“As soon as I read it [the script for American Assassin] for the first time, I just felt really empathetic to this guy,” Dylan O’Brien, 26, told HollywoodLife.com EXCLUSIVELY at the film’s NY red carpet screening, hosted by the Cinema Society and Saved Wines and iPic Theater on Sept. 6. “I connected to it right away. I felt like it was a really believable arc and a really strong one with a lot of emotion. It was something, I just felt like, as an actor, it was a great role that I wanted to dive right into. I really feel for what happens to this guy. I think it’s a really relevant kind of fear today. I felt like the role had a lot of potential to be a really smart film.”
Dylan plays the action hero Mitch Rapp, a character made famous in a series of books written by the late Vince Flynn. After a terrorist attack in Ibiza leaves his fiancee dead, Mitch transforms into a vigilante. His actions catch the attention of CIA’s deputy director Irene Kennedy (Sanaa Lathan), who recruits Mitch to her top-secret black ops unit. This brings Mitch face-to-face with his mentor Stan Hurley (Michael Keaton), a tough-as-nails Cold War veteran. Mitch and Stan’s repartee and growing relationship is one of the many bright spots of American Assassin.
“I do believe that beneath the surface they have a mutual respect for one another,” Dylan said about Mitch and Stan. “You know, maybe not at first, but Mitch earns that pretty quickly. Even though they’re kind of always giving each other sh*t, they respect one other and they’re kind of similar in a lot of ways, but then they feel differently in a lot of ways. I think Hurley’s trying to drill some discipline into Mitch. I really feel that when Mitch is out in the field, he has so much confidence going with his gut, and I think they’re both right. You have to have that balance in a way.” American Assassin also stars Taylor Kitsch and Shiva Negar. The movie hits theaters everywhere Sept. 15.