Dame Julie Andrews was daunted by Mary Poppins

Dame Julie Andrews was frightened when she started filming on 'Mary Poppins'.

The 86-year-old actress played the lead role in the iconic 1964 film but explained that she was terrified ahead of the movie which marked her feature film debut.

Recalling her first day on set, Julie told The Hollywood Reporter: "I would say hugely daunting. I remember all I had to do was walk across from right to left or something like that and say one line. I did, and they said, 'Fine, print.'

"And I thought, well, I don't know if I was acting enough or whatever I was supposed to be doing. But honestly, it was a great learning experience, and I learned about cameras and close-ups and lenses and all those kinds of things."

Julie recalled how film bosses saved her flying sequences as the magical nanny until the end of production and revealed that she had a scary moment during one period in the air.

The 'Thoroughly Modern Millie' star said: "They saved all the flying stuff until the end in case of some kind of an accident. In which case, most of the stuff was already in the can.

"So I was up there for hours hanging around in my flying harness, doing bits and pieces and pickups and so on. And I felt myself drop like about a foot and I got panicked like you don't believe and said, 'I think I'm feeling a little nervous about this today. Could you let me down very carefully when I come down?' And they said, 'Yes. Down carefully, down carefully, Joe!'

Julie continued: "And then I dropped to the floor like a ton of bricks. Luckily there was a lot of balancing equipment helping me when I fell, so I didn't thunder through the stage, but I did let fly a few expletives that I didn't know if anybody had ever heard me utter before.

"Then there was this long silence and suddenly the gentleman from the back, who had been letting me down gently, said, 'Is she down yet?'"