Julie Andrews knows what everyone thinks they remember from the opening of The Sound of Music—a single, unbroken shot as the camera glides over the mountaintops, drawing rapidly down on a lone woman in the tall grass who twirls in her skirt as she fills the air with her high, sweet voice: “The hills are alive with the sound of music…”

The ear may be delighted, but it’s a trick of the eye. Few recall the jump cut just as the camera gets close, at the very moment she opens her mouth to sing. That edit was necessary, Andrews says, because the vortex of the helicopter’s rotary blades hurled the petite songstress against the ground every time they drew near. A face-planting Julie Andrews would not make for the graceful opening that was envisioned. “I was spitting hay and mud and straw and God knows what. But it was an amazing shot,” Andrews tells Vanity Fair in a new exclusive interview. “It looks so seamless.”

With her long-delayed AFI Life Achievement Award ceremony finally taking place on Thursday, the actress, now 86, revisited the highlights of a career that spans over seven decades. She began as a child performer in tiny theaters in her native England, debuted on Broadway at 19, and went on to star in films that have been treasured by generations, among them Mary Poppins, The Princess Diaries, and…Aquaman?

Yes, she was in 2018’s Aquaman (which Andrews pronounces in her delightful accent as Ack-wah-man). “I play some kind of a sea serpent or something,” she says.

The AFI ceremony will air on TNT on June 16. Until then, here’s the Oscar-winning actress and storybook author discussing everything from Walt Disney, Dick Van Dyke, and Alfred Hitchcock to how she personally helped shape the fictional country of Genovia.

Vanity Fair: Before we start, I just want to congratulate you on the upcoming ceremony.

Julie Andrews: Thank you so much. I'm absolutely thrilled. What a lovely surprise it was. I mean, it's not a surprise in that we've been waiting two years for COVID to subside to have such an evening. So I've known about it for that long. But it was a lovely surprise.

I've been to some of the AFI Life Achievement Awards, and you not only get to watch clips of your past work, but you'll get to see co-stars and people you've known over the years.

I have no idea what I'm in for. They'd rather prefer that you didn't know what they're going to do, so I really don't know who's going to be there or what surprises they're planning. But I do know I've loved other evenings and always enjoy watching.

Let’s sprint through those achievements now. You started your career, as a lot of performers do, onstage.

I started many, many years before Broadway. I was one of those child brats that had a freak singing voice and was performing in vaudeville in England for many years. Then that phenomenal chance to come to Broadway happened, and then eventually that phenomenal chance to come to Hollywood.

Was My Fair Lady the big Broadway breakthrough?

It was a show called The Boy Friend. That was the first show I came to Broadway for. It was an English show that was doing very, very well in London. They didn't want to change the cast or let anybody go because they were doing so well, and it was still running. So they chose a completely new company to come to Broadway. I was one of the fortunate people that was asked to go. It was a big thing in those days. My God, I was just 19. As I arrived, I turned 19 and it really was the biggest learning curve you could imagine.

That was in 1954. Your run on My Fair Lady began not long after.

I was in The Boy Friend for a year. Everybody else had a two-year contract. I happened to have a one-year contract, because when I signed for it, I was scared about leaving my family and felt I would be needed back home.

But you stayed.

I auditioned for Lerner and Loewe and eventually was signed to do My Fair Lady. Then the really, really hard work began. All of it was hard work, but I was learning on my feet, so to speak. It was a very good time on Broadway, full of wonderful shows. A wonderful era. … I was in My Fair Lady for almost three and a half years, and that's an endurance test. Two on Broadway and one and a half in London.

Several years later, the feature film of My Fair Lady was made with Audrey Hepburn in the role of Eliza Doolitte. A lot of fans thought you should have gotten that role. How did you feel about it?

I did, at that time, hope that maybe when the film was made, I'd be asked to do it. But it wasn't an ambition. I didn’t really think that I was that important to warrant being used. But, you know, there was a fantasy of what a thrill that would be. Of course, I didn't get it, but then suddenly there was Disney in the wings. And that happened instead. I've been incredibly fortunate then—and really all my life—at miraculous turns of good fortune across my path.

