"Giffoni Experience is amazing. There should be many more festivals like this in the USA too. I know that director Gubitosi created all this when he was only 18: the right age, the age when everything seems to be possible and it's amazing that teenagers still come here today to live this experience. Here you can realize what passion really is": that’s how Dylan O'Brien praises Giffoni Experience, which he has attended today as a guest star. The popular protagonist of Teen Wolf (whose fourth season will be soon broadcasted on Fox) is so close to his fans, not only for his age, that he feels just like them. The actor also stars in The Maze Runner, based on the first installment of the fantasy trilogy by James Dashner (edited in Italy by Fanucci) and directed by Wes Ball, on theatres from 18 September released by 20th Century Fox. The film follows a group of teens who wake up with a memory loss in the middle of a maze where dangerous creatures live.
"We love you as if you were our best friend, not only because you're a great actor", says a fan at the end of this morning’s meet&greet with Dylan. 800 teenagers booked the available tickets: tears, screams of joy and applauses have filled up the Cittadella together with the wolf's ears and whiskers that many youth have worn in honour of the series' lycanthropes. Girls obviously screamed "You are beautiful", welcoming him on the Blue Carpet before he entered Sala Truffaut to meet the jurors.
“The idea that there might be people waiting for me to get out of anywhere I was – he said – used to freak me out, but I can understand it know. I’ve been a kid myself, I used to have my idols and my only ‘friends’ when I moved to Los Angeles were Friends characters. I know that acting urges me to be a better person”.
He reveals to go in for House of Cards, the TV series starring Kevin Spacey, and that he entered the lists for an episode of The Walking Dead but had to drop it due to beginning of the film’s shooting. Although he prefers cinema for its deeper acting levels, he doesn’t deny the crisis it’s been going through. “Sometimes It seems they’re not able to create anything really new, sometimes they start shooting without a script, just counting on some famous name. I hope this is a temporary phase and that cinema may soon come back to its former splendour.” His models? “Tom Hanks, Robert De Niro… but I don’t like to copy anyone. You must always be yourself", repeats O’Brien, enthusiastically following the message-theme of the 2014 edition, Be Different.
The exhortation is always the same. “Passion lies at the bottom of everything: you must never give up if you really want to pursue your dreams”. Over the last days, on holidays with a couple of friends, he’s toured the Amalfi Coast by Vespa and liked it very much, as well as he likes the chance to travel given by his job.
To the ones who asked advice on how to take up a career as an actor he suggested: “Keep your passion undiminished. I grew up watching films and TV series, just like you. I tried hard to make my own videos without losing my determination: if you love what you do, you will succeed”.
