People: At his age, Andy can still act? Well, gol-lee

At age 81, Andy Griffith has been discovered.

Sure, he’ll always be known as Sheriff Andy Taylor, the gentle father to son Opie and gunless lawman in Mayberry who dispensed a homegrown wisdom on the “The Andy Griffith Show.”

Or as the disheveled yet shrewd Atlanta defense lawyer Ben Matlock.

But he’s now a new type of star in the critically acclaimed film “Waitress,” starring Keri Russell as a top-notch pie maker trying to leave her brutish husband.

Griffith steals the show as the cranky owner of the diner where she works.

“I’m glad to be back,” he says. “I loved working in the film, and I just thought it was actually wonderful.”

Griffith lives a fiercely private life with wife Cindi in the North Carolina Outer Banks town of Manteo. Until “Waitress,” he hadn’t appeared in a live-action film since 2001.

He has been a success on stage for decades, starring in the Broadway and movie versions of “No Time for Sergeants” and in the 1957 movie “A Face in the Crowd,” in which Griffith’s character, the coarse Lonesome Rhodes, becomes a television star who mocks his fans off-air.

When “The Andy Griffith Show” ended its eight-year run in 1968, it bowed out as the No. 1 show in television.

Griffith was on the set for just four days of the 20-day “Waitress” shoot, but he didn’t disappoint.

“We were so excited about the performance he was delivering,” producer Michael Roiff says.

“In the editing room, putting scenes together, (director Adrienne Shelly) and I would just look at each other and think, ‘How did we get so lucky? Who let this happen in our movie?’

Wrote The Wall Street Journal’s Joe Morgenstern: “An octogenarian who looks his age and looks like he’s enjoying it, this comic virtuoso is as commanding as ever, but with a new dimension of restraint.”

Equally important to Griffith is the praise of his friends, including Oscar-winning director Ron Howard, who played his son, Opie, in “The Andy Griffith Show.”

“Ron Howard called me a few mornings ago. He and his wife had seen it and he wanted to tell me how much he liked it. And he thought I was good in it, too,” Griffith says.

So when will he get a part in one of Howard’s blockbusters?

“He said, ‘Sometime, it will happen.’ I look forward to it when it does happen,” Griffith says with a chuckle.

“At least Ronnie still knows that I’m a pretty good actor.”

The birthday bunch

Actress Olivia de Havilland is 91. Movie director Sydney Pollack is 73. Actor Jamie Farr (“M*A*S*H”) is 73. Actress Genevieve Bujold is 65. Singer Deborah Harry (Blondie) is 62. Singer Fred Schneider (the B-52’s) is 56. Actor Dan Aykroyd is 55. Actor Andre Braugher (“Homicide”) is 45. Actress Pamela Anderson is 40. Rapper Missy Elliott is 36. Actress Liv Tyler is 30. Actress Hilarie Burton (“One Tree Hill”) is 25. Actors Stephen and Andrew Cavarno (“Party of Five”) are 15.