Lily Collins is the September cover girl for Seventeen Mag. She’s promoting her starring role in The Mortal Instruments, a film adaptation of a popular (?) young adult novel (it’s actually a series of six books, so if this movie is a success, we’ve got five more films). There are demons and angels and “shadowhunters” and all of that stuff. It’s not my particular taste, but I did peruse the IMDB page and the first film has an excellent cast of supporting actors including Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Jared Harris, Kevin Durand and more. Anyway, Lily is promoting that movie now, although she doesn’t really mention it in her interview (or at least not in these highlights):
On her new sense of style: “I’ve definitely edged-up my style a little but not for any reason other than I’m experimenting with myself. I always wanted tattoos, so this past November, I got two. I got my back done first its my handwriting and it says, Love always and forever.”
On looking to Hunger Games’ Jennifer Lawrence and Twilight’s Kristen Stewart for career inspiration: “I admire how they’ve both handled the fame that came with those roles and their ability to step outside those roles and do other projects. That’s what I want to do – balance fun big movies with gritty passion projects I love.”
She stays out of trouble: “I didn’t feel the pleasure in drinking or doing drugs. I wanted to remember the fun moments that I had with my friends and not wake up and go, ‘Um, I think I had fun?'”
Oh, I get why she’s name-checking Jennifer Lawrence and Kristen Stewart. Because Lily truly hopes that The Mortal Instruments will be her introduction to the big leagues, her own franchise which will make her a household name, like The Hunger Games and Twilight. You know what’s startling? Lily is 24 years old. Jennifer Lawrence is only 22 (she turns 23 in a few weeks). And Kristen is 23. Can you believe that Jennifer is the YOUNGEST out of that group and that Lily is the oldest?
Also – her tattoos sound lame. Sorry. I’m glad they mean something to her, but for the love of God, “Love always and forever.” Blah.
Photos courtesy of WENN and Seventeen.
She looks 12, not 24.
Agreed. And TMI books were kinda a mess to me. They’re not written as well as THG, not as appealing to dimwit girls as Twilight, and they just don’t have as big of a fan base. It’s going to tank just like beautiful creatures and the host. I mean I’m sure she’s hardworking and all, and I hope she continues to do decent in the business, but she shouldn’t be trying so hard to make it big. It just naturally happened for Lawrence and Stewart.
The books were written by infamous fan-fiction author Cassandra Clare who is best known for Harry Potter fanfiction with Draco Malfloy. She is notorious as a plagiarizer in that community with a writing style (attempting) to emulate Joss Whedon (Buffy the Vampire Slayer). She’s another hack author that had a fan base and connections and scored a book/movie deal. She has a knack for taking awesome ideas (like The Immortal Instruments) and turning them into crap due to her horrific misuse of metaphors, smilies and purple prose. I’ll admit, I knew nothing about her or the books at first. I saw the trailer for this movie and was like “Awesome”! So I went out and purchased the first book. I couldn’t even finish it due to the clunky writing and slow pacing (another instance of an author being popular enough (i.e. too cocky) to veto editing). The books are basically a spin-off on Harry Potter with Lily Collins character (Clary Fray) being Ginny Weasely (or Cassandra Clare’s self-insert *cough* *cough* Suethor alert, both have red hair). Don’t know what a Suethor is? I suggest you look it up, you won’t stop seeing instances of it in literature once you do.
But, I do have a feeling the movies will be awesome because they gave the author little to no creative power (lol) and I love Lily Collins.
#Phil Collins Forevah
Alexandria – OMG…..as i read the series, i kept getting Buffy/HP vibes. Now i adore buffy/HP, so i didn’t mind, but i am so glad you’ve mentioned the Joss Whedon/HP obsession. I don’t feel like i was reaching afterall. 🙂
@LAK
Yup, she took from pop society’s best and shat on it.
@alexandria
Wanders off to urban dictionary…
Ooohhh. I’m getting some E.L James vibes from her, although I’ve never read any 50 shades books I have read some reviews- they were fantastic!
No wait, I did download a sample on my kindle, no kinkiness just creepy stalker vibes.
