Mortal: Novel and Campbell Bower Essay Example

involves overseas travel and I couldn't do that because my parents were very ill—terminally ill—and my wife became very sick as well. There were numerous other domestic responsibilities that kept me in my fiction-writing chair.

HILLARD: How does it feel to be back with your second novel? SHACOHIS: I don't know. In some ways it's business as usual and that's great. I'm asked all the time, "Doesn't it feel great to finish the novel? " And the answer to that is, "No. " It's sort of a loss to stop a 10-year project, which is an imaginary project in the sense that it's a work of my imagination.The people who I've lived with for 10 years in my imagination are now sort of defunct. To lose them is rather a mournful process—it's not a relief.

On some show the other day, I was listening to Daniel Day-Lewis talk about his work and channeling Lincoln for Spielberg's movie. He immersed himself in the character of Lincoln when he was working on the movie and, when the movie was over, he felt a great sense of grief in his disconnection and detachment back into his own character. That's how I felt with finishing this book.It's a sense of loss but at the same time it's a sense of long-awaited accomplishment—just finishing something. HILLARD: At 34 you won the National Book Award in 1985 for First Work of Fiction. SHACOCHIS: An award that no longer exists.

HILLARD: Right, but it's still a National Book Award. The spotlight expanded very quickly. John Irving was a major enthusiast of your work, even before the National Book Award. What was that time like when

your star really rose, especially after that award? SHACOCHIS: It was too long ago. I don't remember.

[laughs] That was how many years ago? 0 years ago? I'm sure it was grand. Doors opened. Once Easy in the Islands came out, I got calls from editors from all the major magazines that I had lusted to work for since I was in journalism school in the early '70s at the University of Missouri. In that interim between getting a Bachelor of Journalism degree and finally getting magazine assignments, it seemed like I was doing the worst jobs out there.

[I was] a copy boy at the Palm Beach Evening Times where I would tear the copy off the wire at four o'clock in the morning and spike it on an editor's desk.I was an agricultural journalist in the Peace Corps in the Caribbean. It just seemed like it was going to take me forever to pay my dues as a journalist to get to do what I really wanted to do, which was write long-form narrative for the general interest magazines—the really good ones. So I took a bigger gamble and said, "Well, maybe if I can make a reputation for myself as a fiction writer I might be able to do the journalism that I really want to do. " It was backwards because mostly you have guys sitting at their desks at a newspaper wishing that they could go out and write a novel.

I was writing a novel—or writing short stories at least—wishing I could do magazine pieces. HILLARD: When you started working on The Woman Who Lost Her Soul in 2002, how much of it had you already conceptualized? SHACOCHIS:

Writing is a process of discovering. I could never outline a narrative; that just sounds boring. There's no joy of discovery in what you're doing if that's your strategy.

When I started in 2002, I wanted to write a murder mystery. I wanted to write a murder mystery because I really wanted to make some money.It sort of organically grew into something that also fit that scheme—an espionage thriller. It's a great way to get two different chances to get paying audiences.

Halfway through, I realized what I really wanted to do—besides try to be a mercenary—was something with a bit more gravity, and that was a daddy-daughter book. Ultimately, that's what the book is to me, a daddy-daughter book with the ornaments of a murder mystery and an espionage thriller making it glitter. HILLARD: I totally agree.I know you've said that when you create a character you have an image of someone in mind, but not necessarily the story of a real person. Did you have role models in mind for The Woman Who Lost Her Soul? Some of the character histories are significant. SHACOCHIS: What I do is, I'm like a disease that infects real people and I take them over.

We can start off in a very journalistic mode describing a character and observing a character—and that's what I do with a lot of characters in that book. And then my imagination eats them alive. HILLARD: Was Jackie Scott the only character?SHACOCHIS: No, the FBI special agent, Conrad Dolan, he's a real guy. Eville Burnette, the Special Forces operative in my book, is two guys.

