Where is Julie Andrews now: 91 and a brand-new voice

If you grew up in the sixties, she was in your living room. The nanny who flew down from the sky with an umbrella. The novice who became a governess and sang in the mountains. Two films, two roles that moved into the memory of half the world and never left.

Julie Andrews is 91. And she is not done.

The nanny who became immortal

Mary Poppins (1964) won her the Academy Award for Best Actress in her film debut. A year later, The Sound of Music (1965), as Maria von Trapp, became one of the most-watched films in history.

Before Hollywood she was already a stage star in London and on Broadway, where she headlined My Fair Lady. In 2000, Queen Elizabeth II made her a Dame. Dame Julie Andrews: the nanny with a title of nobility.

Think about that for a moment: the Banks children's nanny ended up with a title of nobility. In real life, not in the movie.

The graceful goodbye

In August 2026, InStyle asked her about The Princess Diaries 3, the sequel bringing Anne Hathaway back as Queen Mia. Andrews was direct: she will not be in it. "I think I probably passed," she said. The film's team had asked her all last year if she wanted to return, and she admitted it was "very, very hard to say no." But the story, she said, would "flourish very well" without granny at her age.

She had told TODAY.com the same a few days earlier: "I'm not going to be in it... It's her story. It's not really mine."

Her last film appearance was in The Tooth Fairy (2010). On TV she still showed up as herself in Julie's Greenroom, the 2017 Netflix children's series. Since then, only her voice: the Shrek and Despicable Me films, and the gossipy narrator of Bridgerton.

Nobody asked her to leave. Nobody had to ask her anything. She said it herself: the story is no longer mine.

Note the manner: no drama, no farewell tour. An "I think I'm retired, really" delivered with a smile. Goodbyes can be graceful too.

A brand-new voice

Here is a detail few people put together with the rest. In 1997, throat surgery took away her singing voice —the voice that filled theaters, the voice of "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious." What she did next says a lot about her: she changed instruments. She no longer sings; she narrates.

The same voice, a different instrument. Like leaving the piano for the violin: the hands know what they are doing.

And she narrates beautifully. On September 6, 2026, she won the Emmy for Outstanding Character Voice-Over Performance for Bridgerton, as Lady Whistledown: her second year in a row in the same category, after three earlier nominations. With that she became the oldest actress to win a Primetime Emmy, beating her own record from the year before. She did not attend the ceremony; actor Eric Bauza accepted the award on her behalf.

That same August she told The Hollywood Reporter: "I'm not completely retired, but it's a different kind of work that I do these days — [writing] books, and I do a lot of recording of podcasts and voiceovers."

The books with her daughter

That August she was also promoting Shy, her most recent children's book, published on August 11, 2026, and written with her daughter Emma Walton Hamilton. It is number 35 among the children's books mother and daughter have published together: a literary partnership decades in the making. Thirty-five books do not get written by accident. They get written by sitting down, again and again, mother and daughter, to tell stories.

She also records podcasts —one dedicated to Jane Austen— and is preparing a documentary about her life and career, directed by R.J. Cutler (of Martha, 2024), set to stream on Disney+ in 2027.

What you can see from the outside

This series' question is not gossip. It is what she did right.

And let me be honest with you: nobody has the recipe for reaching 91 like this. Genes, luck and a good doctor weigh enormously. Anyone who tells you otherwise is trying to sell you something.

Just look at what is visible.

Three things, that's it. Three, because lists of ten are for people selling courses.

First: knowing when to let go. Leaving the camera at 91, without clinging, without anyone having to ask her to go. Letting go is also a way of taking care of yourself.

Second: changing instruments. When the singing voice was gone, she did not sit mourning what was lost: she found narration, books, podcasts. Age took one instrument from her, and she learned to play three others.

Third: family as a team. She writes with her daughter. Decades of working together. None of this is done alone.

And this part is serious: none of this is medical advice, and she has never said you should live the way she does. Every body is different. But knowing when to let go, reinventing yourself, and having your people close… that has never hurt anyone.