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CINDY PEARLMAN
NYT Syndicate
"It's been a trip," Dylan O'Brien said. The 26-year-old actor, clad in a black T-shirt and black, faded jeans for an interview at a Beverly Hills hotel, was talking about the strange journey he has experienced in Hollywood.
A strange journey it has surely been, but not a long one: O'Brien isn't one of those guys who built his life around acting since he was a tyke. In fact, he basically fell into a career that, these days, is booming.
"I was just this kid who was out of high school and who had never really acted before," he recalled."I tried auditioning, and got a lead part on a TV show. Someone said, 'Let's take the skinny kid.'"
That would be 'Teen Wolf' (2011-2017), which put him on an fast train to stardom.
Sure, O'Brien had grown up around the business. His mother taught acting classes and his father moved the family to California, when Dylan was 12, to become a camera operator. Even so, O'Brien had mostly spent his time playing drums in a jazz band and posting videos of himself doing comic sketches to YouTube.
He didn't really consider it acting.
"I was just winging it at first on the TV show," he recalled."It was all so new to me. I had to learn what I was doing on a set and in front of the camera. Along the way I fell in love with acting and I learned one important lesson: Never take yourself too seriously, but take the work seriously."
Apparently he learned that lesson well, because it was a fast rise for O'Brien ” followed by a nasty fall.
The young actor was seriously injured on the set of his new film, Maze Runner: The Death Cure, opening worldwide on January 26. Only a few days into shooting, an accident during a stunt reportedly left him with a concussion and a facial fracture.
O'Brien doesn't like to talk specifics. For almost half a year, though, he disappeared from sight. At the time of his injuries, he had already signed for the film American Assassin (2017) with Michael Keaton. That had to wait, however, as did the last film in the Maze Runner series and the final season of 'Teen Wolf.'
"I was in a really tough place," he recalled."I had to push through to come back. I'm just happy and grateful to be OK."
Even after the injury, he's still grateful for the Maze Runner franchise, which is based on a series of best-selling young-adult books by James Dashner. It was, after all, his ticket to the big screen.
In the finale, Maze Runner: The Death Cure, Thomas (O'Brien) leads his group of escaped Gladers on their final and most dangerous mission: to find a cure for a deadly disease known as 'the Flare.'
To save their friends, they need to break into Last City, a controlled labyrinth that may turn out to be the deadliest maze of all. Anyone who lives through it will get the answers to the questions the Gladers have been asking since they first entered the maze.
O'Brien can't believe how much his character, Thomas, has grown.
"When we first met him, he was just this scared and vulnerable kid," the actor said."He was like this little animal in a cage. It has been such a cool coming-of-age arc for this kid to discover that he has the drive to become a leader.
"He can get these other kids out of danger," he said."Of course, it means a lot of responsibility and wear and tear. Thomas takes every loss personally. That's why we find a weathered guy in the third film, but he's not quitting. He's still going to protect the group."
Since The Maze Runner (2014), O'Brien has found in his periodic returns to the franchise a comfortable feeling that he will miss.
"With each of the sequels, I felt like this little kid when the cast and crew reunited," he said."It was like walking into your family's living room, but then five minutes later you're also doing crazy action scenes.
"The cool thing is, as actors, the cast has grown between the films," he said."But this excitement and energy we created with each other just snaps right back in. I know I'm going to miss that feeling."
It has been the end of an era for O'Brien, right after the end of another era: Last year he said goodbye to 'Teen Wolf,' on which he had played Stiles Stilinski from 2011 to 2017.
"I was nothing but emotional about it ending," he admitted."It was my first part ever, and I still vividly remember the day I got a call saying I got the part. I was in my little apartment in Westwood with my buddies, and I put down the phone and said, 'I'm going to go shoot a TV pilot.'
"What I was doing was entering a whole new phase of my life.
"Six years later I finished the show with an amazing group of people I consider my family," O'Brien continued."The only sad thing is that I can't go back. Even when I did another part while we were on hiatus, I couldn't wait to suit up as Stiles again and come home."
O'Brien grew up in Union County, New Jersey, with his older sister, his mother ” actress Lisa Rhodes, who also ran an acting school ” and his father, camera operator Patrick O'Brien. As a teen he moved to Hermosa Beach, California, and decided that he wanted to follow in his father's footsteps and become a cinematographer.
O'Brien garnered a large following with his YouTube comic shorts, but his career detoured into acting when he nabbed the role of Stiles, sidekick to Scott (Tyler Posey), the title character in 'Teen Wolf,' in 2011. Today he has a filmography that includes High Road (2011), The First Time (2012), The Internship (2013) and Deepwater Horizon (2016).
That's besides three Maze Runner films and American Assassin (2017), in which he played a dark-ops agent being tutored by a veteran spy (Michael Keaton).
That many of his roles involve action strikes him as strange.
"I'm a skinny little nugget," he said, laughing."I trained hard, but I still remember doing a big action scene and texting the next day the body parts that I couldn't move: neck, legs, forearm. It was brutal.
"The upside was working with a real Navy SEALs, which was amazing," he added."I'm all about looking realistic."
Is this the next evolution in his career?
"Am I making an attempt to be 'The Guy?' I've always been interested in action movies, but honestly I didn't really feel the pressure of having to be this new action star," O'Brien said."Before I take on a project, I think about the role and how connected I feel to it. Do I want to tell this story? I never feel the pressure of becoming something new, like an action star, or jump-starting a brand-new franchise.
"You just focus on the work, and that distracts you from all of those things."
Working with his personal icons have been a big boost, the young actor said.
"For instance, I watched Michael Keaton since I was a little kid," O'Brien said."In person he was such a normal, cool guy who just does his work and goes home. I'm young and working my way up. Working with the actors who have been doing it since before I was born is really inspiring.
"I want to be those guys when I get older."
At 26, O'Brien said, he's ready to embrace roles that reflect his real-life age, though he added that he will never shun the teen audience.
Nor will they shun him, as O'Brien learned anew on his way in to be interviewed. A group of young women accosted him in the hotel corridor, and one of them had a question:"Can we see your scars?"
"They're not real scars," O'Brien said good-naturedly."They were for a movie."
"Can you prove it?" she retorted, drawing a laugh from the actor.
"The fans are actually wonderful," O'Brien said inside."They're the ones who make this possible."
So what lies ahead for him?
"I keep hearing, 'What will it be like to play more adult roles?' It's fun to think that I've been allowed to be this kid of sorts on screen until ... age 26," O'Brien said."That's a nice, long childhood."
Whatever lies ahead, it's sure to be different, with 'Teen Wolf' and The Maze Runner in his rearview mirror.
"It's a case of, you can't go home again," O'Brien said with a wry smile."It's definitely bittersweet, but mainly sweet because these roles happened. I'll always have these memories and these friends.
"That's a win-win."
