The 31-year-old actress was unharmed during the ordeal and police have arrested the intruder and charged him.

Police say the man, 32-year-old security guard Guy Dukes, did not touch Judd and left her rural home when asked to go.

Boyfriend Dario Franchitti gave chase

Judd's boyfriend, top British racing driver Dario Franchitti, then followed him until police were able to corner Dukes in a car park and arrest him, according to reports.

Dukes, from Kentucky, was charged with criminal trespassing and impersonating a police officer. He is being held in the Williamson County Jail and officials say a court date has not yet been set.

There is speculation that Dukes may have been inspired by Judd's earlier role in the 1997 serial killer thriller, Kiss The Girls.

In the film Judd plays a woman alone in her home who is stalked by a psychotic police officer.

Judd is currently starring opposite Tommy Lee Jones in Double Jeopardy, a thriller about a housewife accused of murder.

The film opened at No 1 in the US last weekend and brought in an estimated $24m (£15m) - almost twice as much as the previous week's number one film, Blue Streak.

Ashley Judd has previously appeared in the Al Pacino and Robert De Niro thriller Heat (1995), and in director Wayne Wang's 1995 film Smoke.

More recently she starred alongside Ewan McGregor in Eye of the Beholder (1999).