Dame Julie Andrews may have lost her ability to sing but she was delighted to provide the voice for Queen Lillian in the movie Shrek 2, as Steve Pratt discovers.

Julie Andrews was able to achieve something as a computer-generated character in Shrek 2 that she couldn't in real life - appear taller than her co-star John Cleese.

They provide the voices of Queen Lillian and King Harold, royal leaders of the kingdom of Far Far Away, who are appalled to find their princess daughter has married a green ogre.

On screen, animators have made the king shorter than the queen. The situation was different when the two performers recorded scenes together. "He towers over me in real life," says Dame Julie.

She knew what to expect visually, as actors saw their characters on storyboards before they started recording. The rest of the experience was new to her, although she did voice Polynesia the parrot in the stage version of Doctor Dolittle in the late 1990s.

She also starred in Mary Poppins - and won a best actress Oscar in her feature film debut - which included animated scenes, although they didn't prepare her for making Shrek 2. "I wasn't sure what to expect, having never done an actual animated character before," she says.

"Most of the recording is done solo. You do it in a booth by yourself and don't get to meet your fellow actors. So, I was unsure as to whether I should try to make my voice sound slightly animated, or should I be a little sub normal, or over emote.

"Eventually they said, 'Please be yourself, that's what we want', and I found my level. But I was not sure when we started. It was a great pleasure, though. But I think I've done more work travelling for the movie doing publicity than I have making the movie."

Dame Julie has been performing for more than 50 years and made her Broadway debut in The Boy Friend in 1954 at the age of 19. Two years later, she became a star as Eliza Dolittle in the stage musical My Fair Lady. She lost out to Audrey Hepburn in the film but found screen fame as Mary Poppins and then as novice nun Maria in The Sound Of Music.

She never imagined, as she first performed in vaudeville as a child, that she'd end up a Dame or that her career would have worked out the way it has. "It's all been the most incredible good fortune for me, and every step of the way it's just been a miracle," she says.

Shrek 2 may deal with charming princes and croaking frogs, but don't ask Dame Julie to cast her acting co-stars in either of those roles. "I absolutely refuse to kiss and tell in terms of my leading men," she says firmly in her precise English tones.

Shrek 2 has fun at the expense of Hollywood by presenting Far Far Away as a parody of the movie-making capital. Dame Julie thinks that Tinseltown can take the joke. The way people behave on screen is human nature, not necessarily Hollywood.

"I think it's all right to tilt at big stuff, and Hollywood will stand very well against the tilting," she says. "I don't think Hollywood is shallow. There's an enormous amount of very hard work that goes on there. Some of the side effects are shallow but the actual endeavour - and this is true in English studios too - of the people who work and do the actual craft of film-making is not.

"There's a history to all the studios that's wonderful. It's really hard work that they do, and they're brilliant at it. We're just lucky to be asked."

She had problems after an operation on her vocal chords in 1998 left her unable to sing. She later successfully sued the doctors who operated on her. In Shrek 2, she leaves the singing to others, including British comedienne Jennifer Saunders, who plays a wicked Fairy Godmother. "Doesn't she sing well?," says Dame Julie.

Published: 01/07/2004