The Year's Most Unexpected Action Hero



via BuzzFeed

How a lonely childhood, cheeky YouTube videos, and a supernatural TV series prepared Dylan O’Brien to star in September’s big budget movie adventure.



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As 4,000 screaming fans fixed their gaze on a microphone in the middle of San Diego Comic-Con's cavernous Ballroom 20, a young girl approached and cleared her throat.


"Hi! I love you, Dylan O'Brien," she excitedly exclaimed, already fighting back tears. "Aw, you're so cute," replied O'Brien and, with a single compliment, unwittingly triggered a full-blown emotional meltdown: The girl's knees buckled, her entire body trembled, and her hysterical crying could not be stopped.


"Are you OK?" O'Brien asked, genuinely concerned, as she repeated, "Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God," through a mask of endless tears.


These kinds of uncontrollable breakdowns, reserved only for the biggest stars in the world, have become increasingly common in O'Brien's life because, for the two million fans who religiously tune into Teen Wolf every week, that's exactly what he is: a superstar.


Since its launch in June 2011, MTV's supernatural werewolf drama has grown to be the network's signature series and landed O'Brien on the cover of every teen magazine, and netted him nearly two million Twitter followers as well as an endless stream of Tumblr shrines. In recent seasons, his performance as Stiles Stilinski, the wisecracking best friend to Tyler Posey's titular werewolf, has evolved beyond simple comedic relief, revealing a much more complex, nuanced, and capable actor.


O'Brien is now attempting to parlay his television and internet popularity into box office success with the Sept. 19 release of action film The Maze Runner, an adaptation of James Dashner's 2009 dystopian young adult novel revolving around a mysterious maze and its reluctant inhabitants.


20th Century Fox, the studio behind Maze Runner, is betting big on O'Brien. Pre-production on a sequel — based on Dasher's The Scorch Trialshas already commenced in New Mexico and O'Brien is, essentially, the centerpiece of their omnipresent marketing campaign. The hope is clearly to mobilize his fans so that they come out in droves on opening weekend.



O'Brien in The Maze Runner.


20th Century Fox


But as O'Brien sat back in his chair at Cipriani, located inside Beverly Hills hotel Mr. C's, one month after that girl broke down upon seeing him at Comic-Con, he almost seemed blissfully unaware of just how much is riding on his slender shoulders.


"I never thought about the size of the movie," the 23-year-old told BuzzFeed News, with a shrug. "Cut to a year later and the first question I'm getting from everyone is, So this movie is gonna blow up, what are you going to do? It never felt that way. It was an underdog script and an under-the-radar project with all relatively up-and-coming actors — we don't have anyone in the movie like Kate Winslet [Divergent] or Donald Sutherland or Phillip Seymour Hoffman [The Hunger Games]. So it always felt super small to us, but we always knew it could exist amongst those because it's so good."


O'Brien was quick to add that shrugging off industry expectations should not be mistaken for professional ignorance. In fact, he's incredibly fastidious — almost to a fault — of the material to which he exposes his young fan base, particularly on social media.


"I'm so careful of the things I say and so conscientious of my fans and who is following me on Twitter that I know I can't tweet about certain things, I know I can't talk about certain things, I know I can't say certain things," he said. "I feel like there are very few people whose personalities shine through Twitter. Mine couldn't be further from who I am. Every now and then I squeeze some of my humor through, but it's very held back and reserved because attention has always made me react that way. It's just how I'm wired. It doesn't mean I'm not grateful, it's actually because I really care about not letting people down."


O'Brien's innate need to please has been amplified by the sheer volume of fans he's amassed in just the last few years. "It blows me away," he said of the borderline-crazy level of adoration he's received ever since landing the role of Stiles. "In a way, I can never fully understand it because I don't know if I'm wired that way. But what makes me feel good about it is I'm bringing them happiness and that I can relate to."


He explained, "I loved movies so much as a kid because I moved cross country and I went through a hard time at school, having kids really make my life miserable for no reason. The one thing I would look forward to at the end of the day was going home to watch my TV shows. TV and movies would instill this happiness in me. So I totally get it. I was that kid too. I get genuinely touched by it sometimes because I can I now give that to kids, and that's cool."




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