Melissa George will be starring as a Jason Bourne-style female spy in Nemesis, the new BBC1 thriller due to hit the small screen later next year from the makers of Spooks.

‘I’m incredibly excited about the ambition of this series. It’s got action on a cinematic scale, huge story twists and turns, and intriguing characters who are both emotionally and morally complex,’ says writer Frank Spotnitz, who has worked on cult series The X Files and Strike Back.

Aussie actress Melissa George (pictured above in The Slap, Alias, Grey’s Anatomy) plays skilled operative Sam, who survives an attempt on her life, possibly by some of her own team at the elite and shadowy private intelligence firm she works for. When she returns to work, Sam doesn’t know who she can trust and who wants her dead.

Sam’s colleague and love interest is played by Adam Rayner, whose credits include Hawthorne, Mistresses, and Waking The Dead. Also in the cast are Stephen Dillane (Game Of Thrones), Morven Christie (The Sinking Of The Laconia), Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje (Lost, Strike Back), Lex Shrapnel (Captain America: The First Avenger), Uriel Emil (Criminal Justice), Patrick Malahide (Five Days, Billy Elliot), Stephen Campbell Moore (The Bank Job, The History Boys), and Oscar Kennedy (Toast and soon to star as the young Pip in BBC's Great Expectations).

‘Melissa George is a fantastic choice to play BBC1’s new leading lady known as Sam, a complex and mysterious Bourne-style female spy unlike anyone we’ve seen on TV before,’ adds Ben Stephenson, Controller of BBC Drama Commissioning.

Filming on the eight-part series has already started and will take place in London, Morocco and Scotland. Nemesis is being produced by Kudos Film & Television, in association with Big Light Productions and HBO’s Cinemax channel. The director is SJ Clarkson who has worked on Dexter, Ugly Betty and Heroes.

Nick Fiaca