Cassandra Clare talks faithfulness of ‘MORTAL INSTRUMENTS’ film adaptation with Sci Fi Now

Cassandra Clare spoke with Sci Fi Now about the film adaptation of The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones, including the movie’s faithfulness to the book, her involvement and seeing the Silent Brothers come to life.

Do you think the film is true to the book?

I feel like it stays pretty true to the spirit of the books. There are some things that have to be compressed and altered because otherwise it would be a 10 hour movie, which I would watch but no one else would. From what I’ve seen in terms of the casting, the costumes and the sets, it looks like they’re trying to stick as close to what was described in the book as possible.

What haven’t you seen yet that you are looking forward to?

I really want to see what the demons look like, I haven’t done yet because that’s mostly special effects, but I also want to see Magnus’ party!

How involved were you?

I was talking to one of the producers and I asked for the casting director’s phone number and he was like ‘Sure!’ and I thought ‘Gad, didn’t nobody give you the memo you’re not supposed to give me that? Fine, alright, I’ll take it!’ I called her and we talked for hours, we would talk every day for months and I had access to the servers and watched everyone’s auditions and we all got a vote on the casting. [Director] Harold [Zwart] ran by the set designs and costume, the more they consulted me the more confident I felt about the movie.

Do we meet the Silent Brothers in the film?

We do get to see the Silent Brothers and it was really fun to be on set with them because they were completely covered in prosthetic make-up. They have their eyes and lips sewn shut, so there’s all these really tall guys on set with all the prosthetics on their faces and then we go to lunch and they can’t eat, so they had these tiny juice boxes in the corner of their mouths, so there’s this long line of terrifying looking dudes in robes all sucking little monster juice boxes. That was awesome (laughs).

The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones hits theaters on Aug. 23.