As the fearless Hobbit Frodo Baggins in "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy, he saved Middle Earth from the clutches of doom; and as Mumbles in "Happy Feet," he prevented the starvation of his fellow penguins in Antarctica.

And now, as the title character in the 2009 animated fantasy adventure "9," it's up to Elijah Wood -- who voices the small, "stitchpunk" rag doll with mechanical workings -- to preserve the future of civilization in a post-apocalyptic world decimated by machines gone awry.

Is it just happenstance, or could it be that Wood likes to play characters that carry the weight of the world on their shoulders?

"I guess there is something to think about there," Wood observed with a laugh in a recent @ The Movies interview. "I don't know if I'm attracted to those kinds of roles, or that those kinds of stories are so common and there's so many different ways of telling them. The construct of there being a couple who have to take some kind of journey to overcome some obstacle or some evil is so familiar."

There's no doubt a familiarity in Wood's work in the quality of innocence he brings to his complex roles -- a quality that "9" writer-director Shane Acker no doubt saw up close as a digital artist on the third film in the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy, "The Return of the King."

Given the thousands of people who worked on the films, though, it shouldn't come as a surprise that Wood didn't meet Acker during "The Return of the King."

But it was close.

"I had been to Weta Digital to visit the animators and to see the progress of Gollum and various other animation that was being done because the whole film fascinated me," Wood recalled. "Those are the types of divisions that you don't often get to visit them because you're too busy working on the set -- but as often as I could, I would try to go to check things out, but I guess he wasn't around when I went to visit so I didn't meet him. It's so funny -- we must have just missed each other."

"9," which is a contender for a Best Animated Film Oscar nomination, first appeared as an acclaimed short film in 2004, which earned Acker a Student Academy Award and an Oscar nomination for Best Animated Short. But what makes the adaptation unique is that it has dialogue and the short version of "9" relied exclusively on visual storytelling. By expanding the scenes and building on the story, "9" -- which also stars the voices of Jennifer Connelly, Martin Landau and Christopher Plummer -- effectively gave Wood the rare opportunity to build on on a character from an already established piece of work.

"It's not often that you get an offer to do an animated film and get a short version of what ultimately the film was going to be before you start making the movie," said Wood. "It was such a great source of inspiration and ultimately, the very thing that attracted me to want to be a part of it in the first place. The animation style in and of itself is so beautiful, plus, the world Shane created was so different. But with the short film, you really only get a snippet of who the character is, where he came from, what the character is about and ultimately, how he serves the other characters in the story. So it was really exciting to help flesh things out."

The bonus of working on "9" -- and a big one at that -- was that it also gave Wood the chance to work for the first time under the auspices of filmmaker Tim Burton, who along with "Wanted" director Timur Bekmambetov, helped produce the film.

"Tim is one of those artists that never really seems to compromise," Wood said. "He's definitely done what he has wanted to do throughout his career, and he's also made a career out of creating characters and worlds that are completely original and that we've never met before -- worlds that are not familiar with. 'Beetlejuice' is a great example. There are so many of them. 'Edward Scissorhands' is so unique. I don't think any of us had seen something quite like that before. So in that regard, he's a great visionary as well."

Luckily for Acker, Wood said, Burton saw those same sorts of qualities in the first-time filmmaker's work.

"It was a blessing for Shane that Tim fell in love with the short," Wood said. "He really respected the work that he had done and wanted to help facilitate for Shane his vision so it was not hindered by the studio or anyone impeding upon that. What a blessing for a first-time filmmaker to have people like Tim as well as Timur there championing your work and there as a support, acting as godfathers for ultimately what is your complete vision in its purest form. It was a pretty amazing opportunity."