Julie Walters quotes:

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

Oh all the time when Victoria Wood and I did our series. There were people asking 'Can women be funny?' People still ask that. It's like asking: 'Can women breathe in and out?'

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.

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.

Suddenly, you are very much in the present, and you learn it's really the place where you should always live.

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.

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.

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.

I keep seeing myself in my daughter, and I see my mother in me and in her. Bloody hell.

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.

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.

It's very strong after the birth. It's extraordinary. You can't watch anything to do with kids being harmed.

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

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.

I was always someone who lived in the future all the time, it was always the next thing - dreams of escape.

I don't like being out of the crowd. It's lonely within a group.

It wasn't being an alcoholic - it was going wild. It happened when I got famous. It was like having my teens in my early thirties: blotting out your life, not having to think about anything.

Along the way I have been able to choose some themes which ask questions - not necessarily force a message on anyone, but at least invite the audience to question things: jury service, dignity in dying, Ireland - and not least because they force me to ask myself questions. Where do I stand?

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

I was asked about doing a nude shoot for men's magazine GQ. I thought it was the funniest thing I'd ever heard.

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'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.

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.

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

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.

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.

I didn't come into the business to get awards or titles.

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.

That's why I'm an actress - escaping into a world.

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

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?

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

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.

Everyone comes up to me saying, 'Cooee, Julie! Hello!' as if I know them. Of course I don't bloody know them. Am I flummoxed by it? Sometimes. I think, 'Ooh, love, go easy.' For a time, I did feel this pressure that I had to be funny, but it passes.

The money isn't a lure. I've done very well out of this business.

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

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

We have to take risks with art. If we don't, it all becomes a bit boring.

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

Debate is so much better than denial.

When I think of the future, I think of doing my washing so I've something to wear tomorrow.

I don't want to give up acting - it's what I am.

I never had any acting heroes. I never really went to the theatre.

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

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.

The characters do have a life of their own; it's weird.

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.

I can talk myself so much into my part.

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.

In order to be creative you have to be allowed to fail.

I was feeling very irritable. It was that difficult time of the month when the credit card statement arrives.

I'd like to think there'll be too much of real life going on for me to want to do much acting.

I'm writing a novel about two actresses who go to New York, because that's what I know about. One has lost touch with reality, disappears and is picked up by a man.

Self worth is everything. Without it life is a misery.

We have to take risks with art. If we don't, it all becomes a bit boring

I'm massively talented, and very, very beautiful in person; the public don't really realise that.

There were people asking 'Can women be funny?' People still ask that. It's like asking: 'Can women breathe in and out?'

I'm too young at 50. I'm not grown up yet. There's part of everybody like that.

I've never done so much bloody crying in my life. I was always moaning about how hard it was when we were shooting, how awful I felt.

Stage is the most exciting. Film is lovely, because it's like a family.

I'm interested in politics, what's going on in the world, how people behave and how your life is often in the hands of other people.

I was having my teens in my 30s.

I read "Pride and Prejudice" [by Jane Austen]. I was gobsmacked by it - it's so funny and so modern. Unbelievable. You don't expect funny to come through after 200 years - humor doesn't transcend decades, let alone centuries.

Shakespeare - it's not funny. No matter how they try to make Shakespeare funny, when it's meant to be funny it's not funny.

I do find it therapeutic, writing about stuff that was frightening and painful as a child, and managing to see it from an adult's point of view. To get it out of the closet onto paper, metaphorically speaking, is therapeutic.