Filming will soon begin for the motion picture adaptation of “Serena”, the bestselling novel penned by Ron Rash, Western Carolina University’s Parris Distinguished Professor of Appalachian Culture.
Actors Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence team together again as the star roles in Serena after just filming leading roles in David O. Russell’s next movie, The Silver Linings Playbook. Lawrence is best known for her exquisite portrayal of Ree Dolly in Winter’s Bone, and is also starring in The Hunger Games. Cooper is most famous for his appearances in The Hangover and Limitless.
The motion picture will be directed by Academy Award winner Susanne Bier for 2929 Productions, and is set for release in 2014.
“I am very pleased to have such a talented director and cast making the movie,” said Rash.
The novel “Serena” has been a success since its 2008 release and prompted Rash’s win of the Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance book award in the category of fiction.
This award winning book is set in Depression-era Appalachia, and tells the story of a couple who travel to the mountains of North Carolina to find fortune. The novel centers on Serena Pemberton, who is hardly serene, and her husband George. After discovering that she is not able to bear children, Serena takes her anger out on George’s illegitimate son. She plays the role of a cold, dictatorial woman who will let nothing stand in her way.
“An Appalachian retelling of Macbeth, a thriller, a word-perfect evocation of an era and a people, a grim chapter in the history of conservation: if ‘Serena’ doesn’t finally win Ron Rash the overdue attention of the national literary (and cinematic) establishments, I can’t imagine what they’re holding out for,” said Arthur Phillips, author of Prague, The Egyptologist, Angelica.
