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).

Julia Mary Walters was born on 22 February 1950 at St Chad's Hospital in Edgbaston, Birmingham, England,[1][2] the daughter of Mary Bridget (née O'Brien), an Irish Catholic postal clerk from County Mayo, and Thomas Walters, an English builder and decorator.

[9] Walters later told interviewer Alison Oddey about her early schooling, "I was never going to be academic, so [my mother] suggested that I try teaching or nursing.

[11] At the age of 18, she trained as a student nurse at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham; she worked on the ophthalmic, casualty, and coronary care wards during the 18 months she spent there.

She worked for the Everyman Theatre Company in Liverpool in the mid-1970s, alongside several other notable performers and writers such as Bill Nighy, Pete Postlethwaite, Jonathan Pryce, Willy Russell, and Alan Bleasdale.

She came to national attention when she co-starred with Michael Caine in Educating Rita (1983), a role she had created on the West End stage in Willy Russell's 1980 play.

Walters appeared in the lead role of Cynthia Payne in the 1987 film Personal Services – a dramatic comedy about a British brothel owner.

[17][18] In 1993, Walters starred in the television film Wide-Eyed and Legless (known as The Wedding Gift outside the UK) alongside Jim Broadbent and Thora Hird.

The film was based on the book by the author Deric Longden and tells the story of the final years of his marriage to his wife, Diana, who contracted a degenerative illness that medical officials were unable to understand at the time, though now believed to be a form of chronic fatigue syndrome or myalgic encephalomyelitis.

In 2006, she came fourth in ITV's poll of the public's 50 Greatest Stars, coming four places above frequent co-star Victoria Wood.

[22] In 2006, she starred in the film Driving Lessons alongside Rupert Grint (who played her son Ron in Harry Potter), and had a leading role in the BBC's adaptation of Philip Pullman's novel The Ruby in the Smoke.

[23] The novel, concerning a group of English actors in Manhattan and published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson, was described as "a disturbing and thought-provoking novel about mental torment and the often blackly comic, mixed-up ways we view ourselves and misread each other.".

She also appeared alongside Patrick Stewart in UK Nintendo DS Brain Training television advertisements, and in a series of public information films about smoke alarms.

Walters commented, "I am very excited to be playing Mary Whitehouse, and to be looking at the time when she attacked the BBC and started to make her name.

[31][32] In July 2012, Walters appeared in the BBC Two production The Hollow Crown as Mistress Quickly in Shakespeare's Henry IV, Parts I and II.

[35] On 18 November 2012, Walters appeared on stage at St Martin's Theatre in the West End for a 60th anniversary performance of Agatha Christie's The Mousetrap, the world's longest-running play.

[40] Walters played the part of Cynthia Coffin in the ten-part British drama serial Indian Summers aired on Channel 4 in 2015.

The graphical system aims to aid the viewing experience of the games by debunking the often confusing classifications that govern Paralympic sport.

[41] Set in London during the depression, Walters played Ellen, Michael's and Jane's long-time housekeeper, in Mary Poppins Returns (2018).

[44] On 25 December 2021 Channel 4 aired The Abominable Snow Baby, in which Walters appeared as Granny, providing her voice for the animated television short film.

[52] He was invited to repair Walters' washing machine, a whirlwind romance ensued and the couple became parents to their only child, a daughter, whom they named Maisie Mae Roffey (born 26 April 1988).

[55] Walters did not announce her illness to the public until February 2020, when she said in an interview with Victoria Derbyshire that she would be taking a step back from acting, particularly from large and demanding film roles.