So, on the “SOS + Hazmat + Ultrasound + Frequency + Malihini” episode, Taylor and Bozer (Justin Hires) team up with Jerry to infiltrate one of the remaining Codex cells. “When we first meet Jerry, we bring him in because we don’t believe who he is first of all,” Cusick tells Parade.com in this exclusive interview. “When we bring him in, we check him out and, then, it’s a slow realization of, ‘He’s actually pretty good for a conspiracy theories type of guy,’ and we warm to him.” Even though both men had continued to live in Hawaii after wrapping Lost–Garcia as a member of the aforementioned Five-0 cast and Cusick on The 100–they hadn’t seen each other for a while. And neither had seen each other in their more recent series. “When I saw him doing his Five-0 character, which is quite different from Hurley, I was like, ‘Oh, OK, that’s a cool character,’” Cusick says. “And he hadn’t seen me in MacGyver, so he was, ‘Oh, so that’s what you’re doing. You’re not playing Desmond in a Scottish accent.’ So, we were just filling each other in on what the characters were. But when I heard he was coming to the show, I thought, ‘The Lost fans will be excited.’” Jerry’s time on MacGyver was so successful that the door was left open for Garcia to return to the series if he is interested, but for now, his alter ego Jerry Ortega is moving on because he has other conspiracies to follow up on. Following is more of the conversation with Cusick about his character Russ Taylor and why he thinks his girlfriend Sofia Walker (Camilla Arfwedson) stole treasure documents from his house.
Russ came in as a bad guy turned altruistic. How successfully do you feel he has been at integrating himself with the team?
I think he’s kind of forced himself on the team in many ways because he bought the company and saved it financially. I think he’s basically just trying to play James Bond. He’s got more money than he knows what to do with. A part of him is altruistic, but is it completely? I think he enjoys the action side of it, the thinking he’s doing good. I don’t think he really wants to run the company. That’s why Matty (Meredith Eaton) runs it. She’s, obviously, much more efficient at running it and I don’t think he has any interest in doing that side of it, but I think he liked the idea of being this James Bond, super-spy kind of guy.
You once described Russ as “buffoonish.” How so?
I’ve never really played comedy before, and I’m trying to figure it out because there are moments that Russ is quite funny. There is something buffoonish in the sense that when he makes mistakes, he’s funniest. He obviously doesn’t think it’s funny, but other people find it funny. I was trying to figure out this comedy thing because there’s something quite clown-like about Russ in that his comedy comes from his sense of thinking he’s cool, but he does things and they’re just so not cool. I think that’s where his humor comes from. Justin is funny; he’s a comedian. Russ is not particularly funny, but when he makes mistakes, when he makes a lot of them and he’s not aware of them, and then people point them out, I realized, “Oh, that’s funny.” I’m trying to figure out what is the funny side of Russ, and I think it’s when he thinks he’s being cool, but he’s not really being cool. And that’s what I mean by buffoonish. He’s trying to be James Bond, but he’s not at all.
In his bad guy days, Russ was a weapons dealer and that’s how he made a lot of his money. How does he make his money now?
I think he’s invested wisely. I think he’s made a lot of money from his wheeling and dealings. What you don’t probably see on screen, he still has a lot of wheeling and dealing going on, which you may touch on later. He’s obsessed with money and making money, and he’s still quite tight. So, I think he’s got other things going on in his life, in terms of money-making ventures.
Maybe we saw in that the “Quarantine” episode, where he was trying to track down lost treasure, and then Sofia walks in and sees the room, and then she steals the documentation that he had. Was it a setup?
That’s good. I’m glad your interest is peaked with that storyline. We’re actually shooting that. Because of COVID, our schedules got messed up, so I don’t know when the episodes are going to air. Camilla is here in Atlanta at the moment. So, we’re touching on that episode now. Was it a crime of convenience that she just happened to see it? Or was it a big set-up? I could give you spoilers, but this next episode that we’re shooting answers that. He, obviously, has grown to care about her over the quarantine period. Does she feel the same about him, or was she just into his money? Or getting this treasure? That will be answered very, very soon.
It was interesting that it was his grandfather who first told him the story about Spain invading Peru, and to see a little of Russ’ background.
Hopefully, what we will discover about Russ is just because he says something about himself, it doesn’t make it so. He is still a bit of a fibber. His default is that he will tell a story before the truth, especially when it comes to his feelings. So, anything that he says, I would take with a pinch of salt until you find documentation.
So, is the stuff about his grandfather raising him and his attending Oxford on a scholarship true?
I’m sure most of his life comes from a grain of truth. One of the things that I spoke to the writers about is, I said, “Just because he says stuff, he still hasn’t changed his spots completely." He still has a side of him that is untruthful. He’s not 100 percent truthful.
There’s a lot of science that goes on, on the set. Have you learned anything?
Have I learned anything? I’m sure I have because I’m on-set and I pick things up. The one that stood out was making a satellite dish out of a dustbin lid. I’m thinking, “Huh? Could that really work?" I guess because we have so many people who watch it purely for the science, they go, “Oh, yes. That could work. That would actually do it." MacGyver airs Friday nights at 9 p.m. ET/PT on CBS. Next, see what’s store for the Punky Brewster reboot.
