Dylan O’Brien Talks ‘Not Okay,’ Fake Accents, and His Uncomfortable Sex Scene with Zoey Deutch

Dylan O’Brien has no problem ridiculing white guys from Maine who speak like they were raised on the streets of an all-Black neighborhood. In fact, based on his performance in Not Okay—a new dark comedy that was released on Hulu today—he’s downright gleeful to get the opportunity to do so.

“It’s a really interesting time to take the piss out of it,” the former Teen Wolf star mused to Decider in an interview over Zoom. “I feel like we’ve just entered a period where people are starting to walk back their inauthentic accents.”

In Not Okay, which was written and directed by Quinn Shephard, O’Brien plays a social media influencer named Colin—a bleach-blonde, tattoo-covered dirtbag who has a huge following on Instagram, despite the fact that all he ever seems to do is vape while butchering African-American Vernacular English. Zoey Deutch’s character, Danni—an Anna Delvey wannabe who feels FOMO over missing 9/11—is totally in love with him. Colin couldn’t care less about Danni… until she lies about being the survivor of a devastating terrorist attack in Paris, and becomes something of an influencer herself.

It’s a biting satire that both takes aim at, and empathizes with, a generation brought up on social media narcissism. For O’Brien, who is 30, it’s all too relevant to his own life. “I’m not the kind of millennial who, like, denies watching TikTok videos. You’re just full of shit if you’re saying that,” he said with a laugh. “We’ve all been conditioned by it.”

O’Brien spoke to Decider about embodying a poser, his uncomfortable sex scene with Deutch, and why he won’t be in the upcoming Teen Wolf movie.

Decider: I have to start with the voice you do in this movie because it’s so funny, and too accurate to a certain brand of dude. How did you perfect that white-guy-pretending-be-be-black voice?

Dylan O’Brien: Well, we hear it all the time, don’t we? [Laughs] From the get-go, it was how I read the character in my head. That was like, an automatic idea. And if my take on it was too on the nose, or not what Quinn [Shephard] was thinking, I was totally fine with that. But I sent her a minute video of me talking like how I wanted to talk. I don’t know, we hear so much of it. It’s really funny that the movie’s coming out now because I feel like we’ve just entered a period where people are starting to walk back their inauthentic accents. It’s a really interesting time to take the piss out of it!

My favorite joke is when another character calls Colin out for being from Maine, and you immediately drop the voice. I know it’s a brief scene, but can you walk me through that moment, where Colin drops the facade?

That was an idea on the day. I just thought it’d be so funny if, after all of this, you’d see that this kid doesn’t even like sound—he doesn’t even like speak like this at all. I didn’t know if it would work or, like, make the movie. It’s breaking the fourth wall in a funny way that could work or not. The cool thing that Quinn does so well in the movie, in general, is balancing all of these different tones. She blends them together so seamlessly. That’s not easy to do. It’s not easy to pull off. There’s really broad comedy in the movie, and there’s really deep satire. These are really out-there characters, and then at the same time at the center of it is a truthful, grounded heart with a powerful statement. So, it’s really cool to be able to try something like that and have it work. It all was cohesive somehow.

The costuming is also perfect for Colin. I loved the sheer excess of tattoos. Are any of those real or is this all makeup?

That was just the makeup and costume team, who did an amazing job. Our make-up artist, Arielle, literally hand drew all these tattoos, picked out the favorite ones, and figured out an order on my arm. They’re all really funny, stupid, shallow tattoos. Pizza, yinyang, a snake—really, really shitty tattoos. And the costume designer, Sarah Laux—it honestly is just the easiest thing when you have like, people doing incredible work on those sides of the things, that I really didn’t have to do much. It was so easy to step into. It was so fun too! It genuinely lifts you up and makes you feel like you can believe yourself as that person, which is so helpful.

Is there anything from Colin’s style that overlaps with your own? I didn’t think the blonde was a bad look for you.

Thank you. [Laughs.] Yeah, you know, it’s funny. I’ve never been one to like wear a ton of rings and chains, or designer brands like Balenciaga. But when he’s got like cuddly, cozy hoodie-and-shorts combos, that’s not too dissimilar from sometimes how I like to dress. There is a stoner aspect of his wardrobe that I relate to.

Speaker of this stoner vibes—you’re doing some really funny prop work in that scene where you light a “Scorpion joint” with a torch lighter. How many times did you have to light that?

