So many foreigners have moved into the Gers region of south-west France that an American remake of the Three Musketeers being shot there is having trouble finding bucolic locals to fill the crowd scenes.

"We want faces with character, faces that have been marked by a peasant life. All we can come up with here are sleek urban physiognomies," said Dominique Lafitte of Ciné 32, the French company charged with hiring the extras for the new swashbuckler, D'Artagnan.

The director, Peter Hyams, whose previous films include Timecop, Sudden Death and End of Days, has cast an American model, Justin Chambers, in the title role of the £35m epic. Tim Roth (pictured) is playing Athos and Catherine Deneuve the queen of France.

But attempts to find 700 careworn peasants for scenes to be shot next month on location in Gers and nearby Haute-Garonne have floundered.

D'Artagnan, Athos, Porthos and Aramis, the heroes of three hugely successful novels by Alexandre Dumas, originally hailed from Gascony, an ancient French duchy now divided into several administrative districts, including Gers, Haute-Garonne and Lot.

According to the latest census, more than 700 Britons, 400 Dutch and 300 Germans live permanently in the Gers, while hundreds - possibly thousands - more own holiday homes. Meanwhile the native population has fallen by as much as 50% over the past half-century.