Everything Dylan O'Brien Has Said About Teen Wolf Since It Ended
The star opens up about how fame affected him, what he loved about the show and why he wasn't in the movie.
It's no doubt common for actors to have a soft spot for their first show - or the one that catapulted them to fame. And for Dylan O'Brien, Teen Wolf fits into both categories.
'It was my first job ever.' He told GQ last year, adding that the show 'will always tug at (his) heartstrings'.
The show quickly became a hit - as did its star. 'All of a sudden, girls were coming up to me in places, wanting to take pictures,' O'Brien told Bustle in an interview in March 2022 - a situation he described as 'very scary', but also 'wonderful' and 'overwhelming'.
He went on to describe how he found it 'gnarly to think about little me having this really special thing happen'.
However, he soon settled into life as a TV star and began to branch out into other acting projects, such as the Maze Runner movies, which he did while still working on the show.
'To be able to do the Maze Runner movies simultaneously with Teen Wolf was amazing in terms of getting in reps and working my [acting] muscle.' He told NME in 2021, adding that his career is 'a constant acting class'.
Of course, all this raises an obvious question. If he loves the show so much, and could fit in the Maze Runner movies alongside it, why didn't he come back for the Teen Wolf movie?
'It was a difficult decision,' O'Brien told Variety when the news broke that he wouldn't be reprising his role for the film. 'The show couldn't be more dear to me... and so many people there are extremely dear to me.' He explained. 'It was something I was trying to make work, but it all happened very fast. We didn't really know it was happening and they kind of threw it at us a little bit, which is fine because we all love the show. We were trying to figure it out.'
As we now know, he couldn't fit his schedule around the film and it went ahead without him. But in a later interview with The Hollywood Reporter, he said, 'When [the movie] came up, I immediately tried to make it work,' before going on to explain that he realised he was 'doing all of those things for other people' and not for himself.
He recalled how he eventually said, 'I actually don't feel like I want to open that door back up, and I don't think there's anything wrong with that. I should just listen to that instinct and go with it'. Not out of any animosity, but simply because it was 'already in a really nice place' and he 'didn't want to f-k with it'.
Source: Bustle, NME, Variety, The Hollywood Reporter.