Will and Kaya talk with Fangirlish

While at Comic Con Fangirlish had the opportunity to interview Kaya and Will about all things The Maze Runner.

Here are the highlights:

Is it better or worse to walk into a movie that also has a book adaptation with an existing fanbase? Do you feel like you have been received well on social media or is that difficult to listen to the criticisms? 

Kaya: I think we’ve been incredibly lucky. I think Maze Runner fans probably… of all the stories I’ve heard and I have heard a lot of them… the Maze Runner fans seems to be the nicest families out there. And they have been so supportive. I haven’t seen a single negative comment and they’re really supportive of like other films, and other franchises. And they all want to talk about it and get together and discuss it. And they’ve been like overwhelmingly nice. I’m so scared that one day I’m going to go into a room and it’s going to be all the assholes they talked about.

Will: Yeah… yeah… Maze Runner fans… Right. I think it’s because the collective online voice of the Gladers and the Maze Runner fan labels has been loud and really encouraging. That’s been the case from day one. As soon as we all got cast, they were following us. They were you know sending out encouraging words and personal messages.

Kaya: And like Fanart! And Videos.

Will: Unbelievable! And we would contact them like during filming to kind of keep them up-to-date and stuff with a couple of video chats and things and saying what we’re going to do and before the release of the movie maybe we’ll do another one; but it wasn’t something that producers asked us to do. We really found ourselves wanting to make contact with them because they were so cool to us. I realize that a number of big franchise films have huge support, but that happened so dramatically, so early on that it is a very special relationship.

Kaya: Yeah. Yeah. Totally. It is special.

Will on what types of roles he likes to play best.

Uhm, I actually don’t mind. I was saying just early… the common theme for me, the characters I like playing is that they kind of have an element to their personality that I have a respect for. So every one of them might have elements I don’t understand to some degree nor do I feel like I agree with Gally entirely, there are elements of his persona and elements of what he stands for that I can kind of appreciate. That made him accessible to me as an actor. I loved playing someone who you know brought conflict and created friction. It was fun. Some of my favorite scenes were when I was being kind of a complete asshole. It was like, I can’t lie… it was fun to do. I don’t know why. I can’t explain that. You don’t strive to be an asshole in every day life. I imagine people don’t do that. Some people will fool you. But uhm, I uh… I really enjoyed it. I thought it was like really good fun. I loved to play another baddie.

What do you think sets Maze Runner apart from many of the other similar big franchises that are hitting the theaters in the last couple of years.

Kaya: For me, it’s just from the second it starts you’re on the journey with the character. That’s what’s great if you don’t know anything about the books. If you’ve never read it, you can still go watch it. You discover the story from the eyes of Thomas, through the eyes of Dylan’s character. You know you go on the journey with him. Nothing’s explained. It doesn’t start with a paragraph of this is what’s happened. It’s all about you discovering it as you go on the journey. And if you connect to the first film, from what I know of the second and third books, it’s only going to get more and more interesting.

Will: Yeah, I would say… to touch upon what Kaya says that the fact your experiences kind of synchronize with the characters. You’re not spoon fed everything. There’s a natural element of ambiguity. There’s a natural number of questions. You are kind of thrust into this world with Thomas and all the other kids in these glades. And you are right with them through every step of the way. You find out as they find out. There’s no voice-over narrating or holding your hand through it. I even recently watched some of the films we were talking about earlier, even some fantasy ones. A few of them start off with a kind of voiceover break down of what’s happened in the world etc. and this [Maze Runner] is entirely different – comes from the opposite direction. And that I think it’s far more action, far more suspenseful and just makes it a more exciting film I think, if I can say that.

Catch the rest of the interview at the source!