Alexandria, you win the internet.
Huge internet hug for writing the above 🙂
@Whipmyhair
Interestingly enough (or not) Stephenie Meyer is said to have been influenced by Cassandra Clare. Lots of comparisons have been made about Clare’s love interest Jace (ie Drace Malfloy) and Edward Cullen and also the forced love triangle. Also, ELJ was obviously inspired by Stephenie Meyer’s Edward Cullen when she wrote Christian Grey, so it’s a whole circle of DO NOT WANT.
@Amelia. Thanks for the hugs!
Alexandria – I saw some girl in Tumblr calling the ending of the first book “The plot twist of the century!” yeah, LAST century. totally Star Wars Episode V –
-No Luke, I’m your father
-noooooooo
-and you kissed your sister
-nooooooo
Yeah I kinda spoiled it for ya but it’s seriously lameeeeee
@adr1s
Lol you’re awesome
@Alexandria — I wrote my comment below without seeing what you said first. Totally second everything you said. Claire/Clare cannot write her way out of a wet paper bag; she got everything she has through dishonest means.
I hope Lily Collins has a good career in the future, as she seems nice enough. But I hope this movie bombs spectacularly.
More that you guys should know about Cassandra Clare is that back in her FF days she got her ‘fans’ to do many things for her like black list other popular writers and bully anyone who pointed out that she stole word for word phrases from other authors books. A lot of readers/ writers have managed to compile the full amount of works plagiarized from t.v. shows/movies and books with her Draco Trilogy and LOTR FF ‘The Very Secret Diaries’. She then plagiarized her own FF in MI.
Also Clare who went by ‘Claire’ back in the FF days also was involved in various scandals, the most famous of which is called ‘laptop gate’. She claimed over WordPress that her laptop had been stolen. One of her henchmen known to do a lot of bullying and dirty work on her behalf rallied readers together on WordPress and told them that if they wanted updates donations would have to be made towards a new laptop. Money was donated over Paypal to Claire/ her roommate/ boyfriend all got new laptops from exploiting readers.
Claire got various other money donations due to sympathetic posts on WordPress. Readers even sent her gifts such as iPods and other things just to encourage her writing to keep those plagiarized stories ( she threatened many times to take take her stories and leave). Finally FF.net/ WordPress had enough of her plagiarism and army of bullying fans that they deactivated her accounts and removed all stories.
I will never by this woman’s work nor support any movies made off of her work. It has been investigated for years with all the original evidence from 2000-2006 that she is indeed a dishonest hack.
Same! I picked up the books because of the trailer. You can see the plot twist (and untwist) a MILE away. And its like, we get it, they are SARCASTIC and wear black. She keeps thinking she is doing witty banter but its just tiresome and one dimensional, no charm
Oh God I had no idea she was like that! I regret buying a couple of the books a few years ago now, although it’s not like they were anything special anyway.
She is trying so hard, it’s embarrassing. She’s meh in the acting, not actively bad-she was slightly better because Julia Roberts just wasn’t funny in any of the scenes she played as the Evil Queen in whatever that Snow White movie was called.
So she can barely act, she can’t sing-I don’t get why a big deal was made about her singing when it sounded like it’d been autotuned from now until Christmas…it didn’t even sound like her.
Why do all the untalented Hollywood brats think they can act? I don’t think really any kid from a celebrity (recently) can actually act. The only two I can think of-older-would be Angelina Jolie and Nicholas Cage. Other than that, I’ve never really seen the kid of a fairly famous actor make it big, or even be a good actress…I also liked Meryl Streep’s daughter in John Adams.
Some celebrity kids do have some real talent, but most in my opinion coast on their famous last names and their relatives’ connections to get jobs in the industry. And admiring Kristen? After her Mini-Cooper mess Kristen is a cautionary tale of how to put your career in jeopardy by making reckless decisions. (Of course her fans will go on the attack at anyone for bringing up the “momentary indiscretion”.) Lily’s “good girl” image? I’ve heard chatter online that she’s a snob plus she’s been accused of cheating herself. Word was when she filmed Abduction she was hooking up with Taylor Lautner while still having a boyfriend. When the boyfriend found out he allegedly went on set and confronted her. Nothing proven, but in the end Lily and Taylor had so nasty a breakup you can see the bad blood on the red carpet during Abduction’s premiere. Gossip blogs wrote about it and people who said they were at the premiere saw it too. It probably explains why Lautner is not mentioned in the article.
