Dylan O’Brien. Once he was a sidekick to Tyler Posey’s Teen Wolf. Now he’s a movie star in his own right. But who exactly is Dylan O’Brien? And why did he cause a halt to the production of the third instalment to the Maze Runner Trilogy?
Aspiring Sports Broadcaster
Born to an actress and a camera operator, O’Brien seemed destined to walk down this entertainment path from the beginning. But growing up, O’Brien (pictured with his sister Julia above) dreamt of one day becoming the manager for the METs, and had his sights set on Sports Broadcasting.
Who needs real friends?
His family moved around a lot when he was young, making a young O’Brien pretty much alone, without the company of friends. He seeks solace in watching a lot of TV, and confesses to watching every episode of the Friends series at least 11 times each! Needless to say, Rachel Green (played by Jennifer Aniston) was his first crush!
Getting Started in showbiz
Since he was 14, he started his own Youtube Channel, posting original videos that he produced. That caught an eye of a producer, who approached him to work on a web series. And one thing led to another, O’Brien found himself with an acting manager, and Sports Broadcasting was put in the back seat.
Becoming Teen Wolf’s sidekick
Getting a manager was just the first step. O’Brien still had to go for auditions and the show that made him a familiar name was the TV series Teen Wolf, where he played sidekick to Tyler Posey’s main character, Scott, a boy turned werewolf. O’Brien was originally intended to pay Scott, but after reading the script, he pursued the wingman role of Stiles instead. Four auditions later, he secured the goofy role that’s more suited to his personality. Playing sidekick did little to diminish O’Brien’s appeal. In fact, his Stiles character is one of the fan favourites.
Enter the Maze Runner
While O’Brien’s Teen Wolf stint definitely got him noticed, it was The Maze Runner that concreted his movie star status. It was during filming of a motorcycle chase scene for the third movie, The Death Cure that O’Brien suffered severe injuries, including a concussion, facial fractures and lacerations. Instead of replacing him, production was halted for slightly over half a year.
Struggling physically and physiologically
The stunt gone wrong on The Death Cure set didn’t just affect O’Brien physically, but altered his emotional state as well, leaving him wondering if he would ever feel comfortable walking onto a movie set again. "I was struggling with a lot stuff," he said. "I was not confident in my ability to just leap back onto a set. It took a lot of work. Even up to the last minute, there was so much doubt and so much fear. Genuinely. Ultimately, I thought it would be best to push through all that. My thinking was that it would help me, [and] it really did."
Drumming it up
And if being a movie star isn’t enough, O’Brien also took time out to play drummer for a rock band called Slow Kids at Play.
Sorry girls, he’s taken
Despite being the pin-up dreams of many girls all over the world, O’Brien is taken. He’s been seeing actress Britt Robertson since 2011 after the two met while filming The First Time.
Are you a fan of his yet? If not, then maybe Maze Runner: The Death Cure will change that.
Maze Runner: The Death Cure
In this third instalment of the trilogy based on author James Dashner’s books of the same name, we will see O’Brien’s Thomas setting out to seek the cure for a deadly disease known as the “Flare”. And he needs to do it fast, because his friends, or what’s left of his friends from the second instalment have been affected by it. And hopefully, we get to the bottom of why the World Catastrophe Killzone Department (WCKD) is doing all these.
But before you head to the theatre to catch the latest, here’s a recap of the first two movies:
The Maze Runner (2014)
In the first movie, The Maze Runner, Dylan O’Brien stars as Thomas, just another teenage boy who gets deposited into a community called the Glade, where the all-boys group call themselves “the Gladers”.
They have no memories of their past and are trapped in an environment where they are surrounded by walls. The only way out is through a maze where cyborg monsters called Grievers roam. And for a long time, no one is able to crack the maze. We’re not going to give any spoilers, but just know that he does make it out of the maze along with a small group which leads us to Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials.
The Scorch Trials (2015)
In the second movie, the Gladers are now brought to the Scorch, a desert-like landscape and into a facility for their safety against a plague called "The Flare". They start to learn that the facility is run by WCKD and escape. It seems to be the end of the Gladers when they are caught in the Scorch by WCKD mercenaries with only Thomas barely escaping from them.
And this is where the last movie ends, with Thomas turning back to rescue the ones captured by WCKD and to take down the organisation. The series also stars Kaya Scodelario, Ki Hong Lee, Dexter Darden and Thomas Brodie-Sangster.
