Legendary actress Dame Julie Andrews has revealed she is retired from on-screen acting roles.
Andrews, 90, revealed the news when explaining why she turned down the opportunity to reprise her iconic role in The Princess Diaries.
Dame Julie Andrews has confirmed she will not be returning to work in front of the camera. Getty
Speaking with InStyle magazine, Andrews explained that she had passed on the opportunity to appear in the upcoming threequel as Queen Clarisse Renaldi.
“I think I’m retired, really, would be about the best description for that,” she said.
“[The film’s creative team] asked me all last year if I would be keen to do it. It was very, very hard to say ‘no,’ but I did because I thought I had a wonderful ride, and this one I felt would flourish very well and wouldn’t need Granny going in there at my age.”
While we won’t be seeing her on our screens again, Andrews is still happy to continue doing her voice work, including voicing Lady Whistledown in the hit Netflix series, Bridgerton.
Andrews’ son helped her create a recording studio in her closet so she can record her voiceovers from home. She says she now mainly does it to “keep my brain alive”.
The original The Princess Diaries film, based on the novel by Meg Cabot, was released in 2001 with a young Anna Hathaway and Andrews starring as the Queen of Genovia, and her granddaughter, Mia Thermopolis.
It became a box office hit, and in 2004, a sequel was released, introducing the world to a young Chris Pine. The second film was also a major box office success.
The Princess Diaries 3 has now been in development with Disney for three years, after the original script was scrapped when the team decided to take the film in a different direction.
Crazy Rich Asians director Adele Lim has been attached to the film, with Flora Greeson producing the screenplay.
Andrews and Hathaway were 65 and 17 when the original film was released. Disney
During the press tour for The Odyssey, Hathaway told SiriusXm that she is “busy making baby number three” so she hasn’t had as much time to get to work on the third instalment of The Princess Diaries.
“I can say I think we had a story breakthrough,” she added.
“I think we are moving in the right direction. The script that we were working on – we kind of had to start over with this new direction, which is not the update I think anybody wants, but we all feel really good that this is gonna be the one.”