The Next Teen Franchise? Meet the ‘Maze Runner’ Actors!

Dylan O’Brien couldn’t be considered “chubby” by anyone’s standards.

Yet when he sees himself in The Maze Runner, the new film in theaters Friday and based on James Dashner’s young-adult book, the fit 23-year-old actor is honestly taken aback by how thin he looks compared to now.

“I see my face and I can’t believe I was that skinny,” O’Brien says. “Clearly I was sprinting in a hot box for eight weeks straight.”

The title is definitely honest with its descriptors — there is a maze and lots and lots of running for O’Brien and his co-stars, but there’s also an intriguing prospect for those who love dystopian tales.

Equal parts The Hunger Games and Lord of the Flies, The Maze Runner stars O’Brien as Thomas, a young amnesiac who wakes up surrounded by other boys in a strange village called The Glade.

They don’t have a clue about who put them there or why — all they know is they’re surrounded by stone walls so high they seem to touch the sky, and beyond them lies a dangerous maze that changes nightly and contains monstrous creatures called Grievers.

Some of the kids, like Gally (Will Poulter of We’re the Millers fame), are just fine with society they’ve built in The Glade and don’t agree with Thomas’ wish to escape and find out who did this to them. The drama comes to a boil, however, when Thomas seizes the role “runner” to map the maze, and Teresa (Kaya Scodelario), a mysterious girl with a connection to Thomas, inexplicably shows up in The Glade.

Most young actors in Hollywood would love to be a part of the next big young-adult movie franchise and the chance to be the next Jennifer Lawrence (The Hunger Games) or Robert Pattinson (Twilight). They have become a lucrative cottage industry in Hollywood — Lawrence’s two Hunger Games movies have grossed nearly $1 billion just in the USA.

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15 September 2014
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