Kate Winslet will replace the pregnant Nicole Kidman in the upcoming romantic drama The Reader.  A Babelsberg spokesman confirmed that production would begin this month.

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

For 40-year-old Kidman, bearing a child marks a personal triumph after suffering an ectopic pregnancy and miscarriage during her first marriage to Tom Cruise, with whom she has two adopted children Isabella, 14, and Conor, 12.

Kidman shared the news of her pregnancy with her family over Christmas, and last weekend celebrated with girlfriends over lunch at Woolloomooloo.

Ending weeks of speculation, Kidman yesterday released a statement confirming she and husband Keith Urban are expecting their first child together.