I can understand why people get annoyed at being remembered for one thing, but a lot of actors aren’t remembered for anything. I don’t mind that. – Julie Walters
I’ll tell you how it happened. The phone rang. Paul, my agent, goes, ‘Would you like to play Meryl Streep’s?’ I said, ‘Yeeees! I’ll do it, whatever it is.’ He said, ‘It’s Mamma Mia!.’ I said, ‘Oh no, which character? The fat friend? – Julie Walters
I’m massively talented, and very, very beautiful in person; the public don’t really realise that. – Julie Walters
I was asked about doing a nude shoot for men’s magazine GQ. I thought it was the funniest thing I’d ever heard. – Julie Walters
My grandmother lived with us for a short time while I was a child. Old people tend to be slightly more eccentric – they can behave the way they want. – Julie Walters
Suddenly, you are very much in the present, and you learn it’s really the place where you should always live. – Julie Walters
Sixty felt like a big landmark. Not in a dreadful sense, but none of the other birthdays have bothered me. It’s got labels on it – OAP, retirement – and I just wanted to take stock. I wanted to be in my greenhouse at home and at least give myself the opportunity of not working again. – Julie Walters
The way I relax is I think, ‘I haven’t got anything coming up.’ I like to know there are months ahead when I’ve got nothing. – Julie Walters
It’s getting better but men still earn more and there are more jobs for them. Ageism is a big thing. Parts for women disappear as you get older. – Julie Walters
I think comedy’s something you can’t learn. It’s an instinct, which makes it rather elusive. – Julie Walters
I always loved my mother, felt loved, but she was judgmental. Her father in Ireland didn’t approve of women generally, and she took on his values. She believed her own mother was foolish. – Julie Walters
I keep seeing myself in my daughter, and I see my mother in me and in her. Bloody hell. – Julie Walters
There were all us baby boomers who had a grammar school education, started to learn, then went on the pill, the whole thing, and so there are today a lot more women writers, editors, producers, and so a lot more women’s stories. God, the BBC’s practically run by women. – Julie Walters
As soon as I gave birth, it was as if you understand them. They become people, not kids. You start to identify with them. You see yourself in them. – Julie Walters
It’s getting better generally, daily, especially in TV, for women in acting; and age and looks count less. As more women come into the business. Change of any sort takes a long time to happen. – Julie Walters
Being a mother adds another emotional dimension, a feel for children that I didn’t have before I had one. They were a pain before. – Julie Walters
I felt my mother about the place. I don’t think she haunts me, but I wouldn’t put it past her. – Julie Walters
I was always someone who lived in the future all the time, it was always the next thing – dreams of escape. – Julie Walters
I remember Michael saying, ‘Rich and famous? It’s much better to be just rich’. I didn’t quite get it to begin with. But he’s right. You lose anonymity. I say to my family that you’ve no idea until you lose it how precious anonymity is. – Julie Walters
I never wanted to become an actress because I’d read great literature or seen great Shakespeare. It was more just wanting to understand what the people were really like, why they said all the strange things they did. – Julie Walters
