For years, Julie Walters felt her mum wasn't proud of her. Then she found a box of newspaper clippings.

Growing up, British actor Dame Julie Walters never felt like her mother loved her.

Raised in the working-class areas of Liverpool, her mother Mary was an Irish postal clerk who was stern on religion and order among her kids.

"Mum made all of us feel that we weren't good enough. When my brother got a first-class honours degree, she said, 'It's just theology'. She simply wasn't able to say, 'You're really good, you're really clever!'" Walters wrote in her autobiography That's Another Story.

Walters had always dreamed of a life in the theatre and entertainment industry, saying "making people laugh made me feel good". But she explained that her mother guided her down the path of being a nurse rather acting, so that's where she went. 

"I did it because I thought it was what I should do," Walters said to Now To Love about nursing college. "It was an awful school and I spent a lot of my days being scared by the nuns – that sternness and a set of rigid rules."

So a year or so into nursing school, she decided to quit and began studying theatre and acting.

"My mother didn't approve and my dad did. My mother – like most parents – was scared. It was a world she didn't know about and it was precarious. It wasn't a reliable thing like nursing, so she was frightened."

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It wasn't until she reached her 30s that Walters found her footing in the acting world, with the hit film Educating Rita. And what would follow would be a string of classics including her role as Molly Weasley in the Harry Potter movies, Billy Elliot, Paddington and Mamma Mia!

But despite the massive success, Walters continued to feel as though her mother wasn't proud of what she had achieved. And it hurt.

"There's definitely that need for love and approval. There are moments when I think, 'I'm not good enough'."

Her mother refused to watch her early roles, and it was only after she died in 1989 that Walters discovered her mum had kept newspaper clippings charting her career.

"She never told me she was proud of me. She'd never say anything like that. And that's fine. I know she was. But 40 years ago, there would have still been anger there. There's not now. I understand her far more now than when she was still here."

In 1987, Walters met her now-husband, Grant Roffey, who worked as a patrolman driver for AA, similar to Australia's NRMA.

By 1988, they had welcomed their only child together, Maisie Mae Roffey. In 1997, they married. 

"I thought, if it doesn't work out with this man, how could it work with anyone? His support over the years has been everything to me," Walters said to Female First in 2017. "Home is the place where I feel most content and happiest."

Julie Walters and her husband of over 35 years, Grant Roffey. Image: Getty.

In 2018, Walters had to temporarily quit acting when she was diagnosed with stage-three bowel cancer.

After experiencing pain in the stomach she went to her doctor, only to hear the words: "I think it's cancer." She said to Now To Love that when she told her husband Grant once the diagnosis was confirmed, "his eyes filled with tears".

"It was all so fast. It all happened so quickly that I didn't have time to build up [fear] – I just wanted it taken out and that's what happened."

After an operation and chemotherapy, Walters received the all-clear, saying it was an obvious relief.

"Something as life-changing as that makes you reassess your life and I think that's always a gift."

As for what Walters would tell her younger self? She explained to the Irish Times that it would come down to finding confidence and security in herself. 

"I'd say you're good enough. You're good enough. Know that down to your marrow. You are good enough."

Nowadays, Walter said she prefers to live a quieter life and plans to pull back on the films she accepts. She now lives on a farm in the countryside in Sussex with her husband, which is far more peaceful than being regularly photographed in London.

As she said to The Guardian: "There are only so many times you want to appear in the Daily Mail looking terrible."

Julie Walters in one of her most recent film roles, Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again! Image: Universal Pictures.

"I'm not interested in winning awards – I'm taking time out," she said. "I think they're very important for the business and I'm really grateful for the awards that I've won; that's been wonderful for me. I never came into it to win prizes."

It makes sense for someone who has regularly spoken about the fact she feels more comfortable in a pair of tracksuit bottoms with a mug of green tea. And on their farm, they have 40 head of cattle, 300 sheep, a few pigs, 700 chickens, and turkeys. 

"It is hard work. The cows love him [husband Grant]. He calls to them and they call back."

Walters said to Great British Life: "I enjoy having two personas, two identities. My luck is that I get to do some extraordinary jobs, but I really do have this amazing domestic streak. I will stand there staring at two bottles of bleach [at the supermarket] like I am in a trance for what seems like hours making my mind up."

And Walters said that now at the age of 72, she has never felt more secure in herself. But what she's also learned is to tell those around her that she loves them, rather than leaning on "British stoicism".

"My friends will say to me, 'I really love you', and I'll say, 'I really love you, too'," she said to Stylist. "If someone is important to you, it's important to say it, but it's hard for some people and you know they love you whether they say it or not."

Feature Image: Getty/Warner Bros. Pictures/Universal Pictures/Mamamia.