It is rare that you find a new, young actress these days who makes the audience think ‘this girl is going to be around for a long time!’ and to be really happy at the thought. With all of the negativity surrounding the image of Hollywood and what it’s actresses are accused of representing today (bad body image and bad acting) , the idea of a woman who is the personification of great acting and a true, sparkling career spanning more than three decades. And it’s about to get even more star studded…
1983 saw Julie Walters in her breakthrough role as Susan ‘Rita’ White, a film adaptation of the Willy Russell stage play of the same name. A fantastic insight into the preconceptions (which are regularly misconceptions) of the ‘glamour’ of the middle class, Rita finds herself bored of her working-class lifestyle and seeks a better life, to which she believes education holds the key. Starring alongside Sir Michael Caine, Walters displays her usual chirpy self through Rita, whose passion for literature brings about a smile to the audience every time. For Educating Rita, Walters won a well-deserved BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role and a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy, along with an Academy Award nomination. She also starred as Rita in the theatre adaptation in 1980.
Arguably one of Walters’ best and most well-known roles, Billy Elliot is a 2000 British drama film which tells the tale of a young boy who has a dream to become a successful ballet dancer. It deals with some hard-hitting themes, amongst which are the negative stereotypes of a male dancer, gender roles and what should be expected of a man in the midst of the 1984-5 coal miners’ strike in North-East England. Jamie Bell played 11-year-old Elliot, and Walters starred opposite him as Mrs Sandra Wilkinson, Billy’s dance teacher who encourages him to shrug off the stereotype and follow his heart, leading him to study at the Royal Ballet School in London. A touching story, Walters adds flair and sincerity to a character who serves as Billy’s mentor. Winning a BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role, amongst nominations for Golden Globes and a Screen Actors Guild Award, Walters’ warm and genuine form was apparent all throughout her performance, making audiences worldwide interested in ballet once more.
Going back in time once more, Walters aided Calendar Girls in gaining its British Comedy Award win for Best Comedy Film in 2003. With an ensemble cast featuring the talents of Helen Mirren, Celia Imrie, Annette Crosbie and Linda Bassett, Calendar Girls is the story of twelve friends from Yorkshire who raise money for Leukaemia Research under the unfavourable charge of The Women’s Institute in April 1999 in memory of Mirren’s late husband John who dies from the disease. The success of this film was phenomenal, and the story was adapted for the stage in 2008, resulting in a very lengthy and prosperous national tour. Touching and tragic, but gone about in a way which breaks the taboo of discussing terminal diseases, Calendar Girls was inspired by a true story; that of one of the original models, Angela Baker, and her husband John Richard Baker. John had died from non-Hodgkin's lymphoma at the age of 54 in 1998, and this prompted the story in which Walters starred.
Present in seven out of eight of the Harry Potter films from 2001 to 2011, Walters played Molly Weasley, mother to Ron Weasley and a mother figure to the boy wizard Harry Potter. Mrs Weasley is known to be fiercely protective of her large brood of red-headed youngsters, and she takes Harry under her wing without question or hesitation. Walters has been praised repeatedly for her performance as the ultimate mother in literature that is Mrs Weasley, for having the inherent ability to draw the audience in and to become a consistently likeable character no matter who she is playing. This is the role that Walters is best-known for, due to the Harry Potter franchise being adored and watched over and over again by fans of all ages worldwide.