The actress looked after the young cast members when she worked on ITV’s new series The Durrells, based on Gerald Durrell’s My Family and Other Animals

TV star Keeley Hawes has joked she felt “like Angelina Jolie ” after she took four child actors under her wing for a new ITV drama.

The 40-year-old acclaimed actress plays Louisa Durell in The Durrells, a series based on the based on the classic Gerald Durrell’s trilogy of books including My Family and Other Animals.

Real life mum-of-three Keeley has four on-screen children in the Durrell clan.

Speaking about filming in Corfu, she said: “At one point my own children came over and we all went out for dinner so there were these four and my own children and so I was sat there with seven of them.

“It occurred to me ‘I am Angelina Jolie at this moment’. Some of them are my adopted guys and some of them are my own!

“Making the show was a very easy and a lovely thing with the cast. We were away from home and you socialise a lot. I have known anything like it for people to get on that quickly.”

The show and books are based on a real life story in the 1930s and features Louisa fleeing from Bournemouth to Corfu as a troubled single mum.

As well as beautiful scenery and animals, the plot features rows and romance.

Keeley added: “This show makes it look appealing but it was a huge undertaking and everything she did was extraordinary.

“It could go into saccharine territory and be a bit twee maybe but the thing that cuts that is it look so beautiful and just as you are thinking ‘ahhh’ somebody shouts ‘arsehole’ in Greek.

“So it works and there is nothing that would make me turn over if my children were watching.”

Writer Simon Nye and ITV bosses hope the show will be a ratings success as there are lots of stories from the book that could be used for future series.

The six part series of The Durrells will begin on ITV later this spring.