Quotes from Julie Andrews

More than anything, the arts are the best teaching tool.

If the director says you can do better, particularly in a love scene, then it is rather embarrassing.

There are elements of me in the roles I've played in the past. But people forget that Mary Poppins was just a role, too.

I had toured around England endlessly throughout my teens, but when I came to the U.S. to perform on Broadway, that was a huge step.

Touring itself - and I was very young, and a lot of it I did by myself - it's lonely, but it does give you some kind of spine, I think. It does give you some kind of grit.

It's all about giving back, helping people and encouraging people. I love to do that.

My mum gave me pretty good genes in that department. She had gorgeous skin. That good English complexion. She never seemed to have a blemish that I knew of.

As you become older, you become less judgmental and take offense less. But marriage is hard work; the illusion that you get married and live happily ever after is absolute rubbish.

Life is Supercalifragilisticexpialidocius.

I was fortunate enough to work at the peak of the great golden age of musicals. And then for awhile, I think they were being advanced in different ways. Andrew Lloyd-Webber brought the rock beat to musicals; people tried different things. The joy of musicals is that there is no perfect recipe; it is what you throw into it.

If you're lucky enough to be able to have therapy -- because I know it's very privileged -- it gets rid of so much garbage and enables you to focus on what's important. When I first went into analysis, my mother was absolutely horrified. She thought I'd be a loony!

Every time I do anything, I have to ask myself: Is it a good role, and is it right to do it? There may be sex or nudity or violence in the script, and then you have to say: Is it gratuitous just out to shock people? Or is it there because it has to be? If a role demands it, and it isn't gratuitous, I'll do it. It's my job, after all. I'm an actress.