From writer/director Quinn Shephard, the dark comedy Not Okay follows Danni Sanders (Zoey Deutch), an aspiring writer that just can’t seem to make it happen for herself, so she decides to fake a trip to Paris on Instagram in the hopes that it will bring her some much wanted attention. But when a terrible tragedy happens and Danni decides to spin it to her advantage, the lies quickly spiral out of control and put her life as an influencer on the line.

During this 1-on-1 interview with Collider, Dylan O’Brien (who plays Colin, a social media star that Danni tries very hard to catch the attention of) talks about developing this character with Shephard, how his look evolved, what they were aiming for with all the tattoos, the importance of a filmmaker’s vision, working with co-star Deutch on more than one occasion now, and why he never wants to repeat the same thing with the projects that he signs on for.

Collider: This seems like one of those characters that could have been very vague on the page, and that developed once actors were cast, and you were working with the filmmaker. How was this guy described to you, and how did it get to what we see now in the film?

DYLAN O’BRIEN: Just through initial conversation. I can’t remember how he was described or listed in the breakdown, but I read the script and I had a really specific image of him when I was reading it, and one that I felt like I could totally get. I just felt like I got it. I don’t know. And then, I talked to (writer/director) Quinn [Shephard], and we talked about that type of character and who we would be going for, and we just really jived on that. For an hour, we were both cracking up about these types of characters, in an exciting way. I’ve been really fascinated by this character for so long, so I was excited that’s what she was going for.

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Image via Fox Searchlight

When you saw him, just from the first image you saw of him for yourself, was it exactly like what we see now, or did it evolve a bit?

O’BRIEN: Yeah, it absolutely evolved. It’s such a team effort, particularly with this, with the clothes, the tats, the hair, everything. It was a slow evolution. I had an idea of the physicality and the voice. I could hear the dude. And then, the aesthetic all came together as pre-production was starting up. I would walk around my house talking like him sometimes, and I’d record it on my phone and send it to Quinn.

Was that hard to stop, when you finished this? After playing him, because he is so very specific, did you have to break that speech pattern?

O’BRIEN: No, not really. Maybe in terms of joking around. I would do it as a bit or something. But it was easy to shake.

How much thought went into the tattoos? Was each one specific to the character, in some way? Were there any that you requested?

O’BRIEN: Our key head of makeup literally hand drew all the tattoos herself and just made a bunch of stupid ones. They were just the most shallow tattoos you could possess. I just wanted them to be the dumbest tattoos that you could put on yourself, that were the most on-the-nose, so we had a snake, and a yin-yang, and a pot leaf, and just really, really surface-level, meaningless things that he thinks are so sick because he’s such a poser.

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Image via Fox Searchlight

Were you modeling him after anyone in particular, or is he someone that you just had accumulated over the years of seeing these types of guys?

O’BRIEN: That’s exactly it. That’s the perfect way of putting it. It was genuinely just years of an accumulation of seeing guys like this. In so many ways, he’s the worst. It’s more of a fascination of just, “What is it about all these things that fool people?” If you stripped away everything, like how he dresses, how he talks, his chains, his rings, his hair, his tats, I don’t know why those things are so desired by people. It’s an aesthetic that’s just super in right now and has been for a while, or maybe always has been.

If the only two ways to get famous on the internet are by being yourself or by being somebody else, which do you think this guy is? Is he who we see? Does he even know who he is? Is there someone under everything he puts out there?

O’BRIEN: I think he’s lost touch with who he even is. This is who he has been for so long that I don’t think it’s either/or, necessarily. They blend into each other. It’s not who he is, but it’s also who he’s become, so I don’t even think he remembers how to be who he once was. It’s an existential crisis.

The way this film is handled is so interesting because it could easily just have been a disaster to handle a subject like this, but it’s so well done, which really comes back to the vision of the filmmaker. What did you respond to, in working with Quinn Shepard? Had you ever worked with a filmmaker before that you were actually so close in age with?

O’BRIEN: All great thoughts and questions. First of all, it is a really risky movie to get right and to execute. It could be really divisive. It could really be a disaster. It’s a really delicate tonal balance, and it’s not an easy thing to execute. So, I was so impressed when I saw what Quinn did with the movie, and I think you’re so right. It’s a really strong vision. That’s the only way that something like this can come out the other side, the way it did. And have I ever worked with a director so close an age? I have, yeah. Me and Quinn are four-ish years apart. I’ve also worked with my friend Michael Matthews, who directed a movie I did, Love and Monsters, and I think he’s only a few years older than me. So, there’s been a couple.

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Image via Fox Searchlight

At least with something like this, it seems like it would work to your advantage to be so close in age because you’d have the same cultural reference points, which would make a lot of sense when you’re trying to figure out living in the world in this movie.

O’BRIEN: Totally.

Have you ever had or overheard a conversation with another human being, comparing the amount of social media followers you have?

O’BRIEN: You hear crazy snippets all the time, especially in New York, just walking around. Not that I can recall, in terms of followers. But I’ve witnessed entire lunches happening next to me where the entire time, the two parties are on their phone, not looking up once, but talking. They’re on their phone, the food comes, they snap it, and then they continue on their phones while they kind of eat. It’s not like they’re not speaking, but they’re constantly on their phones. It’s just such a crux.

You and Zoey Deutch are so good in this together, and you were also so good in The Outfit together, which is such a different dynamic. What do you enjoy about working with her, especially now that you’ve worked with her on such different character dynamics in two different films?

O’BRIEN: What I love about Zoey is that she’s such a clear person. She is so direct, and not shy about being direct. She’s just being assertive. You never don’t know where you stand with Zoey, and I really appreciate people like that because communication is such a key foundation and I feel like people are so often not communicative, or passive aggressive, or whatever. She doesn’t beat around anything, and I love that in a personality. I love that in a professional setting and in a personal friendship. I just think direct communication is kindness. That’s one of my favorite things about her. She’s incredible in every other facet, too. She’s wonderfully talented, she’s really smart, and she’s a great person.

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Image via Fox Searchlight

We started doing interviews and talking about your career, back when you were doing Teen Wolf, and you’ve played a very interesting collection of characters since then. When you lay them out next to each other, they all feel so different. Has any of that been intentional, in any way? Is that something that you’ve fought for, or do you just feel like you’ve been really lucky, not being stuck in any one box?

O’BRIEN: Thanks, first of all. That’s so nice. Of course, it’s intentional. There are hundreds of things that I guess I could’ve said “yes” to or done, that would’ve just been total carbon copies of where I started or what I’ve done before, and that’s not something that’s interesting to me to do. It’s funny that you mention laying them all next to each other. I really would be proud, if I could look back and genuinely feel like I played a lot of different assortments of characters, and learned a lot of different mediums, in terms of genre, or in terms of just challenging yourself. I wanna do stage work, at some point. They’re all such different versions of each other. I never wanna be repeating the same thing. That’s not exciting or fulfilling to me. So, yeah, it certainly comes with an intention, and that’s cool, thank you so much for saying that.

When you’re reading a script, do you know within a few pages, if it’s something you want to do? Are you someone who will keep reading to the end of the script, just because once you start, you want to finish it, or do you know pretty fast?

O’BRIEN: It depends. I think you know pretty quick. I usually will do my due diligence, regardless, and get through it. I feel like after a while, you just know if it’s something you’re connecting to or not, or if it’s somebody that you are excited to work with. With the character, it’s such a gut thing. If it’s not there, and you’re not feeling it, you can’t force it. If you’re ever trying to be deliberate or force it, then that’s a sign that it’s not the thing that you should be doing.

Not Okay is available to stream at Hulu.