Actress Anna Friel says she was terrified when while shooting a wildlife documentary in Africa, a gorilla charged at one of her crew members.

The 37-year-old headed to Uganda in August this year to make a film highlighting the plight of mountain gorillas, but the Trip almost ended in a nightmare for her when a silverback primate turned on one of the members, reports contactmusic.com.

A Gorilla Scares Anna Friel Away! "We got charged by a silverback, which was, erm... okay! We were told to act passive and submissive but it goes against every single instinct in the body when you see a huge thing making a loud screeching noise... and you are not allowed to run," Friel told Hello magazine. "You have to stay and go, 'I'm a tree and there's a big thing running at me'. "We heard this almighty sound as one crashed through the trees towards our photographer and came this close and then swung away again.

It was like someone going, 'Yeah? Come on then,' showing their power and that it's their forest. My heart was pumping." Friel made her debut in films in 1998 in David Leland's Land Girls.

She has since then made a number of films appearing with notable co-stars as Christian Bale, Gerard Butler, Colin Farrell, Keira Knightley, Robert De Niro, Will Ferrell, and Rachel Weisz. Outside of film, Anna Friel is probably best known in the USA for her work as Charlotte "Chuck" Charles in the ABC comedy series Pushing Daisies for which she was nominated for a Golden Globe Award in 2008.