Dylan O’Brien, an overnight sensation, has had so much success with his acting, but he wasn’t always planning on being an actor. Dylan Rhodes O’Brien was born on August 26, 1991, in New York. Dylan has Italian, Irish, Spanish, and English descent. His parents are Patrick O’Brien, who is a camera operator, and Lisa Nee Rhodes, who was a former actress now running an acting school. They all lived in Springfield Township, New Jersey, until Dylan was 12 years old. Then he and his family moved to Hermosa Beach, California.
While in California, O’Brien attended high school at Mira Costa, graduating in 2009, while playing as a drummer for an independent rock band called “Slow Kids at Play”. During O’Brien’s senior year at Mira Costa High School, a local producer/director pitched him the idea of working on a web series. In his time of working on the web series, O’Brien made a connection through a fellow actor that connected him with a manager. After high school, Dylan O’Brien considered pursuing sports broadcasting and possibly working for the New York Mets, but meeting this manager changed his plans.
Dylan unenrolled from Syracuse University and moved to Los Angeles to pursue his acting, briefly going to a community college in LA. Dylan O’Brien is an American actor who, before starting his acting career, posted YouTube videos online since the age of 14. Dylan O’Briens youtube channel, called “moviekidd826” consisted of several short comedy films that were directed, produced, and starred in by himself.
O’Brien’s first acting break came with an MTV supernatural series named “Teen Wolf”, which was his first major role. Dylan O’Brien first wanted to audition for the lead role of Scott McCall, but once he read the scripts, he realized he would much rather portray the role of Stiles Stilinski, the main character’s best friend. After a total of 4 auditions, Dylan O’Brien got the role of Stiles, playing this character from 2011-2017. O’Brien received multiple Teen Choice Awards and a Young Hollywood Award for this series, leading him to act in more films.
The same year the show “Teen Wolf” first aired, Dylan was also apart if a comedy movie named “High Road” that came out in 2011; the next year he starred in the romantic comedy, “The First Time”. In 2013, O’Brien co-starred in another comedy film, “The Internship,” while later that summer, he also filmed the first movie of the series “The Maze Runner” that came out in 2014.
“The Maze Runner” was Dylan’s first lead role in a project, in which he played the character of Thomas. The role of Thomas got him some recognition from Yahoo! movies, where they named him one of the 15 breakout stars of 1014. On September 18th, 2015, the movie “The Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials” was released, where Dylan reprised the role of Thomas for the second movie. While on the set for the 3rd and final Maze Runner movie, which was filmed in March of 2016, Dylan O’Brien was seriously injured.
O’Brien was in the middle of filming a stunt for the movie “The Maze Runner: The Death Cure,” in which his character, Thomas, was a part of a high-speed train chase scene, where he was harnessed to the top of a moving train. During one of the takes, Dylan was pulled off the moving vehicle, causing another to crash into him. Dylan O’Brien suffered some facial injuries, which included facial fractures, a concussion, and some brain trauma. Dylan later stated that the accident “broke most of the right side of his face”. O’Brien’s injuries led him to undergo reconstructive facial surgery; his injuries took months to recover from, but eventually, he started to film other projects again. In March of 2017, Dylan came back to “The Maze Runner: The Death Cure” set, marking his complete return to health. “The Maze Runner: The Death Cure” premiered January 26, 2018.
O’Brien appeared in the disaster thriller-drama “Deepwater Horizon” in 2016, which was based on the Deepwater Horizon explosion. The next year, in 2017, he played “Titular” in the action-thriller movie “American Assasion,” followed by his voicing a CGI character in the Transformers spinoff “Bumble Bee” in 2018. In 2019, Dylan O’Brien guest-starred in the comedy sci-fi anthology series “Weird City,” while the very next year starring in the mystery thriller “Flash Back”, and the post-apocalyptic road trip film “Love and Monsters.”
2021 was a busy year for Dylan O’Brien, in which he starred/played in five different TV shows or movies during the course of the year. In February 2021, O’Brien was cast in “The Outfit”, which finished filming in April of 2021, while in August, he was cast in “Caddo Lake” and “Not Okay,” which wrapped up filming the next month. In October 2021, it was announced that Dylan O’Brien would be guest-starring in season 11 of the TV show “Curb Your Enthusiasm” on HBO. Taylor Swift’s short film “All Too Well” had him starring opposite Sadie Sink, which came out on November 12, 2021.
Dylan’s work with Taylor Swift, which includes the short film and his work on her tenth album “Midnights,” where he was credited as a drummer, was the last time we saw Dylan O’Brien be a part of a project until 2026. Now O’Brien has a new movie that just came out on Friday, January 30th, 2026, called “Send Help.” “Send Help” is a horror-thriller movie in which he stars alongside the actress Rachel McAdams.