Lily Collins finds herself at the 'hot' end of the table

BEVERLY HILLS, California — Perhaps not many people know that Lily Collins, who made her movie debut in the 2009 Oscar-nominated drama The Blind Side with Sandra Bullock (2010 Oscar Best Actress), is a TV/print journalist. She covered for Seventeen magazine both the Democratic and Republican National Conventions. She’s also a contributing writer for CosmoGIRL! magazine and host for Nickelodeon’s Countdown to Kids’ Choice! (pre-show to the 2009 Kids’ Choice Awards) and Hollywood Hang, and hosted Live From The Red Carpet at the Oscars for the E! Network.

That must be why she was accommodating to international journalists when she found herself at the “hot” end during the roundtable interview for Columbia Pictures’ Priest in which she plays Lucy, the niece of the Warrior Priest (played by Paul Bettany) abducted by a murderous pack of vampires. Done in 3D, Priest is based on the popular Korean graphic serial novel by Min-Woo Hyung, directed by Scott Stewart (Legion, etc.), a post-apocalyptic action-horror film which chronicles what happens after the humans defeated the vampires in a long-drawn war.

During the interview at a function room of Four Seasons, Lily was with co-star Cam (not Sam as previously erroneously identified) Gigandet who plays Lucy’s boyfriend Hicks, a sharp-shooting sheriff of a tiny wasteland town. A karate brown-belter, the sport-loving Cam has done a few films (The Experiment with Forest Whitaker and Adrien Brody, and The Unborn with Gary Oldman, among them) but is best remembered as the villainous vampire in Twilight (2008).

Now showing across the Philippines simultaneously in the US and other parts of the world, Priest is distributed by Columbia Pictures, local office of Sony Pictures Releasing International. It also stars Karl Urban (as the villain vampire Black Hat) and Maggie Q (as a Warrior Priestess).

Excerpts:

(To Lily) After doing drama in The Blind Side, now action-adventure in Priest and soon romance-fantasy as the title role in Brothers Grimm: Snow White (with Julia Roberts), it has been quite an exciting journey for you. How do you cope with this life-changing development in your life?

Collins and Cam Gigandet are among the stars of Columbia Pictures’ Priest, now showing nationwide

Lily: I’m just so really honored. I take things one at a time. I’m prepared for whatever comes.

(To Cam) You were given the “One To Watch” Award by Movieline’s Young Hollywood Awards (together with Lily) and named one of The Hollywood Reporter’s Next Generation Talents (35-under-35 issue). Do these awards put pressure on you?

Cam: You know, there’s always pressure to raise your own game and to step up to what your expectations of yourself are. At the end of the day, any award is just a validation; it makes you feel good but you can’t look at it as a form of pressure.

Your roles in Priest are very physical. Did you do a special training for it?

Lily: I did mostly wire work and some fighting. It’s quite an initiation into the action genre for me.

Cam: I had to learn how to ride a motorcycle and how to shoot a gun.

(To Lily) As a journalist, what field would you rather cover, roundtable interviews like this or glamorous events like Hollywood Life Magazine’s 5th Annual Hollywood Style Awards which you hosted (and where Hollywood-based designer Monique Lhuillier was among those honored)?

Lily: On-location coverage is very hard but it’s quite an exciting experience. I’ve been covering a lot of glamour-and-glitter events lately. (Note: One such event was the 2008 Spanish Glamour Awards in Madrid where Lily received the Best International Model Award.)

(Still to Lily) And as a journalist, what do you think of paparazzi?

Lily: Hmmmmm, fortunately I haven’t had any unpleasant encounter with them so far. (Adding with a laugh) And I hope I won’t have any. But then, you can’t go out and expect not to have such encounters.

What to you is a dream interviewee? Who would you like to interview?

Lily: Actually, I’ve always wanted to interview Pres. Barack Obama. And, of course, the Royal Couple, Prince William and Kate Middleton.

Did you watch the Royal Wedding on TV?

Lily: Oh yes, I did. I watched it. I wanted to be there and cover it.

Away from work, how do you spend your time?

Lily: I go antique-shopping in the flea market and I travel with my mom. We’ve been to a few countries including India and Egypt. I’d like to go to China.

How was the experience working with Paul Bettany; was it intimidating?

Cam: It was kind of amazing, not intimidating at all. Every day was a learning lesson for any young actor to be able to work with someone like Paul. It ends up being so inspiring and such a motivation to be someone like him.

Lily: Paul and Karl, along with Maggie Q, were such good mentors on and off the set. They are so professional and they take acting to a higher level. They take a 100 percent from you. I learned a lot from them.

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