By: Shanna Sweitzer

Not everyone needs experience to make it big.

Some may know him from MTV’s Teen Wolf, the book to movie adaption of James Dashner’s “The Maze Runner,” or just for his popularity. Actor, Dylan O’Brien, was born on August 26, 1991. With today being his 25th birthday, O’Brien has too many achievements to be overlooked.

O’Brien was born in New York City to Lisa and Patrick O’Brien. At a panel in 2011 at London Comic Con, O’Brien said, “My dad is in the [movie] business, he’s a cinematographer. So I’ve always been surrounded by the business. My mother was an actress when she was young, too. So that just lead to a passion for movies. That was my life.”

His parents raised O’Brien in Springfield, New Jersey until the age of 12. Then they moved to Hermosa Beach, California.

Being the new kid and having no friends at school, O’Brien began to make videos on his Youtube account moviekidd826 titled “Dis Be My Channel.” These videos were mostly comedy bits of O’Brien acting the way he is most identified with: goofy.

One of his most popular videos, now with 2.6 million views, is a 30 second video of O’Brien, in his sister’s blouse, lip-syncing the Spice Girls’ “Wannabe.” This video of a perfect example of O’Brien’s character. His silly personality is what people seem to love the most about him.

After adjusting to the Californian life, O’Brien and his new friends formed “Slow Kids at Play,” a band in which he was the drummer. He also had (and still does) a profound love for the New York Mets. For a long time O’Brien’s Twitter biography read “long suffering Mets fan,” until recently, when the Mets made it to the World Series, he changed it to “no longer suffering Mets fan :).”

Since his videos were open to the public on Youtube, O’Brien got recognized. “A woman who lived in my town kinda found me. She saw my videos and one thing lead to another and eventually I was auditioning,” O’Brien said at London Comic Con.

At this point, he had to make a decision. Should he continue school and pursue his dream as a sports broadcaster/scout/general manager for the Mets, or should he begin an acting career? O’Brien made his decision and decided to be an actor.

With no prior acting experience, O’Brien auditioned for MTV’s Teen Wolf. Here he met his lifelong friend Tyler Posey. Both were auditioning for roles on the show. Posey was up for the role of Scott McCall, a dorky high school boy who becomes a werewolf. O’Brien was up for Stiles Stilinski, best friend and sidekick to McCall with a sarcastic personality and spastic qualities.

They met at their final auditions where they had a ton of time to kill. In a 2011 radio interview, O’Brien said, “We were hanging out and it was just kinda like Scott and Stiles, just natural. We even went outside and ran our scene together and he [Posey] was like ‘Dude, how cool would it be if we got this?’” And then they both scored their roles and became best friends not only in Teen Wolf, but also in real life. O’Brien said before they even got the roles, they exchanged numbers and were going to hang out.

O’Brien then landed a small role in an improv movie titled “High Road” where he plays a teenage boy that runs away from home after his mother dies. The movie premiered at the 2011 Newport Beach Film Festival.

With Teen Wolf’s rising popularity, O’Brien was building up a solid fan base. While auditioning for movies that would keep him at a low profile, in 2012, he got the role of an awkward high school senior who can’t help but be in love with his best friend. However, that all changes when he meets a new girl at a party that makes him realize how he really feels, and he falls for this girl fast.  

“The First Time” was a Sundance Film Festival movie where O’Brien met his current girlfriend, Britt Robertson for the first time. The two hit it off in the movie and in real life and have been in a steady relationship since.

At the 2012 Teen Choice Awards, Teen Wolf won Choice Summer TV Show and was gaining viewers. The show went on for a third season and began filming in December 2012.

Soon after O’Brien got the role as a witty intern in the movie “The Internship” with Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn. In the movie, Wilson and Vaughn compete for an internship at Google and are placed on a team with O’Brien. While their characters’ personalities clash at first, in the end, they work things out.

O’Brien then scored his first major role in the book to film adaption of “The Maze Runner.” Director Wes Ball was hesitant to cast O’Brien because of his hair. In an interview with MTV, O’Brien said, “Wes was like, ’His hair is too MTV!’ That’s what he thought, which was so funny. Then he saw a picture of me with more regular hair, the buzzcut or something from ’Teen Wolf,’ and he brought me back and it worked.”

Right after Maze Runner production, Teen Wolf began filming the second half of season 3 in late July 2013. In this season, O’Brien’s character becomes the main focus and he had to take on a huge challenge. Stiles is the comic relief of the show, but given his character arc this season, O’Brien had to go from happy and sarcastic, to completely dark.

Stiles becomes distressed, frightened, and feels as though he’s “straight up losing his mind.” He can’t sleep, and he can’t tell what’s real or not. After all this, he becomes temporarily possessed. O’Brien’s role as “Void Stiles,” a cocky, manipulative, tricky, villain brought so much praise to the actor. He was even awarded Choice TV Villain at the 2014 Teen Choice Awards.

While book to film adaptations are popular at this time, “The Maze Runner” became a rather large blockbuster premiering over a year after filming on September 19, 2014. Just like that, O’Brien’s name was out there.

O’Brien was awarded Breakthrough Actor at the 2014 Young Hollywood Awards; Best Breakthrough Performance, Best Fight (with Maze Runner co star Will Poulter), and Best Hero at the 2015 MTV Movie Awards; and Choice TV Scene Stealer at the 2015 Teen Choice Awards.

After two more seasons of Teen Wolf, the sequel “Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials,” and landing a role with Mark Wahlberg in the movie “Deepwater Horizon,” O’Brien has become a well-known actor: highly respected for his talent, and adored by many for his personality.

Unfortunately, while doing a stunt on the set of the third movie, “Maze Runner: The Death Cure,” O’Brien was severely injured. According to E! News, O’Brien suffered a “‘concussion, facial fracture and lacerations’ after falling to the ground when the motorcycle he was driving went into a slide after completing a stunt.” Production for “The Death Cure,” was postposed and is said to still be premiering on February 27, 2017.

“Deepwater Horizon” is set to be released on September 30, 2016. O’Brien is also rumored to be starring in an upcoming movies called “Little White Corvette” and “American Assassin.””