Trivia / Julie Walters

• Awesome, Dear Boy: She accepted Gnomeo & Juliet for this reason.
  "When someone offers you a part in a film where Romeo and Juliet are played by gnomes, you can't really turn it down. You only ever see my character's legs in the film - lovely tree stumps they are too - and I'll admit, by the end of the film I was so moved I started crying. I thought to myself, "Julie, pull yourself together - they're gnomes for goodness sake!"
• Dyeing for Your Art: She shaved her head for her role in Mo.
• Fake Irish: She plays the Irish landlady Mrs Keogh in Brooklyn. While she does have Irish ancestry, she has to fake an accent.
• Fake Scot: As Mrs Bird in Paddington and as the witch in Brave.
• Friendship on the Set: She and Michael Caine became good friends on the set of Educating Rita, and she considered him her mentor.
• Money, Dear Boy: She mainly did the film Mack the Knife to pay off her mortgage.
• The Other Darrin: She replaces the late Hermione Badderley in the role of Ellen for Mary Poppins Returns.
• Playing Against Type:
  • When she was best known for quirkier or more outlandish roles, she was surprised to be offered the more sensitive and emotional Annie in Calendar Girls, initially thinking she'd been asked by mistake.
  • Her character Petula in dinnerladies is a rotten person who put her daughter into care because she was "cramping my style".
• Star-Making Role: Before the Sleeper Hit Educating Rita, she had only done theatre and small parts on television. Her BAFTA winning performance immediately put her on the map. She did however actively turn down more mainstream Hollywood films until the 2000s.
• Those Two Actors: Frequently starred with Victoria Wood, and has also starred alongside Colin Firth in four films.
• Underage Casting: She plays the mother of Victoria Wood in dinnerladies, despite only being three years older than her. Indeed, the latter was afraid to ask her at first, but Julie was happy to, stating "everybody thinks I'm 55 anyway".
• What Could Have Been:
  • The film version of Educating Rita was briefly considered to be set in America with Paul Newman and Dolly Parton as Frank and Rita, but the producers wanted to stay true to the play's Liverpudlian roots. They were also unsure about casting Julie, since she was an unknown, but were able to once Michael Caine came on board.
  • Among many Hollywood roles she turned down was the 1985 adaptation of King Solomon's Mines, which would eventually be played by Sharon Stone.
  • It was between her and Lesley Nicol, who would later be best known as Mrs Patmore in Downton Abbey, for the role of Molly Weasley.