Winslet to replace pregnant Kidman in movie: author

British actress Kate Winslet will replace the pregnant Nicole Kidman in the upcoming romantic drama The Reader, the author of the best-selling book on which the film is based told a German newspaper.

Bernhard Schlink told the Berliner Morgenpost in an article to be published Wednesday that Winslet would take on the starring role of the mysterious older woman who seduces a young man in postwar Germany.

“Kate Winslet fits the role wonderfully,” he said.

Kidman’s publicist confirmed Tuesday that the 40-year-old Australian and her husband, country star Keith Urban, were expecting a baby.

The Reader, which will co-star Ralph Fiennes, is to be filmed in New York and the Babelsberg studios outside Berlin. A Babelsberg spokesman confirmed that production would begin this month.

The director is Stephen Daldry who made The Hours, the film that earned Kidman a Best Actress Academy Award in 2002 for her portrayal of Virginia Woolf.

Source: AFP

Kate Winslet is stepping in to take over the role vacated by Nicole Kidman in The Reader, PEOPLE has exclusively learned.

Sources confirm that, in fact, Winslet was originally offered the role but couldn’t commit due to schedule conflicts. Kidman pulled out of the film after announcing her pregnancy.

“Kate was offered it first before Nicole but couldn’t do it but the dates clashed with commitments to Revolutionary Road,” says an insider. “So the dates changed, Nicole then got pregnant and now it has come back to Kate.”

Based on German author Bernhard Schlink’s bestselling 1995 novel – and Oprah’s Book Club selection – the film is about an affair between a teenage boy and an older woman in post-WWII Germany.

“Actually everyone is happy now – Nicole as she has a baby on the way, Kate because she has this great role she originally wanted to do, and the filmmakers are too,” says the source.

Source: People