During filming Collider visited the set and sat down with Dylan, Kaya, and Wes to talk all things The Maze Runner.
Here are the highlights:
Dylan on being cast as Thomas:
Just like anything, I just auditioned for it. It’s funny. The way Wes told me it happened was, at first, I went in on it initially with the casting director, just like everybody. I didn’t hear back for like a month and a half, because Wes was like, “His hair is too MTV!” That’s what he thought, which was so funny. Then he saw a picture of me with more regular hair, the buzzcut or something from Teen Wolf, and he brought me back and it worked. It just ended up working out.
Dylan on potentially sacrificing himself for others:
When you think about it, I think it gets in your way, in your head about it. But instinctively, I’m always one who will lash out at anyone hurts my friends, viciously, kind of. Like, murder. [Laughs] No, but I’m very protective of the people I love. Sacrificing is a whole other thing. I don’t think you often come to that situation in life. But it’s a primal instinct, but maybe. Put me in that situation and we’ll find out!
Dylan on leading man pressure:
Yeah, yeah, there’s always pressure. Not pressure per say, I guess. You’re always conscious of what you’re doing. I don’t feel like I have to be the leader here or anything, I don’t have to take the reins. I think we have such an awesome group of actors so I don’t necessarily feel that way. But I can sometimes get into the head space of self-doubt. It’s just a human trying to act, essentially, but sometimes it can be a lot. But at the end of the day, I’m in love with what we’re doing. I’m in love with the movie that we’re making and the people we’re doing it with. Wes, my bosses and this whole group. I’m just trying to focus on the experience and what we’re doing with it. I think you yield the best result with that mentality, I think.
Dylan on his running skills:
You see, that’s funny. You’d think they’d have to. He’s a Maze Runner! But sometimes with casting, I think about this sometimes. I never ran for them or anything. I just happen to be able to run really fast. I hate running, though. I love this running—long-distance, get out of here—but I’d be down to do a sprint any day, then wake up the next day and not be able to move. I love sprinting, which is such a weird sentence. [Laughs] But no, they never tested my running ability. I didn’t have much time to physically prepare at all. I do work every night on Teen Wolf, so to get up on your feet every day … I’m not in bad shape, but I’m not in great shape. I’m not somebody who works out every day, who goes to the gym ever. But it works with the character. I’m not supposed to be ripped. It’s about the heart that’s put into everything. When my character runs, he doesn’t even know he’s running. He’s just doing it. It’s instinct. It all plays well into the story.
Kaya on her first experience on a big budget set:
I tried to go into it treating it like any other job which I think is what you have to do. I’m really lucky it’s a big Hollywood film and everyone really cares about it. Everyone wants it to be made because they want it to be a good story. They’ve put a lot of time and effort into it. It doesn’t feel as though it’s just here for the sake of doing another young adult film. If you speak to Wes, he really gives a fu*k about it! And when you have that passion and when you have that dedication, it’s the same as being as being on the low budget set ever. It’s just that there’s loads of free food which is great!
Kaya on the most challenging part of playing Teresa:
Probably the physical side. I had never done an action film where I’ve had to run around, especially running after Dylan where he’s all athletic and American and great at sport. And I smoke and drink, typically English, so for me I’ve been pushing myself to get into shape and actually exercise and try to keep up with them all. It’s been a great challenge for me. I’ve been able to stand my ground. I didn’t want to be the pansy female, I wanted to give them a run for my money and I feel like I have!
Kaya on what she's most looking forward to filming:
I can’t wait to do all the Griever stuff when we’re being attacked, because I’ve never worked with CGI or special effects so I’m really interested to see how that’s done. And to kind of push myself to be afraid of a guy in a lycra green suit, that’s what I’m looking forward to. And the Maze stuff, because it all fascinates me how big this whole thing is and that there are three cameras. It’s still really exciting to me, so I can’t wait to see how the big stuff is filmed.
