Arnold Schwarzenegger is back on set as a small-town sheriff in his first starring role since stepping down as governor of California and admitting to fathering a child with the family maid.

Lionsgate studios said Mr Schwarzenegger, 64, has begun work on the set of The Last Stand, directed by South Korean Jee-woon Kim, in which the actor will play his first starring role since 2003’s Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines.

Mr Schwarzenegger, who stepped down in January after seven years as governor of California, will play a former Los Angeles cop who becomes a small-town sheriff on the Mexican border, where he hunts a drug trafficker wanted by the FBI.

The film is due to be released in 2013.

The former bodybuilder and film star put his Hollywood comeback plans on hold after admitting in May that he had fathered a child with his former housekeeper a decade earlier.

His wife Maria Shriver filed for divorce soon after, citing “irreconcilable differences” with her husband, whom she met in 1977 and married in 1986.

Prior to the love child revelations, Mr Schwarzenegger had started to return to show business, with plans for a “Govern-ator” comic book and animated TV show in which an ex-governor turned superhero would fight crime and natural disasters.

He will also star alongside fellow aging action stars Sylvester Stallone and Bruce Willis in The Expendables 2, set to come out next year.