going to go.” Till is in nearly every scene, so to continue putting in extra time beyond the 16-hour shoots is something else. “Really, the measure of a man is when they’re tired and exhausted,” says Eads, and Till is game to go every time. “‘Luke, I know you’re tired, but do you mind going over a couple of these scenes?’ He’s, like, ‘Not at all, man! Let’s get some coffee and go bust it out right now.’ He’s still got makeup on him from the day before. Still got a fake cut on his face.” Tireless and selfless, “They broke the mold on this guy. I’ve never met anybody like him.”

Related: Ken Tucker Reviews ‘MacGyver’

Han Solo and Luke
Till’s tireless persistence pays off, and when the door opens to reveal a second room, the group floods in and begins poking at flowers, paintings, boxes — picking up anything not nailed to the floor. Eads plops down on a couch as Till engrosses himself in the mystery of a Dracula poster.

The pilot that will air on CBS isn’t the first pilot that was shot. In fact, nearly everything from that earlier version was scrapped — except for Till and Eads. Audiences will be drawn in by the MacGyver name, but show creator Peter Lenkov recognized that the series will live and die by the relationship between those two men. He likens the bromance to the classic Star Wars pairing of Han and Luke, but Eads sees it as more familial: “It accidentally fell off the back of the truck that way, just because of Lucas’s and my personality.”

Eads was living with his 26-year-old nephew for a year before the show, so he and Till (also 26) naturally fell into that rhythm. “I’m the uncle. I don’t tell him what to do; I try to show him what not to do.” When they come across a scene that — as written — could be construed as bickering, he keeps his nephew in mind. “If I was trying to talk to my nephew, I wouldn’t want to talk at him because then he’d start to resent me and it’d change our dynamic,” he explains. Eads handwrites his lines the night before and practices different line readings. “It’s all in the delivery.”

A New Family
Eads’s and Till’s relationship is at the center of the show, but without an ensemble, a series quickly runs out of legs. Justin Hires is savoring his last few days off work. He appears infrequently in the first few episodes as MacGyver’s roommate (who has no idea what it is MacGyver actually does), but the producers have let drop that they plan to use him a lot more after Episode 8. Eads says, “I’m a big fan. He’s so quick. He’s such a pro.”

Hires starred in last season’s ill-fated reboot of Rush Hour, but was quickly snapped up for this show. He and Eads were able to bond over the fear that grips an actor when leaving a show — intentionally or otherwise. For an actor, every unbooked audition — and there can be hundreds between gigs — is a rejection, and there’s never a guarantee that you will actually work again. Hires says getting the call for MacGyver was tremendously affirming after Rush Hour was canceled. Eads, who left CSI in 2015, says, “It saved my soul.”

Magic
As the escape attempt continues, everyone gathers around a purple star and recites the words that will dispel the ghost. The door opens and we escape with 5:10 left on the clock. The room only has a 26 percent escape rate, so the odds were stacked against us — not unlike a certain reboot of a 30-year-old show. But Eads isn’t worried. “I’ve done some things I’ve been scared to see,” says the actor with a grimace. “But you can kind of feel when you’ve got a hit on your hands. It reminds me of CSI when I was sitting around at that table reading with all them actors I was a big fan of that first time. It felt like something magical was happening. It kinda feels that way … I don’t wanna gooch it!”

MacGyver premieres Friday, Sept. 23, at 8 p.m. on CBS.