JENNIFER Connelly just can't get away from dark, heart-wrenching roles. Fresh from the atrocities of gun-toting child soldiers in 'Blood Diamond', where she played an investigative journalist, she's been lured by Irish writer/director Terry George - himself fresh from the Oscarnominated 'Hotel Rwanda' - into playing Joaquin Phoenix's wife in 'Reservation Road'.

"We lose our child in an accident involving Mark Ruffalo, " she tells me. "The story sort of deals with the aftermath and the impact it has on the two families. I was floored by it the minute I read it, it really moved me so."

But she didn't quite realise what she was letting herself in for, despite her harrowing experiences on 'Requiem for A Dream' and 'Waking The Dead'. "About a week into it I was cursing myself, " she says. "It was the most devastating thing I've ever worked on.

Being a mother I was loath to draw on my own experience. I refused to think about our own children, which was really challenging."

She carries in a locket pictures of her two children, Kai from her relationship with photographer David Dugan and Stellan from her marriage to Paul Bettany (they met on 'A Beautiful Mind', for which she won a best supporting actress Oscar)."Terry George was fantastic to work with, but I think I need to let myself off the hook a little bit, " she says. "Maybe I'll finally do a comedy."

ALL IRELAND TOP FIVE (weekend 9-11 March) 1(-) Norbit (Brian Robbins) Euro378,124 (-) 2(1) Hot Fuzz (Edgar Wright) Euro174,991 (Euro2,386,546 to date) 3(3) Ghost Rider (Mark Steven Johnson) Euro120,762 (Euro490,101) 4(2) Charlotte's Web (Gary Winick) Euro107,730 (Euro2,005,399) 5(5) Blood Diamond (Ed Zwick) Euro62,318 (Euro1,628,999) Compiled from Sunday Tribune industry sources

US TOP FIVE MOVIES (weekend 9-11 March) 1(-) 300 (Zack Snyder) $70m () 2(1) Wild Hogs (Walt Becker) $28m ($77.4m to date) 3(4) Bridge to Terabithia (Gabor Csupo) $6.9m ($67m) 4(3) Ghost Rider (Mark Steven Johnson) $6.8m ($104.1m) 5 (2) Zodiac (David Fincher) $6.8m ($23.7m) Jennifer Connelly:

'Maybe I'll finally do a comedy'