Julie Andrews made her mark playing virginal nuns, flower sellers and governesses. So she was delighted to learn that, in "Shrek the Third," she'd be kicking some butt.

What did she think, she's asked, when she read the script for the film, in which she plays Shrek's mother-in-law, and discovered that her queen character would get to make like an action hero when she's tossed in jail?

"Wait, I have to stop you because there is no script," says Andrews, her voice a slightly raspier version of the one that taught those Austrian kids about tea with jam and bread in "The Sound of Music" more than four decades ago. "You find out what you're going to say on the day you show up to record the scene. But I was very delighted on that day when I found out that she was going to be a take-charge queen."

That jail scene also features a nod to Andrews' "Sound of Music" roots. Eagle-eared moviegoers will notice the queen hums a nervous melody that sounds very much like that show's "My Favorite Things."

"I think that's very funny, don't you?" chuckles Andrews. "Although I'm not admitting that it is 'My Favorite Things.' I'm saying it's just a little tune that I'm humming."

Well, given that "Sound of Music" has been a TV fixture for 40 years, "My Favorite Things" is a tune lots of people probably find themselves humming. Including, as it turns out, Andrews herself.

"Probably the last time I sang it was when I went out in concert years ago. No, that's not true," says Andrews. "Sometimes, in an odd moment, it will come up. I know that makes me sound strange, so you'll have to trust me that it makes sense to sing that song occasionally."

Like, for instance, when someone asks what your favorite ice cream flavors are, and you reply with that tune?

"Exactly. That's the kind of thing I'm talking about."

Returning to the regal role she created in the second "Shrek" film turned out to be one of Andrews' favorite things. "I really like her," says Andrews. "She's an amazing lady. She's lived with a frog for a husband most of her life (his voice is supplied by John Cleese), and she has a daughter who is an ogre (Cameron Diaz). And she simply carries on, as if that's all quite normal."

Another favorite thing about doing a voice for an animated film? No corsets or eyeliner.

"It's very freeing. I walk into the recording studio, and I don't have to get into hair or makeup," says Andrews. "I just have to say each line 10 different ways, so they've got what they want. I do it once, and they say, 'Now do it a little angrier' or 'Less angry.' "

Andrews says it's like she's giving the film's directors puzzle pieces and they have to assemble them. "Cameron and I were saying the other day that the difference between animation and live action is that, in live action, you are responsible for developing the character and making sure that what you do one day fits with what you do the next," says Andrews. "In animation, it's up to the director to make it all fit together."

Another difference is that, in animation, the actors tend to work individually, not with the other actors. "We don't usually meet when we're working on the movie, but we do meet at Cannes or at press junkets," says Andrews. "They're the greatest team, and we all do like each other very much."

While she's working on the "Shreks," Andrews knows only what her character is up to. So seeing "Shrek the Third" was a revelation.

"It's so wonderfully funny and also, I think, phenomenal in the quality of the animation," says Andrews. "I thought the digital age had reached its apex, but the advances in things like skin tone in this movie astonished me."

Those kinds of surprises are what make acting fun for Andrews, 53 years after she made her Broadway debut in "The Boy Friend" (of which she recently directed a revival).

"It's more fun now, really, than I think it ever has been," says Andrews, 71. "You get to realize, at some point in your life, that it's about giving. It's not just wallowing in whether you did a good job. It's 'Can I, for two hours on the stage or in a movie, help transport an audience with this story?' That, I must say, is enormously gratifying."

Chris Hewitt can be reached at chewitt@pioneerpress.com or 651-228-5552.

CROWNING GLORIES

With the two "Princess Diaries" movies and the two "Shreks," Julie Andrews has been spending a lot of time lately wearing a crown.

"It might be my age, it might be my English accent - lots of English people do end up playing queens," Andrews notes dryly, when it's pointed out she has been on a royal run.

The Oscar winner (for a nonqueen role in "Mary Poppins") says she doesn't think she has any special insight into what it's like to sit on a throne: "All I know is, I'm really glad I'm not a queen. It would be an awesome job, just awful."

But playing one is fun and, after being granted a couple of minutes to think, Andrews is happy to come up with a mini-list of her all-time favorite queens (which includes the one who made Andrews an honorary dame of the British Empire):

1. "Sleeping Beauty is definitely one. She's a princess, but she will be queen one day. I love the 'Sleeping Beauty' ballet. The music is so beautiful."

2. "I'm very partial to the queen in England now. I think she's a great, great lady."