Claire Danes films boat scenes with co-star Frank Dillane on the set of The Essex Serpent

Claire Danes sports a grey Victorian dress as she films boat scenes with co-star Frank Dillane on the set of The Essex Serpent in Mersea Island

She’s taken over from Hollywood star Keira Knightley in the lead role.

And Claire Danes appeared in good spirits as she continued filming for The Essex Serpent off the coast of Mersea Island on Wednesday.

The Homeland star, 41, transformed into a Victorian beauty in an elegant grey dress as she shared a laugh with her co-star Frank Dillane for the Apple+TV series.    

Busy bee: Claire Danes appeared in good spirits as she continued filming for The Essex Serpent off the coast of Mersea Island on Wednesday 

Claire replaced Keira Knightley in The Essex Serpent back in February, with first-look images of the star in character released last week. 

She wore a high-necked velvet dress and her hair in an elegant up-do as she portrayed the newly widowed protagonist Cora.

The series follows Claire’s character as she relocates from Victorian London to a small village in Essex after leaving an abusive marriage.

She chooses to move to the town of Aldwinter after becoming intrigued by a local superstition that a creature known as The Essex Serpent lives in the area. 

Amazing: The Homeland star, 41, transformed into a Victorian beauty in an elegant grey dress as she shared a laugh with her co-star Frank Dillane for the Apple+TV series

Amazing: The Homeland star, 41, transformed into a Victorian beauty in an elegant grey dress as she shared a laugh with her co-star Frank Dillane for the Apple+TV series

Based on the novel of the same name by Sarah Perry, Claire will also be joined on screen by Tom Hiddleston, 40.  

The Night Manager actor looked well and truly in character in the newly released images as he donned his reverend costume. 

Tom plays Will Ransome, the trusted leader of the local community and can be seen in an image from the series sporting a brown coat and black jumper.

Variety reported in February that Claire would take on the lead role in the show after Keira dropped out of the project last October due to the Covid-19 pandemic.   

Clio Bernard is set to direct the series while writer Anna Symon is adapting the novel for the screen.

Tom will next be seen as his Marvel character Loki in an upcoming spin-off series which sees him travel through time and alter human history after stealing the Tesseract during the events of Avengers: Endgame. 

The actor’s Loki has been one of the longest-running recurring characters in Marvel’s connected film universe, starting with Thor in 2011. 

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