Page to Premiere was one of the lucky few outlets to visit The Maze Runner set last year.
Here are the highlights:
Wyck on Wes Ball:
This is the thing that Wes [Ball] is great at. He can walk in and immediately know, from his visual effects background, ‘I can shoot here, and put the walls in here,’ or ‘No, that doesn’t work for this reason.’ We tried to limit how many times we actually have to see the walls, we obviously want to tell the story, and we want to feel them. Just the nature of it being surrounded by trees let the actors feel like they’re surrounded by walls. Yet every time you look at the village, we’re into woods and a hill, so you don’t have to see the wall in the background of every shot.
Dylan on stuntwork:
I’m always game to do it. I have to realize though that there are some things I can’t pull off as well as a stuntman can. There’s a compromise. I have to know sometimes that it’s better to let the stunt guy do it. Like, rolling down a hill. There was a scene where I had to trip and roll down a hill. There’s no way that A) the production was going to let me do that, or B) that I could pull that off take after take. So it’s a compromise with your stuntman. You let him make you look awesome for that frame.
Wes Ball on Kaya as Teresa:
I wanted Kaya from the very beginning. I just saw her. I had seen SKINS and stuff and she was much younger, but you see it in the fan responses. I think we’ve got some tremendous response to our casting so far. Everyone is like “Of course. That’s Gally” or “Of course, that’s Teresa!” Teresa is always described as “pale, dark hair, tough girl” and that’s Kaya. She’s gorgeous, but it’s a natural beauty. It’s not like a supermodel beauty and I can’t wait for people to actually meet Kaya on this movie. I think she’s going to be fantastic.
Kaya on TMR cast off set:
We’ve been going to the cinema a lot. I love that over here you can watch films at midnight, you can’t do that back home. So we’ve been going to late night movies a lot which has been fun.
Ki Hong Lee on getting the part of Minho:
I went in and I auditioned like everybody else, got a call back, kept getting call backs. And I could feel it, I could feel it, like the role was there, I could feel it but it wasn‟t mine yet ya know? And it was torture for like a month, two months or something. I finally got the call, I got the call from my agent he said “Ok, the wait is over, you got it” and I was like [silence]… He’s like “Do you need a couple minutes?” I was like “Yeah!” (laughs) I hung up the phone and ran to my mom and like “MOM, I GOT IT I GOT IT!” It was craziness for five minutes.
Thomas Brodie-Sangster on making Newt his own:
I take [Newt] on and I deal with the character in a personal way. I concentrate solely on that and if I make that work then I can only hope that fans appreciate that. You can’ t please everyone. Everyone’s got their own idea of who should be in their head. So I can only do what I think is right and hope that that works for everyone else.
Chris Sheffield on book-to-film changes for Ben:
We definitely stay true to the book. Specifically with Ben there are some differences. Ben’s a runner in the movie; Ben’s not a runner in the book. ‘The Changing’ is, I’m just going to say, takes you by surprise in the movie…for sure. You’ll definitely love Ben and then you’ll just have to see what happens.
Page to Premiere's set visit and their forty things they learned on the set!