To a very small extent the human rights lawyer, Tom Harrington, is

me at the beginning and then he's not me at all—not even close. HILLARD: One constant in the novel is these rich and haunting contrasts. For example, I think of Tom early on. He's at the Hotel Oloffson and, in a particular moment, the beauty of Haiti is evoked—it's like paradise fraught with corruption. Throughout the novel, you really expose the depth of human vulnerability.

Was that something you were going for? SHACOCHIS: The language that you're using implies that I'm in control of what I'm doing or know what I'm doing, which I'm not. The illusion of control has to be there, but mostly I'm following characters and the consequences of their own decisions, because a lot of the time they made decisions about what to do or how to behave that I had no idea were coming down the pike. As I would sit and try to inhabit a character, they themselves in my imagination would have quite a bit of free will. I know that sounds stupid.But for any artistic person who creates imaginary people, the art is like inhabiting the life and mind of a seven-year-old child with imaginary friends and imaginary events and imaginary grace and imaginary tragedy.

Within that alternate universe, the characters do have quite a bit of free will. I know it's happening in my mind and my mind alone, but they seem to have their own ability to shape their destinies. So I'm not shooting for anything. If the characters are vulnerable it's simply because they're very human.

That would be the goal: to make them human.You decide which characters you want and then do the best you can

to bring their humanity to the forefront in the context that you place them in—the crises in which you've placed them. HILLARD: You mentioned language and that it's incredibly important to you in creating a character's voice. When do you know that you've gotten character's voice exactly right? SHACOCHIS: When someone reads it and tells me. [laughs] Someone else has to tell me that it's right. All I can do is shoot at the target.

But it's an incantatory process.When I'm in it, I'm in another place that doesn't connect very well with my everyday life or the people around me. When I come out of that place, back into my everyday life, I don't really remember a whole lot. It's like I'm in a dream state—a trance. HILLARD: The novel's cover art is just exquisite and I think it reflects a lot of the novel. How did you choose that particular cover? SHACOCHIS: It was the first one and it was the best.

I didn't suggest any cover art. In fact, I just wanted a typographical cover because that sort of says, "Big book" or "You've come of age," or "You're a big boy now. Let's get the name of the title and the name of the author as big as we can get them on the cover. But the publisher at Grove Atlantic said he wanted more atmosphere and I was surprised when I saw the concepts that the artist had come up with. My reaction was, number one, that's perfect, and number two, I can't believe that someone's read the book because there's no way he or she could come up with that cover

without reading through the book! INTERVIEW 2 Girl meets mysterious tattooed boy; boy encourages girl to fight demons while wearing thigh-high leather boots.

Evil, leather-clad man with several rat-tail braids reveals that boy and girl are brother and sister and romance is nipped in the bud. Sad or savvy, every young adult fantasy film aspires to be the next Twilight. The best contender to date is The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones, based on Cassandra Clay's six-book YA series. Lily Collins stars as Clary Fray, a Brooklyn teenager who discovers she is a "shadowhunter," a warrior descended from the blood of an angel in a world that includes vampires, werewolves, warlocks, witches, and demons.

As Jace Wayland, Clary's love interest and possible sibling, British actor Jamie Campbell Bower stands out. There is nothing novel about the film's premise, but it doesn't need to be novel. The Mortal Instruments knows what it wants to be and does it well (or, better than Twilight). The Mortal Instruments is Campbell Bower's third fantasy franchise, and it's not difficult to see why.

Casting directors gravitate towards Campbell Bower's ethereal aesthetic: his shoulder-length blond hair, prominent cheekbones, pale complexion, and  slender, yet oddly muscular physique.Only 24, the actor's first role was in Tim Burton's gothic musicalSweeney Todd (2007). Since then, he's rarely left the fantasy genre; playing King Arthur in the mini-series Camelot (2011), a young Gellert Grindewald in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (2010), and the leader of an ancient coven of vampires in Twilight: Breaking Dawn. We recently spoke with the actor in L. A.

EMMA BROWN: Do you remember your first ever audition? JAMIE CAMPBELL BOWER: Oh, god, my first ever audition. Yeah, it was for Harry Potter. BROWN: Oh, really? That

worked out pretty well then.CAMPBELL BOWER: No, it didn't, because I was a kid. It was the first Harry Potter movie. BROWN: Oh.

