Anne Hathaway 'pushed really hard' to get Julie Andrews in The Princess Diaries 3

Anne Hathaway insisted she “pushed really hard” for Dame Julie Andrews to reprise her role in The Princess Diaries 3.

Julie, 90, played Queen Clarisse Renaldi in the original movie in 2001 and its 2004 sequel The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement, but will be noticeably absent from The Princess Diaries 3.

But that’s not to say Anne, who plays Mia Thermopolis, now Queen of Genovia, in the movies, didn’t try and persuade Julie to appear in the follow-up film.

She told Entertainment Tonight: “First of all, I just want to say if she has a change of heart, we’re down. Just anything, really. But we also want to be respectful.

“Like, for goodness sakes, if anybody has contributed to the world of entertainment and to our collective joy, it’s her. Whatever she wants, we completely understand.”

Despite that, Anne admitted: “We did push really hard to see if she would want to do it.”

Anne’s remarks come after Julie opened up about her reasons for not appearing in The Princess Diaries 3, telling The Hollywood Reporter: “I think the absolute truth is that I think I’m really past all that now.

“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. But truly, I don’t think I should be a part of it.”

The Princess Diaries 3 is set to be a continuation of the franchise based on Meg Cabot's novel of the same name that centres on Mia, who discovers that she is the heir apparent to the throne of Genovia. At the end of the 2004 sequel, Mia was crowned queen of Genovia after Parliament abolished the law requiring a queen to be married first. However, she got together with Nicholas Devereaux (Chris Pine) after calling off her wedding to Andrew Jacoby (Callum Blue). Cabot recently claimed that she was "so excited" that a third Princess Diaries movie is being made.

She told The Hollywood Reporter: "I'm so excited there is a third movie. I read a script, and it was amazing. I told them not to send anymore, because I love it so much. I have a problem keeping my mouth shut.

"I'm very happy with what I've read so far, but there's definitely some book thing that were involved in the last script I read."