New at BOP: Review: Matrix Resurrections Movie Review: Moonfall Movie Reviews: Scream The #1 Movie in America November Forecast The Many Saints of Newark October Forecast New Trivia Question All site updates Share & Save   Tweet Print this column

Lily and Jamie, you both have a fair amount of experience in the fantasy genre. What is your attraction to it?

LC: I always say that I feel like I live a fantasy in my own head anyway (laughs). I grew up in the English countryside running around in the garden pretending that there were fairies. I always pretend that I’m in another world. Not because I want to avoid reality, but because I think sometimes it’s nice to escape for a bit so you can appreciate your reality that much more. It’s not fantasy that I love as much as the characters that embody that world. Snow White embodied pure innocence, but such a strong drive to fulfill her destiny. Clary is the same, but in a different time and place. So I think it is these strong females.

JCB: You have to look at it in two ways. The movie industry is struggling right now, to be perfectly honest, and any studio has to be aware of the fact that they have to make money…. So a book series with 22 million copies sold worldwide is dope for a film company; that’s amazing. And then you have to look at the fact that fantasy and fairies and the underworld, why is that interesting to a modern audience? People have been interested in that for histories. It’s why the Greeks wrote about the underworld. It’s why the Victorians wrote about fairies. It’s why Shakespeare wrote Midsummer Night’s Dream. We’ve been afraid of the unknown, but incredibly interested in it. So what has drawn me to it? I suppose the industry. But above anything I’m stoked to be a part of something I love. The reason I did Twilight was because I wanted to play Edward Cullen; I thought it was a great story. When they came around to do movie two and asked if I wanted to be a part of it, I said, “Of course I’d love to be a part of it in any shape or form.”

“Would you like to play a vampire that’s English with long hair and red eyes?”

“Yeah! Of course! I’d love to play a bad guy!”

With Potter they asked, “Would you like to jump out a window and be part of the series?”

I was like, “Yes! Of course! I can jump so well.”

Then they asked if I wanted a stunt guy for the jump and I was like, “Absolutely not or I wouldn’t be in the movie” (laughs).

Unlike some of the more recent films of the genre, a girl is truly put in the role of the hero. Cassandra, when writing the initial novel, was it an easy sell?

CC: I felt like people needed stronger female characters and I was unsure while writing the book if I could have a successful franchise that was centered around a girl. This was before Twilight came out. The biggest thing in children’s literature was Harry Potter and then Percy Jackson, both of which are great but very boy-centered. I wanted to do an epic, coming-of-age story about good and evil, but I wanted to do it with a girl at the center, which is something I didn’t have growing up. When I first went to sell it, again, before Twilight, I was told, “Teenagers don’t want to read about vampires and werewolves (laughs)." So that got proven wrong later, but I already sold my books at that point. And when I went to sell the movie rights, I got told, “People don’t want to see movies about girls. Would you sell the rights if they flipped the gender and made Clary a boy” and I was like, “Absolutely not.”

LC: I’d be down to play a guy, too.

JCB: I just want to say I agree, being a strong woman myself.

LC: In the next movie I can play Jace and you can play Clary.

JCB: Damn right.

Continued:       1       2       3