I feel like we had like 23 joints or something. We had a bunch. It’s been so long. I can’t remember how many I actually ended up lighting, but I remember we like lucked out on the day with the torch lighter. I had said that we needed one because the wind was going to be impossible. I think someone just had one, like a crew member was just sort of here. And then it was like an issue of me like trying to evade the flame. It was burning my like eyebrow! [Laughs] It became sort of just funny how long it would take me to attempt to do every time.

This is your second time working with Zoey Deutch, and you two seem to have genuine chemistry together. Tell me a little bit about working with her.

She’s just the best. She’s one of the smartest and most hardworking people I’ve ever been on set with. I mean, she like produced this movie, and like, she produced this movie, you know what I mean? Like a lot of people get producer credits, and you show up, and you’re like, “Oh, that’s a total vanity credit.”  But she assumes that role. She’s really smart about production. I mean, she could like line produce; she can handle the nuts and bolts. It’s amazing how well she understands the entire circus. It’s really cool to see my friend running the show, really. She and Quinn ran this whole show. It was amazing.

You and Zoey have one very intimate scene together, in which Colin becomes aggressive. How did you work with both Zoey and Quinn to make sure everyone felt as comfortable as possible?

Quinn and I talked about that super early, and Zoey and I did, too. I’ve never done anything like that before—I’ve done very few sex scenes in general, let alone something that dark. It’s obviously not comfortable to perform that type of scene. So, I was really nervous about it. It helps, to have a friendship with Zoey. We’re both comfortable and trusting with each other. You have a headstart on the communicative aspect of it. And we had an intimacy coordinator, and Quinn was really ahead of the game. She knew exactly what the shot that she needed was very far in advance. So that was, helpful. There are no surprises on the day. All those things being really well taken care of makes it easier to then be able to focus on what we’re trying to get out of the scene.

As a millennial, I related to the dark satire of this film that depicts the way social media has affected the millennial psyche. What is your own relationship with social media?

I mean… I love it. It’s part of our world. I’m not the kind of millennial who, like, denies watching TikTok videos. You’re just full of shit if you’re saying that. Or you’re in the woods somewhere, and uninformed. There is a correlation to that now weirdly—the same place that you can scroll and see some random videos is the same place that you’re getting your news from. It’s just embedded in our worlds now, isn’t it? As far as my relationship to it, I think everybody has their own. It’s ever-evolving for me. I’m always navigating my relationship with this part of our culture now. I think everybody is. But what I think was so cool about this movie right now—I don’t think it’s late. I think it’s bang-on. Quinn nailed the timing of it. We’ve had [social media] as a part of our world for a good decade and a half now. And now, look how normalized it’s become for us to just constantly like [mimes scrolling on his phone]. It’s every generation, too. My parents have trouble waiting a week for another episode of one of their shows! They’re like, “Yeah, I can’t even fucking wait anymore!” We’ve all been conditioned by it. Things evolve around us, and we’re at the mercy of it.

I just want to thank you for your pitch-perfect impression of Andrew Garfield from The Social Network that you did during kind of the hardest months of the pandemic. Did you ever hear from Andrew Garfield about that?

I heard through the grapevine that he did an interview where he acknowledged it— that like, he loved it—which was really cool. So cool for him to be so cool about it! I mean, me and Sarah [Ramos] are obsessed with that movie. That was like the entire point of recording scenes, to recreate these iconic things that just felt iconic to her. I mean, that movie is like so iconic, and that scene is forever imprinted in my brain.

Last question: I know you’ve already said that you’re not going to be in the upcoming Teen Wolf film, but after Comic-Con this weekend, I’ve heard a few rumors that maybe you’ve changed your mind. Is there any truth to that?

No, I’m sorry to report. I don’t know where those rumors come from! Yeah, oh my God San Diego Comic-Con… I was texting with, Tyler [Posey]—you know, with T-Pose—because Comic Con for us—I mean, we were first there when we were kids after we did the [Teen Wolf] pilot. I think we got put into Hall H by a random change of schedule or something. Obviously, we didn’t even come close to filling it. We were like, 18. Comic-Con is so stitched into our hearts, so it was so cool to see them back up there on a panel again, now doing the movie. It’s all happened so fast. It’s like so crazy to me that it already feels like it’s coming out. I love those guys. Tyler… it cannot be accurately stated like what we mean to each other, and what that show was for us. It was our school, it was our home, it was like so much for us. It’ll forever be incredibly meaningful to me. And it was tough to come to the decision that I came to, but I do think I came to the one that was most true to myself right now. And I can’t wait to watch it.