I thought she was Taylor Lautner’s beard.
I think the current crop of celeb kids aren’t as talented as previous generations of celeb kids and they expect to be the lead of the top creme scripts without putting any work into it. The previous generations of celeb kids threw up people like:
Jake & Maggie Gyllenhall, Michael Douglas ,Liza Minelli ,Jane & Peter Fonda, Charlie Sheen & Emilio Estevez, Alexander Skarsgard,Charlotte Gainsbourg, Keifer Sutherland,RDJ,GOOP,Kate Hudson,Liv Tyler,Sophia Coppola,Jason Schwartzman,Kyle Eastwood,Mark Ronson, Rashida jones and many more.
The older crowd, despite having those connections had to work for their place in the food chain. Perhaps it is too early to judge the current crop, but i can’t see any of them being as good either in talent or hard work.
No, I really can’t believe that Jennifer Lawrence is the youngest. Although she is talented and she definitely has a charming, quirky personality, I don’t think it’s fair toward other hard-working actresses to claim her success is based solely on talent…it’s talent plus hitting the jack-pot and I don’t think anyone will ever be as supernaturally lucky as she is, not Lily Collins, not anyone.
I think she is a nice girl and hope her career goes well.
I like her, but only because she is in the sisterhood of strong brows with me.
Lmao! Too funny. Although… I wish she tweezed the inside of that brow bridge to her eye corner juuuust a little bit
Looking to Kristen Stewart as a career role model is probably not the best idea. And don’t talk about it, just do it – work hard and try to chose roles well.
I like her a lot! She seems pretty humble and she’s very pretty. The verdict on whether she’s a good actress or not is still out (haven’t seen her in anything) but I personally can’t wait to see her as Clary in TMI 🙂
her face is very blank slate like
she’s not at all memorable
SPOILER ALERT!!!!!
Hasn’t the second TMI installment already been announced as being made? Thought that was a bit odd as have yet to see how first will do!
I read the first two/ three- it’s been awhile. Lost interest bec the books turned into rambling messes. Can’t wait to see how they deal with the lead characters suspecting they are brother/sister- unless they ignore that all together. Not much of a cliffhanger- come back for next movie to see if its incest or no! And the Star Wars comparison won’t hold- the main hook for that wasn’t the romantic attachment bet the leads as it is here.
If I see it, will be for Aiden Turner and how they handle the Simon character- he was the most interesting in the books I did read.
Lol I know! I gave Cassandra Clare a strong side-eye about the incest plot..like this is YA literature and she went THERE. Like, if you’re going to bring up such a heavy topic do it in a serious and appropriate manner, with therapy and repercussions lol. Don’t just throw it in there for OMG DRAMZ.
Isn’t she rumored to be “dating” her co-star à la sparkles and kstew?
I don’t feel either way about her. Sure, there’s nepotism there opening doors, but she’s not the first and won’t be the last. Besides, compared to Jaden Smith, any nepotism case looks good. Having daddy creating a movie to try and help launch sonny boy? UGH
Lily Collins’ people want her to be this mega huge young actress and it’s still just not working for me – she’s just so generically pretty and not interesting enough as an individual.
Also, has any one read TMI? I read it and I pretty much couldn’t be bothered after that. I’m weary of sagas (a la Twilight or The Hunger Games).
So agree from the YA standpoint. However, do give Discovery of Witches/shadow of the night a try- first two of a trilogy- yes, supernaturals, but written for adults, well written and lots of historical details. The author is a history professor at So Cal- I really liked them!
i read the first book when i saw the trailer of TMI at the beginning of the year. Completely out of curiosity. I was surprised to find that i really liked it and went on to read the rest of the series.
