Gwyneth Paltrow to play Nicole Kidman’s wife

A biopic about the world's first post-operative transsexual will treat filmgoers to the sight of Gwyneth Paltrow playing Nicole Kidman's wife.

Kidman's role as the transsexual protagonist of The Danish Girl, which tells the true story of Danish painter Einar Wegener, was announced in September. Back then, Charlize Theron was down to play Wegener's wife, the illustrator Gerda Gottlieb, but Variety now reports that Paltrow (left) will play her.

Wegener's desire to become a woman was sparked when Gottlieb asked her husband to stand in for one of her regular models by posing in women's clothes and make-up. Wegener's transformation as a woman scandalised 1920s Copenhagen society and the couple moved to Paris, where Wegener adopted the alter ego of Lili Elbe.

The couple maintained their unconventional marriage until 1929 when Elbe embarked on a series of sex change operations. The King of Denmark declared their marriage invalid, as the pair were now both women. Gottlieb went on to marry an Italian diplomat.

Wegener underwent five operations in a bid to become a woman. But she died, aged 49, in 1931 after complications following surgery to transplant a uterus into her body.

Swedish director Tomas Alfredson, who directed last year's cult vampire movie Let the Right One In, will shoot The Danish Girl. The film's script is based on the best-selling novel of the same name by the American writer David Ebershoff, published in 2000.