In between promoting Billy Elliot, in which she plays a dance teacher, Britain's most versatile actress does a spot of sightseeing
ENTER the dragon. Or, at least, that's the phrase which springs to mind when Julie Walters walks into the room. It's the green, see-through, plastic cape with the hood that does it. And why is Britain's finest, funniest, most versatile actress wearing a green, see-through cape with a hood? For theatrical effect perhaps? A cry for attention maybe?
No. It's because it's raining outside. Not just any old rain, by the way. It's of monsoon dimensions. Wall-to-wall wet. And Walters has been out in it, braving the elements with her 12-year-old daughter, Maisie.
The cape once removed, you very soon realise that anyone less like a dragon it would be hard to meet. First, she apologises for being late. Unnecessary, really, since her tardiness can be counted in minutes on the fingers of one hand, provided that hand has lost a thumb.
Showbiz-on-time usually means at least an hour late, showbiz-late can mean days, even months. So, time being a relative concept to most movie stars, you could say that Julie Walters is early for our appointment. We are in a small, spartan, meeting room in Edinburgh's Caledonian Hotel. There is a table upon which there is a pen and a writing pad. There are two leather chairs, facing each other across the table. It looks like the set-up for a job interview. ''So, tell me, Ms Walters, why do you want this job?'' One imagines that it is not the kind of scenario she is ever faced with, not the kind of question she is ever asked.
More likely they come knocking on her door, pleading with her to take a part in their movie, a role in their TV series. The luxury of success is that you don't have to go in search of it.
There is no-one like Julie Walters. She is an ordinary woman of extraordinary talent and ability. Actors who can make you laugh and cry are a rare enough breed - but she is unique because she can make you do both at the same time.
Walters is in town to promote her new film, screening at the film festival. It is called Billy Elliot and, chances are, you've never heard of it. But you will. You will. Indeed, it might very possibly be the best film you'll see this year.
It's a delightful coming-of-age tale about the eponymous Billy, a young, working- class Derbyshire lad who discovers an
unexpected love for dance and who, against all the odds, embarks on a journey of self-discovery which might - just might - lead him to the Royal Ballet School. Set against the backdrop of the 1984 miners' strike, it is destined to bring a lump to the throat and a joyous tear to the eye of even the most hardened cinema-goer.
T'was the script by playwright Lee Evans (Spoonface Steinberg) which first attracted Walters to the movie. It was ever thus for
the Brummie-born actress. She plays the world-weary dance teacher who discovers something special in Billy and inspires him to do all that he can do. ''It was just such an unusual, thoughtful, script. The character I play is a woman who has been disappointed in life and along comes this little boy who can be everything she could never be. It is a lovely relationship,'' she explains.
Billy Elliot is a triumph for director Stephen Daldry who was, until recently, director of the Royal Court Theatre. This is his first movie. Walters expresses her hope that Daldry's success, together with that of Sam Mendes's Oscar-winning film debut, American Beauty, signals the start of a trend which will see more and more
theatrical directors moving into celluloid.
''I really hope there's a huge move in that direction. Because they realise that it's not all technical; it's not having to be a slave to the camera.
''With some film directors it's all about 'Here's your mark, stand exactly there . . .' But with Stephen we'd go into a corner and work out a scene in terms of who the characters were and what they would do in certain situations,'' she says.
One situation in which she was not entirely comfortable, however, was the scene in which she was expected to combine body movement with music and a sense of rhythm. They call that dancing for short. Curiously for an actress, the old tap and
ballet routines have never played a role in her life thus far.
''God, it was hard work,'' she recalls. ''I looked like the elephant in Fantasia. I'd never done dance training before and, when you get older, it's hard to learn.
''It's difficult to get your head around it. It's because you have to use your physical memory. It doesn't matter that you remember it in your head, you have to remember it in your body.''
It is at this point that, in an attempt perhaps to convince herself that she can still remember it, she suddenly jumps from her seat and performs an impromptu Highland fling around the room.
I permit the lady a moment's grace to allow her breathing to return to normal (which, for a 50-year-old, takes a surprisingly short time) before remarking, truthfully, that once upon a time she helped to re-affirm my own socialist credentials. It wasn't just her, of course. It was her and the rest of the cast - and, most importantly, the writer Alan Bleasdale - in Boys From The Blackstuff, surely the best drama in the history of British television.
Walters smiles, knowingly. I think she has heard this kind of line before. Even today, nearly 20 years after the anti-Thatcher series was first shown, she remains a loyal servant of Bleasdale (GBH, Jake's Progress, Melissa, Oliver Twist . . . I can't think of any of his work in which she hasn't appeared).
''We have a great friendship,'' she explains. ''He is always there for me. He's great to work with. When we were making Oliver Twist he wasn't around and it wasn't the same. You really missed him.''
Bleasdale, of course, brings a political dimension to much of his work. And, in a similar way, so, too, does the writer and the director of Billy Elliot.
It is something which touched Julie
Walters when she was making the movie. ''Have you been to Ellington?'' she asks, referring to the town and now disused
colliery in the North-east of England where the film was shot.
''People just don't realise how these communities have been completely devastated. There's huge unemployment, drugs are rife, it's just so sad.
''When we were filming in the town the one thing that people there said was, 'Don't run us down.' And I don't think in any way that we did. There was a strange kind of beauty in the place.''
Remarks like that can, and often do, sound trite and condescending when they come from the mouths of some actors. But you
can tell that Julie Walters means it. It's in
the eyes.
Our time is up. Someone appears with a brochure for an open-top bus tour. Julie is planning to show Maisie (now happily recovered from her lengthy battle with leukemia, by the way) the Edinburgh sights. You may well have seen the pair of
them. They were wearing matching green, see-through, plastic capes with hoods.
Exit the dragon.
