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‘Indian Summer’ firms Walter’s lofty accolades

By Susan King, Los Angeles Times
Published: October 2, 2015, 5:30am

Julie Walters has joined such legends as Maggie Smith, Judi Dench and Helen Mirren as a grande dame of the British acting community. But if it wasn’t for her boyfriend’s suggestion, Walters could have ended up with an entirely difficult career.

At her mother’s urging, she was studying to be a nurse. She liked the work but knew that it was acting, not nursing, that was her true love.

Halfway through her nursing course, Walters told herself she had to leave the profession or she’d be stuck there for life. “I was working on a ward where a sister (a nurse) was 67. She still lived in the nurses’ home. I said, ‘Oh, my God, that could be me.’ ”

Luckily, she had a boyfriend who lived in Manchester. “He said, ‘They do drama up here,’ ” Walters said, referring to the school where she studied, which is now called Manchester Metropolitan University. “I applied and got in. I knew when I was auditioning I was doing the right thing.”

Over the decades, Walters, 65, has poured her heart into such films as 1983’s “Educating Rita” and 2000’s “Billy Elliot” — she received Oscar nominations for both roles. In the upcoming film adaptation of the novel “Brooklyn” she has a wonderful comic turn as the blunt proprietor of a boardinghouse that caters to Irish girls living in that borough in the 1950s.

Walters is equally adept at comedy and drama and brings an endearing, down-to-earth quality to all her roles.

“She’s like the people’s choice. She is an actress that all kinds of people respond to,” said Rebecca Eaton, executive producer of PBS’ “Masterpiece” anthology series. Walters has appeared in several “Masterpiece” offerings, including “Indian Summers,” a 10-part historical drama set in 1932 during the waning years of British rule in India, which premiered Sunday.

She’s created another memorable character in “Indian Summers,” which has already been compared to “Masterpiece” blockbuster “Downton Abbey.”

Walters’ Cynthia is an outwardly charming but Machiavellian military widow who presides like a grand doyenne over the Royal Simla Club, located at a colonial retreat for the British in the Himalaya foothills. A racist — a sign outside the club reads no Indians or dogs allowed — Cynthia is using her influence to promote the career of Ralph (Henry Lloyd-Hughes), an upwardly mobile private secretary to the British viceroy, who has a few secrets.

“I was sent this first episode and I said, ‘Who is this woman?’ ” recalled Walters, speaking by phone before heading back to Malaysia to film the second season of “Indian Summers.”

All the dramas and films based on that time in India, said Walters, “never had working class people in them. They were all upper class with lots of servants. She was fascinating from that point of view. She was an East End (of London) girl and now she’s in a very powerful position running the club. She likes to be in control.”

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