Dylan O’Brien Says ‘Maze Runner’ Concerns Were Ignored Before Accident

Dylan O’Brien is opening up about the safety concerns he had on the set of The Maze Runner: The Death Cure, which resulted in the actor sustaining serious injuries in an accident while filming.

The Saturday Night star looked back at the “life-changing incident” during a recent interview with Men’s Health. In 2016, O’Brien was shooting the third installment in the Maze Runner franchise when he was pulled off the top of a moving vehicle unexpectedly while wearing a harness and hit by another vehicle.

“I’ve approached everything differently, you could say, particularly with regards to standing my ground on set,” he said of how the experience impacted his life. “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 ass. Or are you complaining, are you being difficult?’ Things like that.”

Following his accident, the Teen Wolf alum said he’s learned to stand his ground on set, and not let taking care of yourself be conflated to being difficult.

“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. And then what happened, happened,” O’Brien said. “And by all accounts, it was all pretty gotten away with, I would say, as well.”

He continued, “It’s taught me that, at the end of the day, in these spaces, you have your own back, and that’s the most you can rely on. I just turned 33. 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 asshole. 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.”

The Ponyboi actor previously told The Hollywood Reporter in 2017 that he was grateful for his film American Assassin as it was his first project following his accident.

“It was a really hard time that I was going through, and it was definitely difficult to wrap my brain around it and go out and do it, but at this point, I just couldn’t be more thankful that I did,” he said at the time. “I feel like it was really helpful for me in a lot of ways. It will always be a really personal movie to me. It was huge for me, really. It was like getting back on my feet.”