What do an Orc, a giant ape and Susie Salmon all have in common? They’ve all been featured characters in films directed by Academy Award-winning director Peter Jackson.

The latter of those three, Susie Salmon, is the main character in Jackson’s current film, “The Lovely Bones.” Based on Alice Sebold’s novel of the same name in which Susie (Saoirse Ronan) is murdered at a young age and watches over her family — and her killer — from heaven.

“The Lovely Bones” is Jackson’s first film since 2005’s “King Kong,” and before that, the Lord of the Rings trilogy, of which both focused on large-scale realms of fantasy.

With “The Lovely Bones,” Jackson took a break from the fanciful and examined a much more real, true-to-life story.

“‘The Lovely Bones’ was a project that we ... partly chose because it was so different. And ... it would keep us on our toes,” Jackson said during a recent conference call. “Because there’s no doubt that the way that you stay interested in what you’re doing is to keep trying new things and to do things you’ve never done before.”

What “The Lovely Bones” does have in common with Jackson’s previous work is that it’s an adaptation. As a director, Jackson has consistently stuck to adapting other pieces of work, using his unique vision to turn the pages of a book into the frames on a reel. He said that when he reads, he imagines the action of the book taking place in his head; playing like a little movie.

“And then it doesn’t take much for me to get excited about the little movie that’s being inspired by the words in the book,” Jackson said.

He said he’s open to the idea of making a film based on his own original idea but prefers using other pieces on which to base his movies.

“[With] an original idea, you’re sort of either waiting for a bit of inspiration to pop into your head or you’re sitting down in front of a blank sort of paper, thinking, ‘Now, what do I really want to make a film about, and let me think of some ideas,’” Jackson said. “And that’s actually harder, I think. It would be fair to say that, unless you’ve got an incredibly inspired idea for something that no one [has] ever seen before, it’s difficult to come up with fresh and original ... ideas.”

In the film, Susie is murdered and finds herself watching over her family from heaven. Examining the afterlife is what attracted Jackson to the film.

“It’s an opportunity for me to make a movie which says things about what happens to our soul after we die,” he said. “And that’s obviously a question that we all wonder about.”

Though the movie uses special effects, Jackson’s specialty, to bring heaven to a visual reality in the film, the director tried to keep the movie as true to life as possible. Jackson used the computer-generated images only to give a further sense of reality, not bring the movie into a world of fantasy.

“Even calling it fantasy, I guess, is not really true, because we try to present a case of ‘this could be what happens to you,’ and possibly, after you leave your body, your soul divides and lives on,” Jackson said. “There’s nothing at all fantastic about that storyline, and in fact, we tried to make that as real as we possibly could.”

“The Lovely Bones” will be released Jan. 15.

Reach the reporter at pmelbour@asu.edu.