Almost as surprising as the drastic weight loss and subsequent physical transformation of the once stout, unkempt and bespectacled director Peter Jackson (“King Kong”) from a few years back, was his jarring decision to adapt Alice Sebold’s best selling novel, “The Lovely Bones” into a feature film.

Prominently known for his adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy as well as his remake of “King Kong,” the Academy Award winning director’s cinematic interpretation of Sebold’s quiet and poignant literary original is regarded by critics as something of an anomaly among his trademark oeuvre that boasts action-packed, larger-than-life blockbusters.

This time around, Jackson exchanges his proclivity for warfare and adventure for emotionally-charged drama in an endeavor to recount the unusual coming-of-age story of 14-year-old Susie Salmon (Saoirse Ronan, “City of Ember”), who, in her afterlife, follows and contemplates the tragedy of her rape, murder and dismemberment as her sadistic killer (Stanley Tucci, “Julie & Julia”) and grief-stricken family members — played by Mark Wahlberg (“Max Payne”), Rachel Weisz (“The Brothers Bloom”) and Susan Sarandon (“Solitary Man”) — continue on with their lives on earth.

Most audiences will recognize actress Saoirse Ronan for her Academy Award nominated performance as the serious and self-important wisp of a girl, Briony Tallis, in Joe Wright’s (“The Soloist”) critically acclaimed “Atonement.”

In a recent conference call with The Badger Herald, Ronan — in a pert yet solemn voice that was lightly peppered with an Irish accent — carefully addressed her unwarranted reputation of harboring a penchant for the dark and serious.

“I’m not particularly attracted to dark roles,” Ronan professed. “But I love the depth to them. I love just their thinking process, I suppose — especially with ‘Atonement.’ And it just, you know, it takes a lot of thinking to really understand those kinds of characters. There [are] a lot of parts now where it’s very easy to just be the happy girl, and you know, there are some great characters at the moment who are more than that, and who are also very uplifting, like Susie Salmon.”

Ronan also remedied the misconception that the tragic premises of the “The Lovely Bones” would evoke themes of death and despair.

“I think that the message of this movie, although it may not seem like it to people who haven’t seen it yet, is ultimately hope, and how you get there,” Ronan declared. “It’s about her love for her family and not the hate and vengeance that she has for her murderer.”

Ronan later confessed to have never studied Sebold’s bestseller before undertaking her role as the murdered teenage girl.

“I actually waited to read the book after I had made the movie,” Ronan admitted. “I just really wanted to focus on the screenplay version, and also I felt like I was a little bit too young to read it at the time; I was 13. … The book is a little bit more visual and a bit more violent than the film so it just made sense.”

Indeed, Jackson’s book-to-movie adaptation is rumored to have omitted Susie’s rape scene — one that, in the novel, is detailed with quiet violence and crafted with haunting poeticism.

“If anything, [the absence of the rape scene] makes [the movie] stronger because I think it’s kind of the easy route to put that kind of scene in,” Ronan claimed. “It can make people uncomfortable. It can make people too disturbed. … The tasteful way to do it, I think, is to just leave it up to the audience’s imagination and to let them think of it for themselves, and sometimes that can even be stronger. So, no, I don’t think it took away from the story at all.”

More on par with Jackson’s directorial forte is his portrayal of the “in-between,” or rather, Susie’s personalized, God-free, computer-generated heaven.

“It was … a little bit surreal at first because it was all blue screen and I hadn’t worked with that much blue screen before,” Ronan admitted. “And most of heaven was going to be put in afterwards. So, it was sometimes difficult to try and imagine what it was going to be like, what it was going to look like. … I saw the movie a few days ago and it was a lovely surprise to finally see heaven.”

“I just really hope that everyone enjoys it,” Ronan said. “That they connect to it as much as they did with the book. So, if awards come as well, then that’s brilliant.”

“The Lovely Bones” is now playing in select theaters and is scheduled to be released worldwide on January 15, 2010.