Quotes By Julie Walters

I'm more selective now I've got a family. I don't want to work all the time. My daughter's 12; I don't want to miss out on her life. Soon she'll be a teenager; she won't want me around.

There is this idea that appealing to youth is the only way forward. But that is no longer the case. Youth is not everything. Now we have all the baby-boomers in their 60s, like me, who are actively engaged in life - we're not retiring, we're not just being put out to grass once we hit 60.

I'd love to be in another film, but they haven't asked me. I think it's a shame but the prospects of me doing another one now are remote. Please do campaign on my behalf.

Jane Austen was an extraordinary woman; to actually be able to survive as a novelist in those days - unmarried - was just unheard of.

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?

I was the little, funny one. I felt I was the child among grown women.

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.

I wanted above all else not to be like my mum.

I was having my teens in my 30s.

I don't know if you can change things, but it's a drop in the ocean.

I think comedy's something you can't learn. It's an instinct, which makes it rather elusive.

You can't help but feel a little bit like a mother to the younger cast members.

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.

I went through bits of the 60s and thought myself a bit of a hippy.

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.

Some people have a terrible stretch between family and work. It is a difficult thing to achieve.

It seems that when you get to a certain age you almost give yourself permission to misbehave and say what you think. People allow it, with very old people.

I felt my mother about the place. I don't think she haunts me, but I wouldn't put it past her.

Debate is so much better than denial.

Some of the most interesting questions needing to be asked today can best be asked on television, or on stage, and they can be wonderful, great dramas, but they won't necessarily be blockbusters.

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.

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.

My mother was born on a tiny farm in County Mayo. She was meant to stay at home and look after the farm while her brother and sister got an education. However, she came to England on a visit and never went back.

I couldn't watch Tom and Jerry. The cruelty was too much. I had all these strange images, of tiny animals, all mixed up.