Marietta’s Lucas Till, who has been playing Angus “Mac” MacGyver on the CBS reboot “MacGyver” since 2016, said he became suicidal over poor treatment on the set due to the former showrunner, according to a story in Vanity Fair.
Peter Lenkov, the showrunner, was fired earlier this month over accusations of verbal abuse and creating a toxic workplace.
“I’ve never worked this hard in my life, and I am fine with hard work,” said Till, 29, who graduated Kell High School in 2008. “But the way Peter treats people is just unacceptable. I was suicidal that first year on the show, because of the way he made me feel. But the way he’s treated the people around me — that’s just my breaking point.”
Another “MacGyver” employee, who wasn’t named in the story, described the show culture before Lenkov was let go: “I’ve never been on a show with such extreme turnover. We can’t get people to stay. It’s a toxic environment, and it starts from the head down.”
This hostile work environment happened, Till said, despite the fact Lenkov was seldom in Atlanta.
A Lenkov attorney called Till’s allegations “100 percent false and untrue,” adding that Lenkov “has championed him from the very beginning and has been nothing but supportive of him.”
The show is shot in metro Atlanta, with studios at Mailing Avenue Stageworks, and airs on CBS Friday nights.
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Credit: CR: Guy D'Alema/FOX Jane Leeves and Matt Czuchry on what could be the final episode of "The Resident" if it's not renewed.
Credit: CR: Guy D'Alema/FOX Jane Leeves and Matt Czuchry on what could be the final episode of "The Resident" if it's not renewed.
“The Resident,” a Fox medical drama shot and set in Atlanta, will address the coronavirus this upcoming season.
Next season, once the show goes back into production, the show will focus on the early days of the outbreak and its effect on the doctors and nurses, co-creator Amy Holden Jones told Us Weekly. She said they plan to continue to follow the pandemic, even if a vaccine is found. “Long-term, sadly, the after-effects of COVID-19 will go on,” she added.
Two of the show’s writers are also medical staff, so they have lived it firsthand, she said.
The show is largely shot in studios in Conyers and at the High Museum in Midtown, which masquerades as the fictional Chastain Park Memorial Hospital. The show’s third season was cut short at episode 20 when the pandemic hit. Fox has since renewed the show for a fourth season.
“The Resident” features some well-known actors including Matt Czuchry, Emily VanCamp, Malcolm-Jamal Warner, Jane Leeves and Morris Chestnut.
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Credit: Rodney Ho
Credit: Rodney Ho
FXX’s “Archer,” which is produced in Atlanta, will return for its 11th season Wednesday, Sept. 16.
The first two of eight episodes will air back-to-back that day at 10 p.m. and will be available for streaming the next day on FX on Hulu.
The tongue-in-cheek adult animated season debut, created by Atlantan Adam Reed, was delayed due to the pandemic. Two local actors — Lucky Yates and Amber Nash — provide voices of two key characters: Dr. Krieger and Pam Poovey, respectively.
Sterling Archer and his spy team are back in “normal” conditions after three seasons in which Archer was in a coma and created his own stories in his mind, including a season set in 1939 on a South Pacific island and another one set in outer space.
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