Quotes from Julie Walters

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?'

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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'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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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?'

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.