Unearthly bond

Irish actress Saoirse Ronan stars in “The Lovely Bones” as Susie Salmon, a young girl who is brutally murdered by her neighbor. But wait—it’s not a horror movie.

Instead of going to heaven, Susie watches her family’s life unfold from the “in-between,” or the place she stays before she can reach heaven. TheMash recently spoke on the phone with Ronan and Rose McIver, who plays Susie’s sister, Lindsey, in this new movie based on Alice Sebold’s best-selling novel.

“I love the fact that while Susie’s body dies, her spirit carries on,” said Ronan, 15. “And in the end, the memory that her family has of this special girl stays with them.”

McIver, 21, also loved the emphasis on the bond between sisters and family.

“We worked quite hard to film all of the bonds between each of the family members,” she said, “especially when the characters got to sit around the dinner table or go out as a family.”

Ronan, though, said her favorite scenes to film were those in the magical in-between.

(Spoiler alert) “I also really love the scene in the barley field when all of Mr. Harvey’s victims come and are going to take Susie onto her heaven,” Ronan said. “That was a very emotional scene.”

Ronan is no stranger to hard work—she earned an Academy Award nomination in 2007 for her role in “Atonement”—but playing a dead teenager in a magical, computer-generated world in “The Lovely Bones” presented a new set of challenges.

“Having to do a lot of physical things was quite challenging,” she said. “This is especially hard when you are trying to do an emotional scene and are running on a treadmill. We did this a lot, and it was hard to get your head around.”

As a living human, all of McIver’s scenes were set on Earth. For her, the most difficult part of her role was playing the many ages of her character. Susie Salmon stays age 14 throughout the movie, but Lindsey Salmon ages from 11 to 19.

“Being able to distinguish each of those ages and how I would hold myself and speak was challenging,” McIver said. “I had to play younger than I was initially. This was exciting, but also very difficult.”

In “The Lovely Bones,” Ronan and McIver play American sisters, but in real life Ronan is from Ireland and McIver is from New Zealand. In their spare time, they both like to visit home.

“I miss my dog and my family the most,” Ronan said. “Sometimes I miss the Irish food.”

McIver misses her family and friends as well. “I also really like relaxing on the New Zealand beaches,” she added.

Like most young people, both Ronan and McIver also like rotating music on their iPods—and staying connected through Facebook.

“I was addicted to the FarmVille application for quite a while,” Ronan admitted.