Who did you want to be? CAMPBELL BOWER: Harry Potter! BROWN: I can't imagine you with black hair. CAMPBELL BOWER: Can you imagine? That would be so weird. A casting agent came to school—they send casting agents round schools in the UK—and she picked a bunch of us. I completely forgot about it. We had to tell a joke, I told a really rude joke. I told a joke about a Christmas tree being rammed up a fairy's ass.

Oh dear... BROWN: Did they laugh? CAMPBELL BOWER: They laughed, yeah.

But I don't think that was quite Harry Potter material. [laughs] BROWN: Were you devastated? CAMPBELL BOWER: No, no I wasn't devastated. I was too into skateboarding. I'm still too into skateboarding to be devastated by anything.

BROWN: They just kept you in mind for six years? CAMPBELL BOWER: It was more than six years. I didn't have to re-audition, they actually just called up and were like, "Do you want to be a part of it? "  Obviously it's a British institution, I was like, "Of course I want it. Whatever, I'd love to be a small part of this.It would be dope.

" And that's it. BROWN: Did you ever go up to Daniel Radcliffe— "You stole my life! " CAMPBELL BOWER: [laughs] No, no, no. God, no. He's a lovely chap.

No, there's no hard feelings. [laughs] BROWN: This is your third fantasy franchise. You've got to be in the running for some sort of record. CAMPBELL BOWER: For being the biggest whore? [laughs] People ask me if

it's a career move or whatnot—it's not. I wanted to be a part of Harry Potter.

I wanted to be a part of the first Twilight movie and unfortunately it didn't work out so great.So when they came back and were like, "Do you want to come in for a part for the second movie," I was like, "Absolutely. " And then Mortal came along but we didn't know when we were shooting the first movie that we were going to get green lit for another movie—we have been green lit for another movie before the first movie's even been released, which is crazy. BROWN: What do you like the most about your character Jace? CAMPBELL BOWER: I say this a lot in interviews about the character, but I like his vulnerability.

I like that about him. I like his sarcasm. I like his strength.BROWN: Does he have any qualities that annoy you? CAMPBELL BOWER: Yeah, the fact that he's so sarcastic the whole time—sometimes he just needs to man up a bit. [laughs] I actually kind of fell in love with him, but he's so into himself that he doesn't really know it.

[laughs] BROWN: Have you read all of the books? Or did you not want to go past the first one lest it change the way you played the character? CAMPBELL BOWER: I've read them all. I'm just waiting for Cassie [Clare] to release the last one. I read the first three when I got asked to come over for the screen test and then, upon getting the role, I read them all.When we were shooting, I focused on the first book.

It didn't cloud my vision—the great thing about literature

is that you're making up your own interpretation of the character anyway. Also, you're given basically a bible of who this guy is and you're kind of shooting yourself in the foot if you're not reading it. BROWN: There are so many books, did you ever have a moment of "Oh god, there goes the next six years of my life..? " CAMPBELL BOWER: [laughs] Look, if I have a job for the next six years of my life I'm going to be the happiest motherfucker in the world.I'm under no illusion—this game is incredibly fickle, that's what this industry is, and I'm very aware of that.

If I can do this in the next six years, that would be great. If I can't, that's fine too. They better start making them quick, though, because none of us are getting any younger and I'm not entirely sure how long I can carry on. If we're doing the last movie when I'm 30 and I'm meant to be playing 19, 20—I'm starting to look a little bit ropey at the moment anyway, there's lines coming—I'd be fucked.

BROWN: Does your agent tell you to stay out of the sun?CAMPBELL BOWER: No, never. They know if they tell me not to do something I'm gonna do it. [laughs] They've now figured that out, so they just don't talk to me until they have good news. [laughs] BROWN: Do you think The Mortal Instruments presents an unrealistic portrayal of love? CAMPBELL BOWER: I mean, at no point in the movie does Jayce turn around to Clary and say, "I love you.

