Crave Online shares a new exclusive interview with Lily Collins, where she talks
Twilight and the reason why she hasn't read all of
The Mortal Instruments series. Take a look at a snippet of the interview:
The movie based on the first book in Cassandra Claire’s Mortal Instruments series
opens August 23, but Screen Gems didn’t wait until San Diego Comic-Con
to introduce its stars to the fans. Lily Collins and her costars came to
Annaheim for their panel on The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones.
Collins plays Clary, a Shadowhunter in a world of mundanes who
discovers her powers and vital role in a supernatural battle. We got to
sit with Collins in a press room before the panel for an exclusive
interview on the latest teen lit franchise, and her passing encounters
with the other ones.
CraveOnline: Had you gone out for any of the other teen
literature properties? It seems like you would be in the right bracket
as all of them have been developed.
Lily Collins: Yeah, one of my first auditions actually was for Twilight which is really funny now thinking about it.
Which role?
For Kristen’s role.
Oh, for Bella?
For Bella, yeah. This was many years ago. I was new on the scene, new
at auditioning and it was always kind of this, “What’s going to happen?”
everyone in the waiting room waiting for you. One of those anxious days
as a young actor. I remember reading scripts for Beautiful Creatures and
all those. I think every young actor or actress in Hollywood starts to
read some of the same material but I think everything happens for a
reason and everyone who gets the roles they get were meant to. I’m a
firm believer in that.
Of course, and by the time Mortal Instruments came along, you’re an established actor. Did they come to you?
Screen Gems did approach me. It was a lot of the same team that had worked on Priest and
we had really close relationships and they knew that I was a really big
fan of the series. So I was very honored when I got the potential to
play a character that I’ve grown up loving.
Was Hunger Games ever on your radar?
It definitely was. I remember hearing about the book and then hearing
about the movie, but Jennifer [Lawrence] is just perfect as Katniss and
I’m so excited for her and happy for her. This was my thing before that
news even [broke].
So this had happened even before they cast Hunger Games?
Yeah, this project’s been around for quite a while. It’s switched hands
a little bit. Like I said, everything happens for a reason.
I completely agree with you. I’m just fascinated by the
industry world where they call in all the contemporary talent for the
same parts.
Oh, it’s totally strange. It is, and it’s funny because a lot of us are
friends so if one of us doesn’t get it, a friend gets it and it’s nice
because everyone can be supportive about it.
Clary is an interesting character because she can see things
other people don’t. Do you ever feel that way in the real world, that
you’re able to see things other people don’t?
I love old antiques and anything vintage. A lot of the things that I
collect are what people might call trash. So I see the beauty in antique
things and old and old world things that most people wouldn’t look
twice at.
How about as an actor, do you observe the world on a different level, studying behavior?
I have always enjoyed people-watching and I think that’s kind of the
best acting class, just watching others interacting and their personal
twitches or how they interact with people. I’ve always just been a very
analytical person when it comes to human nature, and I’m fascinated by
that because you never know what you can learn or use for your next
role.
Have you read all six books?
I stopped after the first few because there’s a part of me that really
wants to be in this journey with Clary in the sense of experimenting and
finding out what’s next with her, because when you go from translating a
book to a film, obviously things change a little bit anyway. It takes
like four pages to describe how someone looks, whereas in a film you
just have it on camera. So I really wanted to be able to go on this
journey with Clary to a certain extent. Obviously that’s assuming that
it goes to a sequel. I hope that it gets to go to that stage and if it
doesn’t, at that point if I don’t get to be Clary, then I’ll reintroduce
myself to what could have been, but I’d like to experience it through
her eyes.
So where did you stop reading, the second book?
I think it was maybe halfway through the third one, but then I
purposely didn’t reread because if you start focusing too much on the
actual book, it gets so confusing as to what happened in the first one
and then translating it into a script, it’s like where are they going to
stop it? Instead of muddling it, I wanted to focus on one thing at a
time.
Read the rest of the interview at
Crave Online.
