The biggest Hollywood star of Peter Jackson's new film The Lovely Bones says she was flattered when the director offered her a role.
Susan Sarandon, best known for her Oscar-winning role in Dead Man Walking and playing Louise in Thelma and Louise, plays glamorous, "self-medicating" Grandma Lynn, whose granddaughter Susie is brutally raped and murdered by a man in the neighbourhood.
Sarandon says she had read and loved the Alice Sebold book long before Jackson asked her to be in his film adaptation.
He sent her a letter saying what he loved about Grandma Lynn and why he wanted her to play the role.
"I was very flattered that he asked me to do it," she says.
"I had read it not envisioning myself in any of the parts, so I enjoyed it just on its own, and that was fun.
"And I thought it was about things I would find it interesting to talk about for weeks during junkets."
Sarandon says Jackson has a strong vision and is very collaborative, and managed to bring to life Susie's heaven, "the in-between", by teaming his imagination with computer-generated special effects.
She had "skimmed" through the "in-between" but "Peter, clearly that for him was what grabbed his imagination".
"So it was very interesting to see that come to life when it hadn't resonated with somebody like me...
"Sometimes you work with directors who seem like they just can't wait to get to dinner, [but Peter] he is very passionate about what he does and his imagination is just huge in terms of the actual physical world that he creates and the in-between."
It was the first grandmother role for Sarandon, a real-life mother of three who, at 63, says she's "certainly old enough to have been a grandmother already".
But her taking on an older role isn't as big a deal as the media makes out, she says.
"I don't know if I'm in denial or it just wasn't that big a deal, but it really hadn't posed a major [issue], it didn't seem as significant as the fact that she was self-medicating constantly and was the one who provided the comic relief, but it is true, it's my first grandmother."
Ageing in the public eye is "definitely something that you're dealing with constantly", she says, but living in New York rather than Hollywood makes it less worrying.
"Because I'm busy in a lot of other areas, I don't have the time to become as self-conscious about it, as desperate about it, because there's a lot that fills my life.
"But certainly in a business where it's so much about the way you look, I guess it's a more significant question than if I were a dental hygienist or something."
Those other things in her life include activism - she was appointed a United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef) goodwill ambassador in 1999, took an early stand against the Iraq war with partner Tim Robbins (of Shawshank Redemption fame) and campaigned for Barack Obama before the last presidential election.
She says being in a business "about imagination and empathy" naturally leads to activism.
"I don't see it as being political, I think of it as just being involved in the world, and my own survival, and being the protagonist in my own life...
"I think that if you're in a position to make a difference and you don't, then you have to live with that.
"And it's much harder to live knowing you could have done something and you didn't than whatever flak you get for asking questions."
It may be surprising then that, when asked which part of her busy life she'd most like to be remembered for, Sarandon has a simple answer:
"Being a mum."
NZPA