Mexican gunmen tried to abduct actress Catherine Zeta-Jones on Friday, according to reports.

The wife of actor Michael Douglas, and mother-of-two, was returning from a film location when the attackers tried to force her limousine off the road in San Luis Potosi, four hours north of Mexico City, the reports said. But her bodyguards, who were in another vehicle, rammed the gunmen's car, which allowed her driver to speed away.

The gunmen then fled, chased by the other bodyguards, who called in local police.

Four men were arrested in connection with the case, the reports quoted the police as saying.

The 34-year-old actress is due to be in Mexico until Christmas working on the sequel to the 1998 movie, The Mask of Zorro.

Mexico is notorious as one of the kidnap capitals of the world.