Lucas was born in Little Rock, Arkansas, in 1971, the son of Michele, a nurse midwife, and Don Maurer, an ER doctor.
Lucas grew up traveling the South with his hippie activist parents and younger siblings, two sisters and a brother, Devin, by the age of 13, he had lived in thirty different locations, including the Isle of Palms and Sullivan's Island, South Carolina. The family eventually settled in the town of Gig Harbor, Washington. He attended Kopachuck Middle School. He graduated from Gig Harbor High School in 1989, where he acted in high school plays. He did not attend college in order to pursue his acting career.
Lucas began his career when he was 19, having moved to Hollywood after his high school graduation. He appeared as a guest star on several TV sitcoms in his early twenties including Fox's "True Colors" and "Parker Lewis Can't Lose," the family drama "Life Goes On," and CBS's private-eye show "Jake and the Fatman."
Soon afterward, he made his feature film debut in Frank Marshall's Alive, about a group of Uruguayan rugby players who, after crashing in the Andes mountains, resort to cannibalism to stay alive. After a brief appearance in the Patrick Swayze comedy Father Hood, Lucas relocated to Australia to play the hotheaded American cousin Luke McGregor opposite Andrew Clarke and Guy Pearce on the first season of the family western Snowy River: The McGregor Saga.
Lucas resides in New York City, New York. He also owns a house in Laurel Canyon, Los Angeles, California.
He dated Mexican actress Salma Hayek in 2003.
Lucas knocked on doors and phone banked, wearing an Obama shirt for 45 days. He was also in Denver, Colorado for the 2008 Democratic National Convention with a group of actors called the Creative Coalition.
He dated Canadian actress Rachel McAdams for a few months in 2009.