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August 22nd, 2013 
Peter Nolan 
Jamie Campbell Bower and Lily Collins. Pictures supplied by Roadshow.
Source: Supplied
Forget abs of steel. It’s the pale, damaged rock star look that really gets those hearts pounding, according to British actor Jamie Campbell Bower.
“That’s one of the reasons Mick Jagger was a superstar when he was younger,” says the 24-year-old star of action fantasy The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones.
After closely observing his 15-year-old cousins, Campbell Bower rejected the current trend for beefed-up superheroes in favour of something slighter and more sinewy when he stepped up for the role of brooding demon-slayer Jace Weyland.
“It’s the lost soul – everyone wants to save somebody else because ultimately we all just want to be saved,” he says.
Campbell Bower says he didn’t have to look very far for inspiration.
“I had all these pictures stuck up around my walls. Some days I would just pick and choose who I was going to channel.
“I based a bit of him on (Metallica’s) James Hetfield – that angry element definitely came from him – and a bit of (Nirvana’s) Kurt Cobain.
“I also wanted the damaged element that River Phoenix had, and I put a bit of Johnny Depp and Heath Ledger in there as well.”
A lean and mean Jamie Campbell Bower as Shadowhunter Jace Weyland. Picture: Supplied
Source: Supplied
Campbell Bower professes to being “fat and bloated” when he auditioned for the bad boy, avenging-angel role in the hotly-anticipated film adaptation of Cassandra Clare’s best-selling young adult series, set in a parallel version of New York inhabited by witches and vampires and werewolves.
“I took a year off work and just sort of let myself go,” says the former lead singer of The Darling Buds.
“I wasn’t unhappy. I just wanted to do my own thing. I focused on music and spent a bunch of time reconnecting with my old friends, just figuring out why I wanted to be an actor.”
But unlike fellow Brit Henry Cavill, who went to almost superhuman lengths to beef himself up for Man Of Steel, Campbell chose an alternative route.
“Originally, (Jace Weyland) was bigger and a bit more jovial,” says Campbell Bower.
“But I said: ‘actually I don’t think that’s who he is’. I wanted him to be lean. I didn’t want there to be an ounce of fat on his body.
“My inspiration was Brad Pitt in Fight Club or Snatch – wily, but like a rattlesnake, and dangerous.”
The lean, mean look, however, still required a strict diet and plenty of physical discipline.
Prior to starting work on the film, directed by The Karate Kid’s Harald Zwart, Campbell trained for four-and-a half months with a regimen that included kickboxing and krav maga.
He continued to work out while shooting City Of Bones and is already in dangerous shape for the sequel, City Of Ashes, which starts filming in Toronto next month.
But Campbell Bower admits to feeling very much the underdog when he tried out for the plum Shadowhunter role in the film based on the first of Clare’s six Mortal Instruments stories.
Jamie Campbell Bower with fellow Shadowhunters Kevin Zegers and Jemima West. Picture: Supplied
Source: Supplied
When the author, who was closely involved in the casting process, first heard Campbell Bower’s name mentioned in association with the role, she asked, incredulously, “The little guy from Sweeney Todd?”
Campbell Bower was 14 when he appeared opposite Johnny Depp in Tim Burton’s film of the Stephen Sondheim musical.
“They called me in on a whim,” says Campbell Bower, “but that also gave me the opportunity to kick it about a bit more.”
According to Clare, it was the instant electricity Campbell Bower shared with leading lady Lily Collins that clinched him the role.
By then, Phil Collins’ daughter had been attached to the project for several years, sticking with it even through a change in guard (Zwart took the helm after Scott Stewart, director of The Priest, was dropped by Sony Pictures in August 2011).
While that screen chemistry initially spilt over into an off-screen relationship, the pair are now describing themselves as “good friends”.
Unlike the rest of the young cast, which includes Robert Sheehan, Jemima West and Kevin Zegers, Campbell Bower has already experienced some of the fervour that surrounds film adaptations of popular teen franchises – he had a small role as the young Gellert Grindelwald in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and played the Volturi Caius in The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn.
But the actor is keen to play down the inevitable comparisons to those phenomenally successful franchises.
“The fan reaction is obviously growing on a day-by-day basis. Yeah, I can feel it coming. I am just trying to manage expectations.
“I would love it to be successful because everyone that has worked on it has worked so hard. But I am just taking it day by day.”
The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones opens today
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