Moving method Dylan O’Brien was asked to transform into an e-boy influencer for his film Not Okay — and he had no trouble getting into character.
“I think it was so dead-on because it’s just like all we see,” O’Brien, 30, told Entertainment WeeklyIn an interview published Thursday, July 28. “I feel like, you’re just scrolling through news and it’s like, ‘Oh, thirst trap!’ The f—boys are everywhere! Gotta watch out.”
It is not okayStars Zoey DeutchAs Danni Sanders, a lonely wannabe writer who pretends to be in Paris while hiding in her Brooklyn apartment. She turns tragedy into a social media star after a terrorist attack in the City of Love. O’Brien, for his part, plays opposite Deutch, 27, as love interest — a clout-chasing micro influencer desperate for fame.
Studying the internet’s biggest content creators, the Teen WolfAn alum knew he wanted the role fully. “From the first conversation with [director] Quinn early on, I was just like, ‘I want to go full-on, just like full tats, bleach the hair,’” the Love and Monsters star explained, adding that he had “an incredible team of people that assembled it entirely for me.”
The New York native, who improvised many of his lines due to being so “locked into” the character, told EW on Thursday that he “loved” playing the role so much, he would “go back and do it better” if he could.
“Somebody had tipped me off to, like, a f—boy greeting of, like, ‘Let me get a huggie,’” O’Brien recalled of some of his improv, before admitting that the person who told him about the line “was a girl I was seeing at the time.”
Dylan O’Brien in ‘Not Okay.’ Searchlight Pictures/YouTube
The earlier this month, Maze RunnerDuring a chat with actor, he spoke about how his past relationship serendipitously inspired him to play such a unlikable character. Interview Magazine.
“I was actually dating a girl that summer for a bit and I was picking up a lot of things from her, too. She had that sort of vibe,” he revealed of his former beau. “Like she’d be constantly saying, ‘OD as f–k,’ and ‘No cap, and cap, no cap.’ Just all these terms. I would just be walking around the house and record riffs with my phone. I really wanted to explore the dichotomy of him always having these beliefs, and then his actions being completely fake as f—k.”
O’Brien’s new chapter comes months after choosing not to return for the upcoming Teen Wolf movie. The actor played Stiles Stilnski, a fan favorite, on the show which ran on MTV from 2011 through 2017. His love for the character as well as the original series is part what led him to initially consider returning for the Paramount+ film revival.
“The show couldn’t be more dear to me. It was the first thing I ever did I and so many people there are extremely dear to me,” O’Brien told VarietyMarch “It was something I was trying to make work, but it all happened very fast.”
The Amazing Stories alum noted that “a lot” went into making the difficult decision to ultimately pass on the project. “We didn’t really know that it was happening and they kind of just threw it at us a little bit, which is fine because we all love the show,” he explained. “We were trying to figure it out. I just decided it was left in a really good place for me and I still want to leave it there,” he explained.
