Julie Andrews has worn many hats on both screen and stage over the course of a decades-long career, but one of the things she’s most proud of has nothing to do with her professional life; rather, it’s her 41-year marriage to director Blake Edwards.

Edwards passed away in 2010, but Andrews recently opened up about their relationship and says that the pain never quite goes away from the loss.

“It was a love story, it was. I’m still dealing with it. There are days when it’s perfectly wonderful and I am myself and then it’s suddenly – sock you in the middle of your gut and you think, ‘Ah God, I wish he were here’. But he is in a way, I think one carries that love always,” Andrews said.

The Sound Of Music star says that the key to their long marriage was to not get ahead of themselves.

“Success in our marriage was to take it one day at a time and so, lo and behold, 41 years later there we still were,” Andrews said.

Andrews also recently sat down for an interview alongside her longtime friend and sometime co-star, Christopher Plummer, and talked about their time on the set of The Sound Of Music. Although the film initially received harsh reviews, it would become an enormous hit, the epitome of the musical that had fans singing its catchy songs for weeks after it was viewed. For Andrews, it was the start of a wonderful friendship.

“He was such a hugely great actor that when he was cast in Sound of Music all I could think was, How will I ever live up to that? But we had a very good time. We never had a cross word, nothing,” Andrews said.

Earlier this year, the classic film got a loving tribute when Lady Gaga took the stage at the Academy Awards to perform, blowing audiences away and very likely earning even more fans for the movie.