Dylan O'Brien On Making 'American Assassin' After Injury

In a shocking revelation Thursday, news broke that earlier this summer Selena Gomez underwent a kidney transplant due to her continuing battle against Lupus. Somehow, this major news about one of the world’s biggest pop stars was kept incredibly quiet not only in the mainstream media, but social media where almost everything is posted by someone, somewhere. It was sort of a strange coincidence this was revealed considering I was prepping a podcast episode I recorded with Dylan O’Brien last month in conjunction with his new movie “American Assassin.” A conversation that described how truly taxing and traumatic his accident was on the set of “The Maze Runner: The Death Cure” in March, 2016.

At first it was reported that O’Brien had sustained minor injuries filming a stunt on “Death Cure,” but, like Gomez, it was months until the public knew that O’Brien was out of commission almost six and a half months to recover from major surgery. O’Brien had four fractures to his face. After I sat down with O’Brien, an industry friend said he’d once been asked by someone to let them know how O’Brien looked at a dinner party before they officially offered him a role (my friend politely declined). It’s not an exaggeration to say some people thought O’Brien might never act again and the 27-year-old actor might have been one of them.

The former “Teen Wolf” star turned quite serious when we discussed his recovery. “American Assassin,” a picture in which he does more action than anything previous in his career, was the first thing he did once the doctors gave him the go-ahead to begin working again.

“It was even emotional stepping on set for me even that movie,” O’Brien recalls. “I remember coming away feeling really good. That was a special day getting through that. Just feeling I could do it again was a really good feeling. Something I had doubted so long in my head and hadn’t been able to see if was possible to even work. Coming back to do something physical again was just huge.”

It may sound somewhat melodramatic, but I distinctly remember how almost melancholy O’Brien appeared talking about his ordeal and “pushing through” to act again, a profession he truly loves. And if you listen carefully enough you can hear it in his voice at times.

Of course, we also talked about other topics such as working with the legendary Michael Keaton, graduating to “adult” roles and he answered our four quick questions at the end (hint: “The Handmaid’s Tale” was one of his answers).

You can listen to this episode in the Soundcloud embed below or on iTunes. If you do listen on iTunes please rate, subscribe and share it with your friends!

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