The entire genre seems to be badly written so you just have to grit your teeth and ignore the shortcomings of the various authors who are clearly writing with the hope that they are picked for a movie franchise as opposed to simply writing good books like the Harry Potter series.
This series isn’t as badly written as Twilight or THG although you do get lots of deja vu from all the different references they’ve mined. I wouldn’t think a feature is what it should be. It’s more of a TV series if we must.
I think the 2 leads playing Clary and Jace are spot on in terms of visuals, but i hated the very obvious push to manufacture a real life romance between them in direct copy of the Twilight leads. Glad they’ve stopped pushing that.
Having since found out the director of both films [TMI 2 is currently in production], i am not holding my breath that a decent film will be made. His style is really not suited to teen gothic romance, but the CGI/SFX will be amazing.
I’m sorry but this series is horribly written…THG is much better. It is incredibly try-hard. I just didn’t like them at all :/
Andrew – I think entire YA genre is badly written these days. No matter the author. THG is a badly written rip of the original Battle Royale books which were never YA books so we shall have to disagree. That said, the THG books are better than the film that was put out. I hope it improves, but given the risible record of sequels in general, not holding my breath.
I am not saying that TMI was a masterpiece. For what it is, and all it’s shortcomings, it was a better yarn than i expected and being surprised made me like it more.
As i said, if i am going to read them, i grit my teeth and get through it. Right now, i am gritting my teeth through Veronica Roth before the first film comes out in March.
I read the first three books and it was like pulling teeth. Wading through the purple prose and crappy similes is like trying to swim in setting concrete.
If you’re interested in seeing some of it broken down and critiqued, check out the readingwithavengeance tumblr
This kid needs to get a clue. Wanting a career like Kstew is not a good choice. Stick with Jlaw for a role model.
I refuse to support anything Mortal Instruments related based on the fact that back in her fanfiction days, Cassie Claire (oh, sorry – Cassie Clare now, that dropped vowel makes a huge difference!) was an insane famewhore who pulled some of the most ridiculous shenanigans ever and got away with it because of a horde of fangirls who would read anything with her name on it.
BAsed on how she’s been out there promoting a romance between the 2 TMI leads as though she personally ordained it, i am not at all surprised by your comment.
My first though was that she clearly wants to be equally famous AND doesn’t she realise this move has been mined by the Twilight people???!!!
Yep, and not only shenanigans: she’s a plagiarist.
Oh and she’s still up to shenanigans. Someone she had a falling out with in the Harry Potter fandom days (over nothing) wrote an article completely unrelated to Claire. A YA author liked said article and linked it. Claire scolded said YA author for linking the article.
She is a piece of work, to put it mildly.
I know who you’re talking about – the same woman mentioned on her tumblr blog in response to a question about Clare that she suspects Clare might also have been the same person who made an anonymous call to her job and got her fired over the content of one of her journals.
The reason the whole thing happened? Clare accused the friend of plagiarising her. You couldn’t make it up, huh?
Here’s one series so much better than the movie- Percy Jackson and the Young Olympians. The first movie was so disappointing- I hold out no hope for the second. And I say this as a Logan L fan.
The Mortal Instruments is a book by Cassandra Claire, who was a plagiarist and all-around jerk when she wrote fanfic. As in, she ripped large swathes of writing from other writers (mostly Pamela Dean) and passed them off as her own. She got her books published because of her following when she wrote fanfic. Therefore, she only has this career because she plagiarized.
And Pamela Dean, who is one of my favorite authors, has trouble finding publishing contracts.
Just thought I’d add some links/good reading to do with the all around awful Cassandra Claire:
http://ohnotheydidnt.livejournal.com/73559683.html
http://www.journalfen.net/community/bad_penny/8985.html
The bad penny story on CC absolutely rocks.
It really is just the best. Avocado/White_Serpent deserves so much kudos for making such a comprehensive account of what went down after she discovered the plagiarism. Then you add that to that whole thing with the laptops she managed to scam out of people.
The whole thing is just reprehensible. It makes me sick that she found this kind of success. Maybe karma doesn’t exist.
