The Day of Mrs Jackal: Eddie Redmayne isn't the only sharpshooter

She plays the glamorous but unsuspecting wife of Eddie Redmayne's cold-blooded assassin in Sky's The Day Of The Jackal.

But Spanish actress Ursula Corbero is more used to handling the weapons herself – having found international fame playing a gun-toting thief.

The star, 35, may be familiar to some for her lead role in Netflix series Money Heist as runaway-turned-robber Tokyo, who becomes embroiled in a series of sophisticated plots to extract billions of pounds from bank vaults.

The drama ran over five series, and turned Ms Corbero into one of the most in-demand Spanish actresses in the world.

But her latest role, in the ten-part Sky series – which is based on the 1971 novel by Frederick Forsyth – looks set to turn her into an even bigger star.

The broadcaster announced last week that the drama had drawn in three million viewers in its first week – one of its biggest launches in two years.

Ms Corbero plays Nuria, the wife of Eddie Redmayne's The Jackal, who lives in luxury with the couple's two-year-old child.

Completely oblivious to her husband's nefarious career, she believes him to be a businessman whose work requires him to travel around the world.

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Although it was rather a departure from her role on Money Heist, she has told how she was drawn to the 'very different' character, who must gradually confront the truth.

'I'm used to playing characters who are powerful from the beginning and I think Nuria finds her power through the drama, so by the time she finds out the truth – that her husband is not who she thought he was – she's starting to find the strength in herself,' Ms Corbero said in a recent interview with Square Mile magazine.

'I thought, 'That's very human and inspiring as a woman.'

'Sometimes it's more inspiring to see a person who's weak at the beginning but embraces all of her strength to survive.'

Born in Barcelona, she lives in Argentina with her Argentinian actor boyfriend Chino Darin.

The pair have been together for eight years and regularly post pictures of each other on their Instagram pages, where she has amassed 20million followers.

In one collection of images, posted to celebrate his birthday, she wrote: 'Te amo infinito (I love you forever).'

She has starred in television adverts since she was five, but it was only seven years ago that she began speaking English – in an audition for the television spin-off of the Guy Ritchie film Snatch. 'The first time I started speaking English was on set, acting in English,' she admits.

'I lied. I prepared the scene phonetically and I sent the tape and then they said the director and the main lead want to meet you, and I remember on my way to the meeting I was throwing up because I was so nervous and felt like a liar.'

But her rebellious attitude has, it seems, more than paid off.

'If you want me to play a rebel character, then you have to deal with a rebel actress,' she says.