Nicole Kidman and Rachel Weisz will star.

Lasse Hallstrom is getting ready to start production on Nicole Kidman starrer The Danish Girl. The $15m production will shoot in Germany, with the start scheduled for July.

Gail Mutrux is producing with Germany’s Senator Film putting up the bulk of the financing.

The story is based on the novel by US author David Ebershoff, about the life of Lili Elbe, the first person to undergo sex reassignment surgery.

Kidman will play the lead, with Rachel Weisz stepping in as the main character’s wife. Previously, both Charlize Theron and Gwyneth Paltrow have been circling that role.

“The pre production is basically starting. I´ll have meetings with the author and we are doing make up tests,” Hallstrom said in Berlin. “Kidman looks great as a man. This guy looked very good, he was not the lumberjack type.”

There will also be exterior shooting in Copenhagen.

The post production on the film will slightly overlap with pre-production on Hallstrom’s first Swedish film in 24 years, thriller The Hypnotist, which will start shooting in Stockholm in January 2012.

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