Winslet to replace Kidman in 'The Reader'

Kate Winslet is to replace Nicole Kidman in director Stephen Daldry's post-war drama The Reader.

Kidman withdrew from the movie last week because she is expecting her first baby with husband Keith Urban.

Filming has already begun in Berlin but the Australian actress had not yet shot any scenes.

Winslet had been first choice for the role but had turned it down because it clashed with husband Sam Mendes' Revolutionary Road, in which she reunites with Titanic co-star Leonardo DiCaprio.

However, Variety reports that she is now available to star opposite Ralph Fiennes in the movie, based on Bernhard Schlink's 1995 novel about teenager who has an affair with an older woman, later finding out that she is a defendant in a Holocaust war crimes trial.