In the days leading up to the release of "City of Fallen Angels," Cassandra Clare has been posting enough tweets to fill a book of its own with answers to "Mortal Instruments" fans' burning questions about the fourth novel in the young adult fantasy series. But we greedy readers still want more. Lucky for us, she and good friend Holly Black, author of "White Cat" and its upcoming sequel "Red Glove," took along a video camera and some of our questions when they went down to Mexico last month for their annual writing retreat. We'll be rolling out their charming exchange from now through next Tuesday, when "Red Glove" and "City of Fallen Angels" finally hit shelves.
First up, Holly tried to get a little "City of Bones" movie scoop for us.
"I love Lily Collins," Cassandra gushed right off the bat about the actress cast as heroine Clary. But she wasn't so forthcoming when asked about her preference for who should play sarcastic, demon-battling hottie Jace. What does she think of the fans' favorites?
"Well, the fans love Alex Pettyfer, and at this point I feel like I know him, though we've never spoken," she laughed. "He'd be a great Jace, but I know that he's got a lot of projects on his plate, so it sounds like he's choosing what would be the best fit for him. There's definitely other fan favorites for Jace, too."
And while she rattled off some other names, like Ed Speleers from "Eragon," William Moseley from the "Narnia" movies and Alexander Nifong, who played Blaine's Gap crush on an episode of "Glee," she couldn't say if any are truly in the running for the role.
"I have to look at pictures of hot guys who are blond that my fans send me every day, but it's not the worst job in the world," Cassandra admitted. "I've talked to the studio many times. We've talked about Alex. We've talked about other actors. They've sent me photos of other actors they're looking at. I can't say who they are, but they're definitely moving ahead with the project."
Cassandra did say that the conversations she's had with "City of Bones" director Scott Stewart have been very exciting. "He had lots of really intelligent questions about the books," she told Holly. "He wanted to talk about the characters. He wanted to talk about their motivations. He really loves music, and so do I, so we talked about doing the whole soundtrack with Brooklyn- and New York-based bands, and that was great. We had this whole discussion about the Brooklyn bands, obscure and less obscure, that we know and love and how we could set the mood of the city using music that way. He had some excellent ideas about how to make the demons and flying motorcycles and all the special effects."
And we couldn't resist making Holly ask Cassandra one of our favorite casting questions: Who from any era would she have star in the movie? Quintessential redhead Molly Ringwald would be Clary, of course, and as a little twist, her "Pretty in Pink" nemesis James Spader would be Jace. "Simon would have to be Ducky or something like that!" she speculated. "Alec would be Robert Downey Jr. I think I would cast all of the rest of the parts with Robert Downey Jr. And Valentine [would be] Val Kilmer from 'Top Gun.'"
Come back to Hollywood Crush all week long for more from Holly and Cassie's chat. In the meantime, share your "cast from any era" suggestions in the comments and on Twitter!
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