O'Brien hasn't spoken in a huge amount of depth about the accident, beyond that it was severely traumatic and he suffered from anxiety attacks following it. You can read his interview with Girlfriend about the third Maze Runner film here. Now, in a new interview, the actor explains how it dramatically changed his whole life, even making him consider leaving acting for good.
“I had friends that were so dear to me that I had felt that I had neglected for years,” the 29-year-old actor explained during an episode of the Big Ticket podcast. “All of a sudden, it was very important to me to nurture those relationships and not lose them. I think that it absolutely completely rewires and restructures the way you see your life and what you deem important.”
While he did eventually end up finishing the Maze Runner, the actor still says he feels a bit uneasy whenever he needs to do stunts in a rig. (The accident apparently happened when a piece of rigging malfunctioned while O'Brien was in a harness, pulling him into an oncoming car.)
“Whenever I’m putting on a rig, I’m vetting every piece of that rig and much more,” he shared. “Even to this day, if I’m on set and I’m doing a stunt, if I’m in a rig, if there’s some action going on, I am slightly irritable. There is a degree of anxiety in me that I don’t think there’s ever not going to be.”
The Love and Monsters actor seriously considered giving up acting for good, too. “I really was in a dark place there for a while and it wasn’t an easy journey back,” he said. “There was a time there where I didn’t know if I would ever do it again … and that thought scared me too.”
“In a lot of ways, those six months [in recovery] went by like that," he reflected, "And then, in a lot of ways, I can still remember that six months as if it was five years of my life.”
We couldn't be more glad he's safe and back on top now. You can follow Dylan on Twitter here, as the actor remains Instagram-free.
