HANGING from a piece of twine around her neck was a small, green painted bone. “I call this my lovely bone,” said Rose McIver, the New Zealand actress who plays Saoirse Ronan’s sister in “The Lovely Bones.”

Ms. McIver, 22, had arrived at the Griffith Observatory here fashionably on time. That evening she would fly to New Zealand. She hoped it would be easier than entering the United States. “My fingerprints didn’t read on the machine because I’d used some really intense bleach at home,” she said. “At least I got the blood out of my carpet.”

The macabre has grown surprisingly commonplace to Ms. McIver and Ms. Ronan, the 15-year-old star of “The Lovely Bones.” Ms. Ronan, whose first name is pronounced “sur-sha,” plays Susie Salmon, the murder, rape and dismemberment victim who narrates the story after her death, from a lovely fantasy world filled with beautiful clouds, mountains and trees.

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She and Ms. McIver developed a fast friendship on the set. As they walked into the observatory, they held hands, leaned into each other and talked. Following them were a publicist for the film, Ms. McIver’s agent, Ms. Ronan’s parents and the girls’ hairdresser (hey, it never hurts to be prepared).

Like a schoolgirl on a field trip, Ms. Ronan stopped at the first exhibit and dutifully read the explanatory plaque. Then, with her cheek resting on her fist, she stared at the pit and the pendulum whose swing would knock down a peg every seven minutes.

Ms. McIver speed-walked through Sun and Stars Paths, Moon Phases, and Day and Night, while Ms. Ronan read all the information panels. In Eclipses, they caught up with each other.

“All right,” Ms. McIver told her friend in her New Zealand accent.

“All right,” Ms. Ronan repeated in her Irish one.

“All right,” Ms. McIver corrected.

If they sounded different, it must have been be akin to those sounds that only dogs can hear. “We’re practicing each other’s accents,” said Ms. Ronan, who was raised in Ireland.

“We look quite similar,” Ms. McIver said, “and eventually we’re going to remake ‘The Parent Trap’ and swap lives.”

They headed outside to look through the telescope. “All I can see is my eyelashes,” Ms. McIver said. Ms. Ronan’s father deposited 50 cents. When Ms. McIver tried again, Ms. Ronan put her hand in front of the lens in the sun and said, “Can you see the stars now?”

Moving into the Café at the End of the Universe for fruit salad and chips, the girls talked about their childhoods.

“When I was younger, I used to collect rocks,” Ms. Ronan said. “What a nerdy thing to do.”

“I used to try to sell rocks,” Ms. McIver said. “I was a poor 7-year-old.”

Ms. Ronan was 13 when she made “The Lovely Bones” and 12 when she made “Atonement,” in which her character witnesses what she believes is a rape.

Both times, Ms. Ronan said, she stayed away from the novels from which the movies were adapted. Only recently did she read “The Lovely Bones,” signed for her by its author, Alice Sebold.

As for “Atonement,” “I read the first page a few years ago and the vocabulary was too advanced for me,” she said. “And now, I just don’t have the time. I only read scripts.”

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