" Is it an unrealistic portrayal? I think there are times in life

where you're automatically drawn to somebody and it's weird—you freak out a bit. I think that's what this portrayal is.It's something deeper than just aesthetic admiration, I suppose. They don't say that they love each other—they want to be together but it's hard, what with them thinking that they're brother and sister they've got a bunch of shit to deal with.

[laughs] I don't know if that's realistic. BROWN: Did you read any young adult books when you were a young adult? CAMPBELL BOWER: It sounds really cheesy and corny, there was a book called The Lives of Christopher Chant [by Dianna Wynne Jones, 1988], which is very, very similar toHarry Potter. Too similar, some have said. I sort of got into those for a bit.I'm a dirty kid, I like to be outside, I like to run about, I like to get messy. So I spent a lot of time outside as a kid, skating and just being a disaster.

I was obsessed with Dogtown—I still am obsessed with Dogtown, the Z-Boys. I love Stacy Peralta and Jay Adams and Andrew Reynolds, all these guys. I used to think I was Chad Muska. BROWN: You should make a skating movie. CAMPELL BOWER: I'd love to make a skating movie. It'd be fucking dope.

[With] sports movies—like skating movies—it's hard. The last good one that I saw was probably Catherine Hardwick's Lords of Dogtown (2005).I mean, Rob Dyrdek's got a movie coming out but it's more like a documentary. BROWN: What film were you obsessed with as a child? CAMPBELL BOWER: Oh my god, Waterworld (1995). Kevin Costner's Waterworld.

Insane. That blew my mind. Me and my cousin Josh we used to watch it the whole

time. We loved that film. BROWN: I don't even know what that is.

CAMPBELL BOWER: Waterworld?! Are you for serious? Oh my god, go check it out. BROWN: I'm looking it up now. It was nominated for an Oscar! It's a serious movie? CAMPBELL BOWER: It's not that serious. He's jetting about on a jetski and shit.

But there's a ride at Universal Studios in L. A. — the Waterworld ride. You've got to go on it. It's mental. BROWN: I've only been to Euro Disney.

CAMPBELL BOWER: Euro Disney is not my vibe. I can't really deal with Disney, man. It's not my thing. BROWN: But you can deal with Universal Studios land? CAMPBELL BOWER: Yeah, because they're not pretending to be so happy all the time.

[laughs] I don't do so well with people pretending to be happy. When I was 16, I went with my girlfriend at the time and her family to Disneyland and I was so grumpy the whole time. BROWN: I know you're in L. A.

ow, but do you still live in London? CAMPBELL BOWER: I live out of a bag. I just looked at what's going on for me, I'm not gonna be back in England for more than a week between now and March of next year, I think, which is crazy. By that time the lease is up on my apartment! [laughs]  I'm getting a kick out of being homeless. BROWN: Won't you miss your family and friends? CAMPBELL BOWER: I have the best friends in the world. I miss my friends, I miss my family but they always come out and visit me. I went to boarding school in the country so there's no

real differentiation between family and friends.

I went there from when I was 8 until I was 17—it was insane. If you earn my friendship, you are my family and I'll do anything for you. BROWN: Is it unusual for people from your school to become actors? CAMPBELL BOWER: Daniel Day Lewis went to my school. Juno Temple was in my year. Lily Allen went.

The band called The Kooks went there. Minnie Driver. There's a few of us kicking about but it's not a stage school, it's just incredibly liberal and let's the individual do whatever the fuck they want. [laughs] BROWN: Do you remember your worst ever audition? CAMPBELL BOWER: Yes, I went into the wrong room.

They started being like, "I see that you were at the Royal Shakespeare Company. " I was like, "Oh my god, my agent has made all this shit up, just made it up so I could get in the room. " So I was like, "Yeah, yeah, it was amazing"—digging myself further and further into a hole. And then this girl comes in and I'm like, "What the fuck is going on? " And they're like, "Okay, and now we're going to read the balcony scene. " It was an audition for Romeo and Juliet. [laughs] I was like, "Um, I'm not meant to be here, I'm really sorry.

" [laughs] I literally just ran out of the room.