Mary Poppins came out the same year as My Fair Lady. And that was your first onscreen role—and your first Oscar nomination. And you won.

I'd never made a movie before! Poppins was the real thing. Disney came to see me when I was in Camelot on Broadway and asked if I'd like to come to Los Angeles and Hollywood and see the sketches that he'd done for a film he was making. I said, ‘Oh, Mr. Disney, I'm having a baby! I'm so sorry. I'm pregnant!” He said, ‘Well, that's okay—we'll wait.’ And so eventually, months later—because of course there was a ton of pre-production to be done—I and my baby and my husband all came to Hollywood. Disney was very decent and kind.

Mary Poppins means so much to so many people over so many generations. I wondered what Mary Poppins means to you.

Oh gosh. Well, it was my first film exposure to Disney and his extraordinary studio at that time. Another great learning curve. Obviously, who could be luckier than to get something like Mary Poppins as your first movie? Disney had this huge talent for spotting talent and seemed to know what he wanted. He was very, very dear, not only to me, but … I don't know if you know, but my husband at the time was a gentleman called Tony Walton, who was a designer.

When Disney came to see me in Camelot, he said to Tony, ‘What do you do, young man?’ And he said, ‘Well, I'm a designer. I've been doing some small things in Britain, not very.’ And Disney said, ‘Bring your portfolio when you come with your wife to Hollywood—if you come.’ So he did and instantly got the design job on Mary Poppins. I mean, Disney just took a gamble, loved what Tony did. And he too was Oscar-nominated after the film came out. His career was set after that. So, I mean, that is an amazing story, isn't it?

Sometimes actors say when they’re in the midst of making something, especially something that has a lot of visual effects, they don't fully understand what they’re doing until they see it later. Was that what making Mary Poppins was like?

Right! Never having made a movie in my life, I remember trying very hard to say, ‘You know, why are we doing this? What's this close up? And what's that about?’

And you're acting with animation and things that are not really there.

That's very right. And a lot of waiting around for special effects to be perfected. It was a very good first film on which to learn one’s craft because all of that was something I would never have had a chance to come across. There was so much to be done, but it was a very happy situation. 

Dick Van Dyke, of course—what a sweetheart he is. The high stepping, those great legs of his that could do anything … We've stayed friends over the years. What's not to love about Dick Van Dyke? He's adorable. And the choreographers were wonderful and the kids were great. God, what can I say? It was a very important film for me and what a great, great chance I got.

Your next film was the war satire The Americanization of Emily, with James Garner. I’ve read that this is one of your favorite films. Is that right?

It was a very happy experience. Jimmy Garner became a great friend. We worked three times together on things. Obviously on Victor/Victoria, and a lovely special for television that we did. That film was written by Paddy Chayefsky, and it was such a great script. Again, I didn't feel particularly right for it, but boy, I'm glad I was in it. It's now become kind of a classic in its way.

The next year, 1965, was The Sound of Music—another touchstone.

It was one of the last or nearly the last of the really great musicals that were created in Hollywood in those days. It was so technically well-done in every aspect, every way.

That opening scene where you are twirling in the grass on the hillside, and there's an overhead shot that swoops in from the mountains toward you… What is your memory of that?

Oh—being knocked flat into the grass by a helicopter every time we did the take! It would circle around me to go back to the start at one end of the field. I was at the other end of the field. The downdraft from the engines would just knock me flat into the grass. Finally, I signaled to the pilot: ‘Could you go wider?’ And all I got was a thumbs-up and ‘Let's go through it again.’

I always wondered how they communicated with you. You had to be all by yourself because it was such a wide shot.

There was huuuuge sound speakers in the trees. And all the film crew were hiding and bellowing through loudspeakers: ‘Gooooo, Julie!’ And ‘Gooooo, helicopter!’ and so on. So, I strode out and they said, ‘Just make a turn!’ Actually, if you watch the film, as I turn the film cuts to a close-up. It looks so seamless. But it was that turn that was being captured by the helicopter. And the next thing I knew—there I was in the grass.

