Dylan O'Brien, producer Wyck Godfrey, director Wes Ball, and author James Dashner stopped by Nerd HQ to promote The Maze Runner.
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Collider interview with Wyck Godfrey
What's the Easter egg franchise potential like for The Maze Runner?
I think the entire mystery of what WCKD is and who they are and what their plan for these boys is, is the thing that drives you into the second book. And you find out, with the way Wes has handled it, was you do discover what's out there, but you don't know everything. You realize very quickly that they've made it out of the maze, but it's just the beginning. It's just the beginning of what they'll have to face, so by the end of the movie, you're satisfied with these having survived the maze trials, but you're dying to know what's going to happen next and I think that's important to get people intense. And the most important thing, frankly, is giving an audience with characters they care about. Essentially the drama of these books is the relationships that are formed and not everyone's going to survive. And you're heart's broken when people die, but if you get the audience caring about Thomas and Minho and Chuck and Newt, they're going to be with you in the second book/movie.
Collider with Dylan O'Brien
On set life:
Yeah, as an actor, it’s interesting because so much was like what you’re focused on and a lot of what you need to focus on is story and your scenes, and telling this story in each scene, and literally being on it constantly while also balancing other things. In this case, it was a lot of other things. There was a lot of physical stuff I needed to do for the role as far as — I didn’t need to train or anything for it. But just as far as daily throwing myself into something or onto something or off of something, or running, hightailing it all day long for a hundred yard dashes. By the end of the first week, my arms were covered in these cuts and then makeup started kind of duplicating the cuts. The rest of the shoot when they went away, I would still have the scar of it, like the faint little line because we’re out on the sun all day too. Then it became my cuts they were actually kind of reviving every day for the movie. It’s just so funny, I’ve never done anything that physical, I’ve never worked the hours that I’ve worked in this movie, and I’ve never also shot this big of a film. So, it was a really interesting kind of combination of craziness.
Surprises for book fans:
I think everything. I can’t say how the movie’s going to come out or anything but I think [director] Wes [Ball] is going to kill it. It’s really gritty, it’s a lot grittier than I think people are going to expect it to be. What’s funny is that, in terms of subject matter, something like The Hunger Games is much more viciously violent than this story is but when you see the movies though, it’s interesting how — I think this is going to surprise people with how dirty and dark it is.
Check out the rest of this fantastic interview at the source!
Hypable with James Dashner
On seeing his characters come to life:
There’s so much relief with it. I don’t know how I would have reacted if I have disagreed with all the choices, or if they were butchering my book or my vision. I agree and support everything about this film. I love the casting, I love the script, I love Wes’ vision for it. The tone and the spirit of the movie, it’s almost too good to be true. I am extremely satisfied and happy about it.
On adaptation changes:
There are changes, and they all make sense. I will spend the next seven months soothing my fans, preparing them. For example, the telepathy between Thomas and Teresa would just not work in the movie. Telepathy never works, it just looks cheesy and stupid. It works great in the book, it’s a cool way for them to be connected, but that is not in the film. But Wes Ball is a genius, and the way he creates that connection in a different way is very cool. And small things, like WICKED is just WCKD, and of course there are a lot of fans that went nuts. But it means the exact same thing, it’s pronounced the exact same way, it just looks cooler visually than spelling out the word.
Teen.com talks with Dylan O'Brien
On the importance of reading the book:
It was important for me but once I got halfway through I realized that it wasn’t too crucial at that point. Because again, I had no time, I came right into pre-production and we were starting in a week and a half. We had already had changes made to our script at that time so I was still getting the script down. We have so many changes from the book to the script that at one point I was starting to get confused. I remember one day I went up to Wes and asked him about a scene we were doing and he was like “that’s not in the script, it’s only in the book” and I was like ‘Oh my God I gotta work this out!’ So I put the book the book aside for a second, I didn’t want to finish it until I was confident I knew the script inside out. That was my priority as an actor, but the book helps so much just briefing me on what I’m doing. I love books too because books in general give so much more insight to characters and people. So it’s really important to get that insight as you are portraying the character.
Three words to describe working with Kaya:
Never-boring, adorable, lovely.
Check out the rest of the interview over at Teen.com
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