Not only is the London-based actress expecting her third child with boyfriend Mark Griffiths and due to star on stage in Ibsen’s The Doll’s House next spring, she has also finally fulfilled a long-held ambition to play legendary war correspondent Martha Gellhorn on the big screen.

Gillian, 39, who has recently reprised her most famous role as Dana Scully in a new X Files flick, will play the reporter, who covered conflicts from the Spanish Civil War to Vietnam, as well as enduring a troubled five-year marriage to author Ernest Hemingway.

Anderson has long been an admirer of Gellhorn, who died in 1998.

The actress’s company bought the rights to the biography Gellhorn: A Twentieth Century Life, but found it difficult to get a movie version off the ground.

Now industry sources say she has secured financial backing and filming will begin next year.

“Gillian has been desperate to play this role,” says a film source. “We were beginning to wonder if it would ever happen but filming will begin next year.

“Gillian has rarely been so excited about a part.”