After that, you worked with Alfred Hitchcock on Turn Curtain. Do you have many memories of that film?

Everything brings a memory, truly. That wonderful dour voice of his and his sense of humor. He loved his leading ladies, and I had to be very blonde for his concept in the film. He taught me a great deal. I said to him one day, ‘You know, I don't know much about camera lenses and angles.’ He'd been speaking to the director of photography and, and wanted to do a close up. He said, ‘Come with me…’ And he sat me down and just proceeded to draw for me for about half an hour about how this lens would make my nose look much too long. And this other lens would be a good one. It was very dear of him.

I've heard he was quite demanding, too. Was that your experience, or did you get a much softer version of Hitchcock?

I think by the time he got to Torn Curtain he was probably not. He mostly cared about effect and what he could do to an audience. He loved to lead you into suddenly being surprised about something or shocked about something or laughing with relief from tension. He was slightly manipulative of audiences in that way, but it was certainly a masterclass. He knew exactly what he wanted.

You'll forgive me for skipping ahead, but…

Skip away! I don’t know if I will remember anything about all of them, but certainly those early movies, I really do remember.

Tell me about working with your husband, Blake Edwards. You married in 1968. He’s best known for The Pink Panther films, and you did some small roles in a fews of those.

Oh, just as a joke really. They ended up on the cutting room floor, which is not a very good way to proceed, but the marriage remained intact. Believe me.

What was he like?

We were married 42 years, and he was my mate. [Edwards died in 2010.] He was the most charismatic and talented man. He knew film very well and felt he was a writer first and foremost, but obviously a wonderful director too. He had six ideas a day that staggered me—and then suddenly, one of them would come alive and it would be in the next movie. That kind of thing happened all the time with him. I did seven films with him.

Darling Lili in 1970 was the first one you made together, also a comedy/musical set in wartime.

Darling Lili was the first one. Why we ever remained together, I'll never know, because it was a huge flop! Normally that's the kiss of death in a marriage, let's say. But we had such a lovely time making it. It was a very interesting marriage in every way. He was a charismatic man. No doubt about it.

Do you have a favorite of the films you made together?

So many. 10 is certainly one. S.O.B. was great fun because of the company. People in that film would come and just be on the set sometimes like a rep company and, and just be there to watch what everybody was doing.

I have one that is very close to me, which is That's Life, which was quite late in his career and way and further down in mine. It is a charming film that we shot on our property in Malibu. It was very biographical. We were sitting in our swimming pool one day and he said, ‘You know, I'd like to do a very reasonably priced movie with all my chums. And I'd like to shoot it here on the property.’ I thought, ‘Oh yeah, that's just another of his fantasies.’

Six weeks later, there we were, starting to film. He gave us a 16-page outline. Then he said, ‘I'd like you to take each character and muse on it, and then do a scene and let's see what happens.’ He would say, ‘Keep that, now delete that.’ In other words, he was editing as we invented. Eventually we would shoot a scene and he would piece it all together. He let us contribute hugely, so a lot of the dialogue is very real, and it's also very biographically real about Blake himself. It's really about an architect who was going through a midlife crisis.

What are your thoughts about Victor/Victoria, from 1982? You play a woman who poses as a man so she can perform as a female impersonator. The inclusion of openly gay characters was groundbreaking for the time. Did it feel that way when you were making it?

At the time, it was. It was a forerunner for opening doors and things like that, which is grand. Blake saw the original German film, which was very tame, and the theme of homosexuality wasn't in it at all. He suddenly got a bead on how he could do it. And I remember him coming home and saying, ‘I just saw a very good movie, and I think it would be a wonderful film for us to do together.’ I kept saying, [Laughs] ‘No one is going to believe that I'm a guy.’ And he said, ‘Honey, don't worry about it, because the audience within the movie buys it.’ In other words, the shots of the audience roaring their applause and so on shows that you've passed muster. So therefore the audience watching it in the cinema will go along with that story.

What was the reaction like? Was there a lot of pushback? Did people celebrate it?

