Julie Walters Honored by U.K.'s Royal Television Society

Julie Walters wins RTS Award
Julie Walters accepts the RTS Programme Award for lifetime achievement in honor of her television work. Richard Kendal/RTS

Julie Walters, the venerable British actor best known for playing Molly Weasley in the Harry Potter franchise, was honored by the U.K.'s Royal Television Society Tuesday night.

Walters, 67, accepted the lifetime achievement award in recognition of her television work dating back to the 1980s.

She joked: "So this is the old people's award."

Walters gained prominence alongside comedy partner, the late Victoria Wood, with whom she starred in the 1982 sketch show Wood and Walters . The pair continued to collaborate on shows such as Victoria Wood As Seen on TV and Dinnerladies.

Julie Walters
Julie Walters attends the Arqiva British Academy Television Awards at Theatre Royal in London, May 18, 2014. She was honored by the Royal Television Society on Tuesday. Stuart C. Wilson/Getty

But Walters is also a revered dramatic actor; she has won four BAFTA television awards for her starring roles in My Beautiful Son, Murder, The Canterbury Tales and Mo.

Her most recent television work, the critically lauded National Treasure , earned her a best female actor nomination at the RTS Programme Awards Tuesday, however, she lost to Sophie Okonedo for Undercover .

National Treasure , written by Harry Potter and the Cursed Child playwright Jack Thorne, was a topical drama about a former children's entertainer accused of historic sex offences—sharing some similarities to the case involving former BBC radio presenter Jimmy Savile. The show won best miniseries and best male actor for Robbie Coltrane.

Related: 'Harry Potter and the Cursed Child' First Review

Other big winners included Phoebe Waller-Bridge, the standout comic whose sitcom Fleabag was a hit in both the U.S. and U.K. last year, and BBC drama Happy Valley , which won best drama series and best drama writer for creator Sally Wainwright.

Waller-Bridge—currently filming the Star Wars saga's Han Solo standalone film —won both the breakthrough talent and comedy writer award.

Accepting the former, Waller-Bridge said that although she was being recognized as a breakthrough talent, she had been toiling away for many years. She joked that actor/writers struggling to break into the industry should write a graphic sex scene "in the first two minutes," a reference to the memorable opening moments of Fleabag.

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