Dylan O’Brien was injured on March 18, 2016, while filming Maze Runner: The Death Cure in Canada. He was hospitalized, and production was delayed. O’Brien later said the experience left him unsure whether he would act again. His first film job afterward, American Assassin, helped him rebuild confidence on set—but he has not publicly described every injury or what he remembers of the accident.
What happened during the Maze Runner stunt?
The accident occurred while O’Brien was filming an action sequence for Maze Runner: The Death Cure. In an account of a WorkSafeBC report, the Associated Press said the sequence involved two vehicles that were not connected. O’Brien was harnessed to one vehicle while physically riding on the back of the other, and the drivers were supposed to keep the vehicles close together.
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The AP reported that the action sequence had changed and that a meeting was not held after the filming plans changed. Some details of the report were redacted. WorkSafeBC later determined the production had complied with its recommendations, including appropriate rehearsals and the use of qualified stunt people for certain high-risk sequences. The AP account also says O’Brien declined to discuss his injuries or what he remembered about the accident. Read the Associated Press report republished by CityNews Toronto.
Entertainment Tonight described O’Brien as being thrown from one vehicle and struck by another, and reported serious facial damage and hospitalization. That account does not establish a specific diagnosis, such as a fracture or brain injury, or a permanent impairment. ET’s 2017 interview.
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How did the accident affect production?
ABC News reported that O’Brien was hospitalized after suffering multiple injuries and that production was halted. In April 2016, 20th Century Fox said filming would be delayed further to give him more time to recover. A contemporaneous report also quoted director Wes Ball expressing remorse and initially hoping O’Brien might return within weeks; that early expectation was not the eventual length of the hiatus. ABC News’s 2016 report.
The Associated Press later described the production interruption as nearly a year. That refers to the film’s production delay, not to a documented medical recovery timeline. The Death Cure was ultimately released on January 26, 2018, according to 20th Century Studios’ film page.
Why did O’Brien question whether he would act again?
In a September 2017 interview with Entertainment Tonight, O’Brien said there was a period when he did not know whether he would act again. He described the experience as emotionally difficult: “I really was in a dark place there for a while and it wasn’t an easy journey back.”
In an interview with ABC News, he reflected that physical healing had been the easiest part for him, while the mind’s responses to trauma took attention and effort to understand. That was his account of his own experience, not a general claim about how recovery works for others. Watch or read the ABC News interview.
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Yes. O’Brien returned to film work with American Assassin, the first film he made after the accident. He told the AP that working on it helped him learn he could be on a set again and that the work could be done safely. He called it a needed step in his recovery: “It really helped a lot, actually.”
His return did not mean the experience was instantly behind him. In his interviews, O’Brien described the recovery as difficult and spoke about rebuilding confidence through returning to work. His comments document how he understood that process; they do not establish a permanent condition or a precise recovery duration.
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