WonderCon: Kevin Zegers talks working with Godfrey Gao and more with Fangirlish and Page to Premiere

Our friends at Fangirlish and Page to Premiere attended WonderCon last Saturday where they got to talk to some of the Mortal Instruments: City of Bones cast, including Kevin Zegers (Alec Lightwood).

Q:  We asked Lily what to ask you and she was saying that we should ask you what it was like to work with Godfrey Gao. K: (laughs) It was great. He came in for like two days. So, he’s a busy guy. So he’s great. Not what I expected it to be. We were kind of just buddies. Probably not what fans would expect for our interaction. He seems like the kind of guy that I grew up with. Not super formal, kind of just a dude, we just hung out and talked about guy stuff. It was pretty mellow. Like I said it was like two days of work, so we didn’t get to know each other obviously as well as the rest of us did. And like in the first movie he’s kind of introduced and it doesn’t really go into our story as much as future books and movies, if there are ones, will. Q: The other question she told us to ask was what did you guys do to get to know each other off set? K: We trained. We trained really hard, which when you are next to someone grunting and sweating for a few weeks – great ice breaker. We just worked a lot. When you work with someone as long as we did, all the courtesy stuff goes away and we are who we are. I say it all the time, but people on this movie were genuinely nice people. We laughed a lot. We were shooting sometimes 14 hours a day, so we weren’t going out partying all the time. It was a lot of work, but Lily and Jamie, they are still really close friends of mine. It was one of those experiences where we were all on the same page. Just got through it together.

Q: With Cassie being on set, did she give you a lot of advice on how to play your character?

You know she didn’t. We emailed once when I got the job. But no, she… I don’t know why. I think, she was there when we were in preproduction, and we were all talking about each of our takes on the characters and I think that she felt that I had a pretty good understanding of the character of Alec and where we want him to go. Sometimes it’s best to just…

Q: Leave it alone.

K: Ya. I think if it was heading in a bad direction she would have said something. I always felt pretty grounded in who I think he is. It made it a little bit easier to – it’s not easy to be such a complicated character.

Q: So you had to do a ton of training for this. What was it like just training all the time?

K: You know it’s kind of great. We were just saying that this is another part of the job, this press stuff. Making the movie was divided into two parts too, acting and character stuff, but something else that Harold really wanted to focus on was us doing our own stunts. Because it is kind of critical and you’ll see this in the trailer, it’s a big action movie. It’s a lot of… a… I think that younger guys will see that this is big action. And for me, it’s nice to see us doing it, and not them cutting away…

Q: And I am not about to ask that. (Kevin Laughs) I am blushing even thinking about that. (he laughs again) So the big controversy about casting was Jamie. Like the fans didn’t have issues with anyone else, but what to you makes Jamie – Jace?

K: I mean you know, Jamie – first of all, Jamie’s a great actor. And you know there is a difference. I think people don’t see that until you see people doing something… I mean I am too old to be Alec, I am to short to be Alec, I mean if you look at just the logistics of each individual, we are not perfectly as the book is written. But that’s not what casting is about. It’s about becoming the character that people recognize, rather than having every physical trait. I think Jamie is just very cavalier. He just sort of walks like the guy I want to be around. There’s a sort of coolness about him. So for me, the way Jamie is naturally, he’s just very naturally charismatic. Jace has that and he (Jamie) has all the emotional traits that Jace has.

Q: What’s the one thing you admire about your character?

K: He just is who he is. Whether you like him or dislike him, there is moments where he’s not that pleasant. He is who he is. I think that everyone’s always going to go, I know where he’s at. He is who he is. And I think he’s probably the character that knows who he is more than anybody, and I think that is… to not play this struggling oh my god character. I think that there is a weakness associated with that. To me, he’s a strong dude. He’s the sort of grounding force. Jace is always doing this crazy stuff. We sort of created this guy who is his sort of rock. And we were also very focused on the obvious thing about him, to not make it so, it’s like the 8th or 9^th most important thing going on, his homosexuality and him struggling with it. It’s not something that consumes his life. His wanting to take care of his family and his bravery – all the stuff that the fans and I really like about him – it’s much more forefront then this thing that he’s struggling with. And that was something that I talked to Cassie about and we both agreed that that is more important than the token guy. It’s just annoying to me and I am not going to and if that’s what they wanted, then I wasn’t the guy to hire.

Q: There is actually, there was this whole thing where if there is a gay character the whole character isn’t centralized around that.

K: Right I mean we don’t even… people don’t address it if someone’s heterosexual. Part of what we wanted to focus on is who he is. He’s a lot of things, including his sexuality, but that isn’t the main focus. And also I know a lot of gay guys who are the most bad ass guys I know. They are the most secure guys I know and that for me was what it was about. It may not be there in the first movie but..

Q: It will get there.

K: Ya. He’s not struggling with it as much as other people think he is.

Q: What has been the most crazy fan experience after you had been cast?

K: You know I think that this will probably be my first experience with it. I mean I talked to Lily about it, she went and signed books with Cassie and so she was like, it’s pretty crazy. But you know, people love these books. As long as we sort of keep those people happy and also bring in other people, but you know the fans are great. I think maybe in the beginning they are unsure about certain things, but I think as it comes together, all the hesitation will turn to like WOW they really made a good movie.

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