Lily Collins: I Admire Jennifer Lawrence and Kristen Stewart

Actress also talks about getting her first tattoo

By Cinya Burton Jul 29, 2013 6:47 PMTags
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Despite being the daughter of a music icon, Lily Collins has managed to maintain a relatively low-key life.

But it seems as though that's about to change—all due to the release of her book-turned-movie The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones.

Similar to Twilight and The Hunger Games, the trilogy already has a loyal band of fanatics. Plus, just like Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson's highly publicized romance, Phil Colins' daughter met her boyfriend Jamie Campbell Bower on set.

But the 24-year-old looks up to Stewart and Jennifer Lawrence (who also fell in love with a co-star, X-Men's Nicholas Hoult) for reasons beyond how they dealt with their love life.

"I admire how they've both handled the fame that came with those roles and their ability to step outside those roles and do other projects," she says in the September 2013 issue of Seventeen magazine. "That's what I want to do balance fun big movies with gritty passion projects I love."

Gritty may not be the first thing that comes to mind when you think of the actress who played Snow White in Mirror Mirror, but she says she's not as squeaky clean as some might think.

"I've definitely edged-up my style a little but not for any reason other than I'm experimenting with myself, she says. "I always wanted tattoos, so this past November, I got two. I got my back done first. It's my handwriting and it says, 'Love always and forever.'"

But body ink and grungy duds is about as far into the rocker lifestyle as Lily wants to go.  She explains that even in high school she knew that being a wild party-girl wasn't for her.

"I didn't feel the pleasure in drinking or doing drugs," she says. "I wanted to remember the fun moments that I had with my friends and not wake up and  go, 'Um, I think I had fun?'"