Julie Walters

Dame Julia Mary Walters (born 22 February 1950), known professionally as Julie Walters, is an English actress and comedian. She is the recipient of four British Academy Television Awards, two British Academy Film Awards, two International Emmy Awards, a Golden Globe Award, and an Olivier Award. Walters has been nominated for two Academy Awards across acting categories—once for Best Actress and once for Best Supporting Actress. She was honoured with the BAFTA Fellowship for lifetime achievement in 2014. She was made a Dame (DBE) by Queen Elizabeth II in 2017 for services to drama.

Walters rose to prominence playing the title role in Educating Rita (1983), a part she originated in the West End production of the stage play upon which the film was based. She has appeared in many other films, including Personal Services (1987); Prick Up Your Ears (1987); Buster (1988); Stepping Out (1991); Sister My Sister (1994); Girls' Night (1998); Titanic Town (1998); Billy Elliot (2000); seven out of eight Harry Potter films (2001–2011); Calendar Girls (2003); Becoming Jane (2007); Mamma Mia! (2008) and its 2018 sequel; Paddington (2014) and its sequels in 2017 and 2024; Brooklyn (2015); Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool (2017); and Mary Poppins Returns (2018). On stage, she won an Olivier Award for Best Actress for the 2001 revival of All My Sons.

On television, Walters collaborated regularly with Victoria Wood; their projects included: Talent (1979), Nearly a Happy Ending (1980), Happy Since I Met You (1981), Wood and Walters (1981), Victoria Wood: As Seen on TV (1985–1987), Pat and Margaret (1994), and dinnerladies (1998–2000). She has won the British Academy Television Award for Best Actress four times, more than any other performer, for her roles in My Beautiful Son (2001), Murder (2002), The Canterbury Tales (2003), and Mo (2010). Walters and Helen Mirren are the only actresses to have won this award three consecutive times, and Walters is tied with Judi Dench for most nominations in the category with seven. She is the only actress to win the International Emmy Award for Best Actress twice, for her roles in A Short Stay in Switzerland (2009) and Mo (2010). In 2006, the British public voted Walters fourth in ITV's poll of TV's 50 Greatest Stars.