Cassandra Clare talks cameo, LA premiere and which friend is the biggest fan of ‘City of Bones’ (Exclusive)

With The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones set to be released on Blu-Ray and DVD tomorrow in the U.S., we chatted with Cassandra Clare last week about all things City of Bones, including her one-second cameo in the film, her strange premiere experience and which of her author friends is the biggest fan of the City of Bones movie.

Fans of Clare may have noticed her brief cameo (blink and you miss it) in City of Bones during the scene at Magnus’ party. Clare played a cat demon in the scene and seeing herself in the film reminds her of the fun she had on set that night.

“When I watch it, that part of the movie, I remember being there,” she said. “It’s sort of like watching footage from a wedding or a really good party you were at and you’re like, ‘There’s me!’”

Clare said that while audiences cannot actually tell, it was freezing during that fall night shoot in Toronto.

“In between every take they’d come and put blankets on us and give us hand warmers,” she said. “They put me at a table with a ghoul and a banshee and some kind of demon and we just hung out and talked the whole time.”

When we asked Clare about the most surreal experience during the film process, she pointed to the world premiere of the film in Los Angeles back in August, prompting an “I’ll never do that again” response.

“It was such a strange feeling to have all of those flashbulbs go off in your face,” Clare said. “At the end of it, I was like, ‘I am so impressed with actually famous people I have no idea how they handle it.’ By the end of the night, I’d managed to break the heel off of my shoe. I was like, ‘That was suspense. It was like the Hunger Games out there.’ “

Spoiler alert: the heel did in fact make it through the night. Her publicist stuck it back on with gum.

Many of Clare’s author friends attended the LA premiere of City of Bones to show their support, including Leigh Bardugo, Tahereh Mafi, Ransom Riggs, Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl.

“It’s such a strange experience having a book made into a movie,” Clare said. “It’s very unreal. Even though you can sort of talk to the people involved in the movie they’re always coming at it from the other direction. So it’s nice to talk about it with people who are coming at it from the book direction.”

So we just had to ask: Which of her author friends is the biggest fan of the film? That’d be Clare’s BFF and Magisterium co-author Holly Black.

“She really loved it,” Clare said. “She’s a goth girl. She’s got the blue hair and all of that stuff. I think she dug all the gothic elements and the party stuff and the nightclub scene.”