Julie Walters

Julie: 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: 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.

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

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

Julie: I can understand why people get annoyed at being remembered for one thing, but a lot of actors aren't remembered for anything.

Julie: 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: I'm interested in politics. I'm interested in what's going on in the world. How people behave and how your life is often in the hands of other people. My mother was Irish, so I was very aware of the Irish problem, even before 1969. My mother was always going on about absentee landlords, and the English. It was fascinating.

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

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

Julie: My mother hated me abandoning it. I had to get my two brothers and father to stand between me and her when I handed in my notice. She then said if I took up acting I'd be in the gutter by the time I was 20.
In her new autobiography, Julie writes about the turbulent relationship with her mother, after she quit a nursing qualification for acting.