New BBC thriller starring Peaky Blinders' Joe Cole is so gruesome it 'made stars throw up on set'

Joe Cole has revealed the reason why the cast of his new thriller series were left feeling nauseous during filming.

Thanks to his roles in violent and gritty crime dramas such as Gangs of London and Peaky Blinders, you'd think that Cole would have a strong stomach when it came to acting. However, it turns out there was one particular thing on set which made his - and the rest of his co-stars' - stomachs churn during production for his new series.

Premiering on 15 September, the six-parter will see Cole play the role of an off-duty policeman who finds himself caught up in a cyber attack while on a train.

Watch the trailer for the new series below:

Titled Nightsleeper, the BBC series explores the dangers of cyber attacks after an overnight train travelling from Glasgow to London is hacked and taken over remotely by attackers.

Now, in a race against tim,e Joe Roag (Cole) must now work with off-duty National Cyber Security Centre acting technical director Abby Aysgarth (Alexandra Roach) in order to save the lives of everyone on board. However, as the story progresses, it becomes apparent that those responsible for the attack may actually be onboard and hiding amongst the passengers.

David Threlfall, Ruth Madeley, James Cosmo, Katie Leung and Sharon Rooney also star in the series.

When it came to recreating the effect of a high-speed train during filming, Cole explained that scenes were filmed on a stationary train, while screens displaying fast moving landscapes were played at the windows to create the effect of train hurtling down the country on screen.

Joe Cole in Nightsleeper (BBC)

Although the effect will look good on screen, the actor has since revealed the filming conditions were less than fun for the actors involved, revealing in an interview with The Sun that the flickering landscapes left the cast feeling particularly queasy.

"We were cooped up in these small carriages for 10, 12 hours a day and they had pre-recorded the entirety of the train journey exteriors from Aberdeen to London on LED screens, which were outside the train," he explained.

"You feel like you're on a train, people were getting motion sickness if they looked out of the window for too long. The lighting in the windows saves a lot of time in the edit and just looks more realistic.

"You couldn't escape this chaos. But it was part of the fun."

Nightsleeper will premiere on BBC One from Sunday, 15 September. All six episodes will also be available on iPlayer.