Julie Walters

The Syringe Diversion

Julie Walters spent eighteen months cleaning wounds and taking blood pressure at a hospital in Birmingham. It was 1968, and her mother wanted her daughter to have a steady paycheck, but the future actress decided that wasn't her place. She quit nursing and moved to Manchester to study acting.

There she met Victoria Wood.

That meeting in the university cafeteria changed British comedy forever. They worked together for decades on projects such as Wood and Walters in 1981. Walters never needed to be the lead to steal the show.

The Impact of a Hairdresser

In 1983, she got her chance to break into film with Educating Rita. She had already perfected the role on stage, and the industry decided no one was better suited to star opposite Michael Caine. She won the BAFTA and earned her first Academy Award nomination.

Walters earned only a few pounds for the original stage play before the movies made her rich.

But the money didn't change the way she chose her scripts. She kept alternating between television and commercial films without missing a beat. In 1987, she shot Personal Services, in which she played the madam of an upscale brothel. It was a minor scandal that she handled with effortless ease.

From Coal Mines to Magic

The turn of the century brought her the role of the dance teacher in Billy Elliot in 2000. It earned another Oscar nomination and another BAFTA for the trophy cabinet at her home in Sussex. In that film, she proved she could be both tough and tender in the same scene.

And the gamble paid off.

Shortly after, she agreed to join one of the most profitable franchises in history. Between 2001 and 2011, she played Molly Weasley in the Harry Potter saga. She appeared in seven of the eight films and became the on-screen mother of an entire generation of moviegoers.

In 2008, she appeared in Mamma Mia!, where she had to sing and dance alongside Meryl Streep. The film grossed more than $600 million worldwide. Walters always said she had more fun shooting in Greece than in the cold studios of London.

The abrupt halt of 2018

During the filming of the Mamma Mia! sequel in 2018, the actress began to feel unwell. Doctors diagnosed her with stage three colorectal cancer. She had to undergo surgery, in which thirty centimeters of her colon were removed, and went through several rounds of chemotherapy.

That changed her priorities drastically.

In 2020, she took part in the adaptation of The Secret Garden, but her appearances have been very rare since then. She prefers the peace of her organic farm, where she lives with her husband, Grant Roffey. She only accepts voice-over work or very specific projects that don't require grueling twelve-hour shoots.

Julie Walters has eight competitive BAFTA awards and a BAFTA Fellowship, which she received in 2014 for her lifetime achievement. Her latest official box office total exceeds 3,500 million euros.