It was obviously more successful in the big cosmopolitan cities like Chicago and L.A. and New York. Places like that. I think over the years, it's certainly grown in popularity and it’s basically another form of a love story. It's all about love and that's what Blake wanted it to be.

I’m skipping ahead again, but it seems unbelievable to me that The Princess Diaries was now 20 years ago.

Oh my God. Isn't it amazing? It’s true that life just races past as you get a little older. It seems to be stretching out in front of one when one's young, but I tell you, it's hard to believe that was 20 years ago.

I don't know if you would rank it with some of your other films, like Mary Poppins and The Sound of Music, but it has definitely struck a nerve with the younger generation.

Children today know me better for The Princess Diaries than they do for even Poppins, because of course Poppins was made, oh gosh—close to 60 years ago, let's face it. Obviously they remember the more recent films. That's one they talk about when I first meet a lot of kids.

What memories stand out most vividly about The Princess Diaries?

Garry Marshall, our wonderful director. He wanted me to look glamorous and gorgeous and be a queen. When we first met, he said, ‘Well, where do you think Genovia is?’ And I said, ‘Oh, you're asking me? Um, well …’ I harrumphed a bit and said, ‘Probably close to Spain, along the south of France.’

Then he asked ‘And what would they be famous for?’ I said, ‘Well, I’m sure that the local nuns would make lace, and maybe they grow pears and export them.’ And of course we had pears all over the set, and lace clothes all over the set. He couldn't have been more darling. He was picking up on everything. ‘What do you like?’ I said, ‘I love real flowers, and I love my garden.’ So we had real flowers on the set, and every day fresh ones. It was lovely.

He made Genovia a manifestation of you and your interests.

He picked everybody's brain. I mean, it wasn't just me. It was also Anne Hathaway, who was adorable—and it made her career. Very, very talented. I spotted that immediately. She is a natural, really.

When you work with young actors who idolize you, do you have to put them at ease? Or do you ever indulge that mystique?

No, I didn't indulge in it. I do like to put them at ease. My God, I'm one of the luckiest ladies alive. Think about it. I like to try to share, and I'm not just being Pollyanna-ish about that. I recognize how very, very lucky I've been.

You don't have a reputation for playing characters who are cold or indifferent.

There were a couple of movies where I tried, like [1968’s Gertrude Lawrence biopic] Star. It was a wonderful movie to do, but people didn't like the fact that I wasn't a terribly lovable character, and it wasn't hugely successful at all. Although it's grown a bit over the years.

Also at that time, movies were changing. Low budget movies were in, and big budget movies were disparaged. God, how that's changed. Everything comes full circle. But in those days it was, ‘Oh, how could you spend this much on a movie? Let's do Easy Rider instead.’ That kind of thought was going around. So it came out at probably the wrong time.

Is there another title in your filmography that you think deserves more attention?

A film with Andrei Konchalovsky called Duet For One. I played a lady who was in a wheelchair who had M.S. It was very loosely based on Jacqueline du Pré, the wonderful cellist. It was a very difficult and very depressing film to make, and it disappeared literally overnight at a Christmas release. But it was a very interesting experience. It was with Max Von Sydow and Alan Bates.

For the last decade or so, you’ve done mostly voice acting.

Yes, it sort of started and grew—and it's wonderful. I don't have to get hair and makeup anymore. I just go into the studio and do my voiceovers. It's a whole other kind of moviemaking. You just chuck everything at the wall and they take what they want out of it. So there's a lot of experimentation. Apart from Despicable Me and Bridgerton, and, umm … [laughs] I'm not going to mention Aquaman, where I play some kind of a sea serpent or something. But what interesting things to get one's voice into!

Of course now, Minions is just coming out where I play Gru’s mum. I love the Minions. I adore them.

I remember when you first did the narration for Bridgerton, and people were scandalized that Mary Poppins and Maria from Sound of Music was narrating this hot and heavy show. Did it feel scandalous to you?

[Laughs.] It's delicious, isn't it?

This interview has been edited to supply context and clarity.