Short Takes : Film Features Novelist’s House

NEW ORLEANS — Cobblestones will be put down today in front of novelist Anne Rice’s house, where a movie company is filming part of a movie based on Kate Chopin’s novel “The Awakening,” starring Kelly McGillis.

The novel, set in the 1880s, is about a woman who rejects Victorian moral and sexual standards, with tragic consequences. Along with playing its main character, artist Edna Pontellier, McGillis also is the executive producer.

Rice’s house turned out to be unexpectedly perfect for the Pontellier mansion because her husband, Stan, paints and has a studio on the third floor.

“Our search for a third-floor atelier-- I guess that’s French for studio?--ended when we found that Stan already had one,” location manager Mike Neale said.