Blackheath’s Jude Law will star alongside Oscar winner Diane Keaton in a new eight episode series from Sky and HBO.

Law, himself a two-time Academy Award nominee, will play the lead role of Pius XIII – formerly known as Lenny Belardo - in The Young Pope.

A joint production between Sky, Canal+ and HBO (the guys who showed Game of Thrones, The Sopranos and The Wire in the States), the series will be directed by another Paolo Sorrentino, whose film The Great Beauty won an Oscar in 2013.

Production begins this week, with Keaton playing Sister Mary, a US nun now living in Vatican City.

The Young Pope tells the controversial story of the beginning of Pius XIII’s life as pope, having been born Lenny Belardo.

Describing the series, Paolo Sorrentino said: “The clear signs of God’s existence. The clear signs of God’s absence. How faith can be searched for and lost.

"The greatness of holiness, so great as to be unbearable when you are fighting temptations and when all you can do is to yield to them.

"The inner struggle between the huge responsibility of the Head of the Catholic Church and the miseries of the simple man that fate (or the Holy Spirit) chose as Pontiff.

"Finally, how to handle and manipulate power in a state whose dogma and moral imperative is the renunciation of power and selfless love towards one’s neighbour. That is what The Young Pope is about.”