Wes on record amount of daily setups:
Yeah, well as it is my first movie and stuff, our first day we got 36 setups or something like that, which is supposed to be a lot. One day we actually got rained out for half the day and so we lost half of our day. We had six hours and we got thirty-nine setups on that day. That was a crazy, crazy day. That was nuts. That was our Ben banishment scene, which is going to be freaking intense. It’s going to be really brutal and it’s a scene that almost all the fans… When I first started this movie, I tweeted all the fans and said “Hey guys, what are your favorite scenes from the book?” I made sure all of those scenes are in this movie and Ben’s banishment was one of them and that was one of those days where we were just knocking stuff off and personally for me I love when we get into that stuff. We storyboard a lot, but I love when we are just going in there and just almost on the fly making stuff and discovering moments. It’s just fantastic, where you can really go in there and be creative and everything.
Wes on camera setups and blocking out scenes:
You have your master, you go in and get that and say “That’s great. Come in here, get this shot. Go over here and get this shot.” As we blocked the scene, we’d go in and rehearse it, block it, start getting the lights ready, and then we’d start talking about where we were going to get our shots and our little angles and all of this great stuff and then at the same time sometimes we are running three cameras at the same time. Well today we’re doing two. Well, actually we have three in there, but three cameras all of the time doesn’t help us so much. You start getting on top of each other, so I find two cameras is awesome, because we can get there and just fish for awesome moments, then occasionally have that third camera coming in for the big crane wides and stuff like that.
I tried to go into it treating it like any other job which I think is what you have to do. I’m really lucky it’s a big Hollywood film and everyone really cares about it. Everyone wants it to be made because they want it to be a good story. They’ve put a lot of time and effort into it. It doesn’t feel as though it’s just here for the sake of doing another young adult film. If you speak to Wes, he really gives a fu*k about it! And when you have that passion and when you have that dedication, it’s the same as being as being on the low budget set ever. It’s just that there’s loads of free food which is great!
Kaya on the most challenging part of playing Teresa:
Probably the physical side. I had never done an action film where I’ve had to run around, especially running after Dylan where he’s all athletic and American and great at sport. And I smoke and drink, typically English, so for me I’ve been pushing myself to get into shape and actually exercise and try to keep up with them all. It’s been a great challenge for me. I’ve been able to stand my ground. I didn’t want to be the pansy female, I wanted to give them a run for my money and I feel like I have!
Kaya on what she's most looking forward to filming:
I can’t wait to do all the Griever stuff when we’re being attacked, because I’ve never worked with CGI or special effects so I’m really interested to see how that’s done. And to kind of push myself to be afraid of a guy in a lycra green suit, that’s what I’m looking forward to. And the Maze stuff, because it all fascinates me how big this whole thing is and that there are three cameras. It’s still really exciting to me, so I can’t wait to see how the big stuff is filmed.
Wes on record amount of daily setups:
Yeah, well as it is my first movie and stuff, our first day we got 36 setups or something like that, which is supposed to be a lot. One day we actually got rained out for half the day and so we lost half of our day. We had six hours and we got thirty-nine setups on that day. That was a crazy, crazy day. That was nuts. That was our Ben banishment scene, which is going to be freaking intense. It’s going to be really brutal and it’s a scene that almost all the fans… When I first started this movie, I tweeted all the fans and said “Hey guys, what are your favorite scenes from the book?” I made sure all of those scenes are in this movie and Ben’s banishment was one of them and that was one of those days where we were just knocking stuff off and personally for me I love when we get into that stuff. We storyboard a lot, but I love when we are just going in there and just almost on the fly making stuff and discovering moments. It’s just fantastic, where you can really go in there and be creative and everything.
Wes on camera setups and blocking out scenes:
You have your master, you go in and get that and say “That’s great. Come in here, get this shot. Go over here and get this shot.” As we blocked the scene, we’d go in and rehearse it, block it, start getting the lights ready, and then we’d start talking about where we were going to get our shots and our little angles and all of this great stuff and then at the same time sometimes we are running three cameras at the same time. Well today we’re doing two. Well, actually we have three in there, but three cameras all of the time doesn’t help us so much. You start getting on top of each other, so I find two cameras is awesome, because we can get there and just fish for awesome moments, then occasionally have that third camera coming in for the big crane wides and stuff like that.
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