By Cate Owen and James Murray
The Embassy theatre in Wellington will be filled tonight, as moviegoers get their first peek of The Lovely Bones. Joining them are two of the movie's stars, actors Susan Sarandon and Saoirse Ronan.
Sarandon and Ronan play grandmother and granddaughter in the big screen adaptation of Alice Sebold’s book about a girl who is raped and murdered, and the fallout for her family. The movie will be released here on Boxing Day.
Sarandon describes New Zealanders as “very sweet”.
“[They’re] kind of like New Yorkers – they’re too cool to scream and jump up and down. They’re like ‘hey, I really like your movies, how is the family’… they’re not hysterical.”
It’s not her younger co-star’s first time in New Zealand – in fact Saoirse Ronan sees herself as one of us.
“I consider myself a Kiwi. I spent about six months here, but it felt like a lifetime. This is my favourite place to be… I do love Wellington,” she says. “It’s so small.”
“Manageable,” chimes in Sarandon.
“It is, exactly,” says Ronan. “You can drive around in, what, an hour?”
“And if you had a wind machine, you’d be set,” says Sarandon.
The joke falls a little flat, but Sarandon laughs it off.
The pair say they are excited to be in Wellington for the premiere, as it is director Peter Jackson’s hometown.
As for working with Jackson, Ronan notes that despite the challenges of filming on a blue screen, she felt “in very safe hands”.
“He used to talk to me during takes, describe what was going on around me so I could react to it, we played music, so he made it very easy for me.”
“Did you have to follow a tennis ball?” Sarandon asks. “On Speed Racer we had to use that.”
“I had blue men,” says Ronan. “They were completely dressed in blue and they only had their nose showing.”
Watch the video of Susan Sarandon and Saoirse Ronan speaking to Oliver Driver.