Dylan O’Brien is addressing the life-threatening injury he suffered after a stunt went wrong while filming “Maze Runner: The Death Cure,” revealing he expressed his concerns beforehand — but no one allegedly listened.
The “Saturday Night” actor, 33, got candid about the 2016 incident in a new interview with Men’s Health, saying the ordeal was “life-changing” for him.
O’Brien has since learned to become his biggest advocate.
“I’ve approached everything differently, you could say, particularly with regards to standing my ground on set. It’s very commonplace in the culture for young actors to be controlled, and the way they strive to do that is by always being like, ‘Oh, don’t become difficult. Don’t be a pain in the a–. Or Are you complaining, are you being difficult?’ Things like that,” he shared.
“I learned after the accident to not conflate taking care of yourself and looking after yourself. Don’t let them manipulate you into thinking that is being difficult, because I can look at that day and know I was a 24-year-old kid who was raising concerns about how we were approaching things, and they were not listened to, they were not respected,” O’Brien explained. “And then what happened happened. And by all accounts, it was all pretty gotten away with, I would say, as well.”
The actor said the ordeal taught him to “have your own back, and that’s the most you can rely on.”
Looking back at his career, O’Brien shared, “I’ve been doing this for 15 years. I know the person I am, and the character I bring to set, and the way I treat people and the way that I treat a workspace, and I know I’m not difficult.
“I know I’m not an a–hole,” he continued. “I know I was trying to protect myself that day, and so I’ve just never forgotten that. That’s always rung true as being the thing to hold with me.”
In 2016, O’Brien suffered severe injuries while performing a stunt on the final “Maze Runner” set in Vancouver. The actor was reportedly thrown from a vehicle and struck by another, resulting in a concussion, a facial fracture and more.
The action movie’s production was halted in late April 2016, pushing filming to the following year and releasing in Jan. 2018.
In 2020, he told Deadline he “felt so f–king broken” following the near-death injury.
“A lot of things in my life were changing and were difficult at that time. A lot of things in my career were changing too. I was fighting it for a while, and freaking out that I felt so f–king broken,” he said. “I had to accept that and sink into it.”
O’Brien plays Dan Aykroyd in his latest project, “Saturday Night,” based on the 90 minutes leading up to the 1975 premiere of NBC’s “Saturday Night Live.”
The film hits theaters on Sept. 27.
