Mamma Mia 2: The moment Julia Walters burst into TEARS on set of Here We Go Again

Her co-star Christine Baranski revealed the cast and crew had a celebration planned for Walters after she took a day off from filming to be made a Dame Commander by the Queen.

“She was in the middle of filming Angel Eyes and then she got her Damehood and came back on the set,” Baranski told Press Association.

“Amanda (Seyfried) and Julie and I were doing the cake-eating sequence and everybody started gathering around and we started thinking, ‘What? Is everybody gathering around to watch the filming of the rest of the song?’

“But no, suddenly they started playing the music from South Pacific, There’s Is Nothin’ Like a Dame, and we all sang to Julie and she was just in tears.”

She added: “It was a great moment, because she’s just a great lady.

“A great actress and a great person.”

Baranski and Walters play double-act Tanya and Rosie in the movie – the characters introduced as Donna’s (Meryl Streep) best friends and the other two-thirds of the Dynamos in the 2008 first movie.

It’s been ten years since Mamma Mia! broke a slew of records, and Walters recently admitted that she feared a sequel would be “awful”.

“I couldn’t see how it could work and what they could do with us,” she told Good Housekeeping.

“My first reaction when my agent told me they were making Mamma Mia 2 was, ‘oh God no, it is going to be awful’.

“But the script was so good. I think it is fantastic. I think it is better than the first one.”

Also back are Streep, Seyfried, Dominic Cooper, Pierce Brosnan, Stellan Skarsgard and Colin Firth.

Lily James has been cast as the younger Donna, while Cher joins as Donna’s mother Ruby.

Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again is out Friday.