The Maze Runner

Casting

For the role of Teresa, was Ball's first choice as she was "fantastic" and because he loved her in the TV show Skins. , the lead role, was rejected by Ball. Ball recounts, "Dylan was actually... I saw him early on, very early on and I overlooked him. It was a big learning experience there, because I overlooked him because of his hair. He had hair and I couldn't see past that and so we were looking for our Thomas and it's a tough role to make, because he comes in as a boy and he leaves as a man, so it can't be like this badass action star that comes into this movie. It's about vulnerability up front and then he comes out of it and comes into his own and then the next movies are about the leader that emerges from the group. So finally Fox says 'We just did this movie, The Internship. There's this kid that's in this thing. He's like 20 years old. We think he's kind of got something.' So I watched his tape and was like 'Wait a minute, I've seen this kid before.' I looked him up online and there was one picture of him with a totally shaved head and it's this sweet vulnerable looking kid and I was like 'Whoa, interesting.' I said, 'Wait a minute, he's just so familiar' and I looked back at my old audition tapes, which we had thousands of, and there's Dylan. That guy I said 'No, definitely not him.' So we brought him back in and we started to talk with him and I'm like 'he's the coolest dude ever.'" entered the film via . Ball revealed a lot on Twitter, and many kids wanted to be Chuck. Cooper constantly bugged Ball, until Ball told him to give his tape to his casting director, and Ball was impressed by Cooper's tape and cast him.