Maggie Gyllenhaal filming The Honourable Woman in London

Maggie Gyllenhaal is to star in an off-Broadway play called The Village Bike (Getty Images)

Oscar-nominee Maggie Gyllenhaal has started filming seven-part spy thriller The Honourable Woman in London.

The Hollywood star began work in the capital this week on the show which also features Stephen Rea and Janet McTeer.

Gyllenhaal plays the daughter of an arms dealer who enters the House of Lords after years of charity work in the Middle East, only to become caught up in an international conspiracy with the secret service at her heels.

Filming will continue in London for three months.

The series, which will be screened by BBC2 next year, features McTeer as the head of MI6, in a production written and directed by Hugo Blick, who created tense conspiracy drama The Shadow Line.

Also in the cast are Lindsay Duncan, Andrew Buchan - who has been seen in Garrow's Law and Broadchurch - and Katherine Parkinson, who featured in The IT Crowd.

Eve Best - who, like Rea, appeared in The Shadow Line - stars as a key MI6 agent in the Washington Bureau who is at loggerheads with her UK counterparts.

The series will also be screened in the US by the Sundance Channel, which is co-producing the drama.

PA