Did you hear that Sigourney Weaver is signing onto the next film?
@Lux – You may just be right about karma. I was around in the CC heyday, and chick seriously could do no wrong. No matter how heinous, no matter how crappy and bitchy and just plain wrong… she came out on top. And now she’s got Sigourney freaking Weaver wanting to be in the movies based on her books?!
SMDH. Crossroads demon, maybe?
I don’t like Lily Collins. She seems generic at best and just trying to enjoy the doors opened to her by her famous dad. She also seems quick to enjoy PR arrangements, anything to get attention. I heard that she’s one of those people who call up the paps and leave anonymous tips about where she’ll be.
As for The Mortal Instruments – I would never support it in any way even though three people I like are in it.
Cassandra Clare is a plagiarist, she’s profiteered in the past, she’s a liar and bully. She profiteered from her fanfiction by a) illegally collecting money from her fanfiction readers for a supposedly stolen set of laptops (no receipts on whether the theft actually happened) and b) trying to sell merchandise from her LOTR fanfic using Tolkien’s characters on cafepress
She got a blog that exposed her plagiarism deleted for ‘copyright infringement’ (oh the irony!) and lied to her fans in a big anti-bullying post perfectly timed to land during anti-bullying month weeks and weeks after the deletion actually happened. She told them that the blog was deleted for revealing her real name, address, being anti-Semitic and bullying her. All a lie and the blog even had screencaps of emails to prove it.
She bullies her own fans on twitter if their interpretations of the books don’t match hers and called a girl who said she doesn’t like Clary as a character sexist. She claims she doesn’t whitewash but all of her characters are mixed with white and regularly described as having white skin.
She used incestual rape as a plot device to prove that the guy who murdered a child and wants to destroy the world is a bad guy, and then got bitchy with people when they said they found the scene triggering and unnecessary.
She refused to help a 14 year old girl when her fans were dogpiling on her and sending her death threats. She tried to get a disabled woman kicked out of college by framing her for hacking but was then dumb enough to brag about it online.
When she plagiarised (and I’m talking whole lifted pages from a book, verbatim) and got caught her biggest fans defended her to the point of abusing and terrorising people who disagreed with what she’d done. Big Name Fans who ran sites banned her opponents, her lawyer friend threatened to sue people with defamation and is still acting on her behalf I believe (she’s the reason CC’s wikipedia page is locked to stop the plagiarism being mentioned)
Cassandra Clare is a horrible, horrible person. She deserves no support and I really hope people don’t pay to see this or read her crappy books. And they are crappy. Too much purple prose, terrible similes and metaphors, passive language, 2D characters and Joss Whedon-wannabe dialogue that falls flat.
And to the person who said she had very little involvement with the movie – WRONG. And she admitted this herself at Comic Con. She was involved big time in everything from casting to what’s included in the storyline.
Well I read that she didnt, my bad for the mistake.
No no, sorry if I sounded angry or anything – I’m angry at her, not anyone else, I was getting a little vented over the post lol.
She only admitted recently that she had a whole lot more involvement than others thought, until then I’d only suspected. But a few things she let slip on her tumblr gave her away before then, like saying she wrote letters to personally request Robert Sheehan’s casting.
She was quick to claim she had no involvement in casting when people didn’t approve of Zegers as Alec, but now that the fans embrace the cast she’s peacocking around and bragging about her involvement *eye roll*
Amen!
Wow. Did anyone else notice the cover? “Never Get Tagged In The Same Outfit Twice!” “Get Your Dream Life Now!” “Your Clear Skin Plan!” Wow. Yeah, this is what teens need to worry about. I hate these types of magazines.
I won’t see the movie despite liking Collins because, as others have said, Cassie Claire is a plagarist and a bully and an all-around shitty human being. She’s one of those people where I can’t separate the work from the ‘artist’ and don’t care to try.
I want to tackle that girl and tweeze her brows!!!
Wow. Bought the first book but don’t plan to buy anymore based on this authors history! The series from YA books Id like to see made now is Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor. I thought it was very well written.
She is just so vanilla I can’t deal.