When Louis Theroux meets Ashley Walters for the last in his series of interviews for BBC Two, he finds the writer, actor and director at the very top of his game.
The pair meet in Soho ahead of a screening of the final season of Top Boy, the acclaimed hit show about London drug gangs that made Walters an international star. He is also directing a major period drama on TV starring Stephen Graham and is settled in Kent with his family, away from the pressures of London life.
And yet, the picture that emerges over some 40 minutes in this commendably frank interview is an introverted figure, uncomfortable with himself, his past and with the outside world.
Very different from the decisive ‘top boy’ Dushane, the character he plays in the Netflix series, Walters readily admits to anxiety and his struggles in social situations. Out there in the Thames Estuary, he has created an almost hermetically sealed world to protect himself.
But locking himself away may not be the answer either – a stark revelation towards the end of the documentary is that he wakes up each morning with a “messy head” of negativity and self-sabotage. “That will be every day for the rest of my life” he adds. He's a recovering alcoholic whose life is "pretty much based on recovery".
Agreeing to an interview with a seemingly-benign-yet-fairly-probing questioner like Theroux was clearly a leap of faith (“this is scary for me because I don’t like people in my house”). And it’s one that pays off, as Walters emerges as thoughtful, guileless respondent, willing to engage with the downs as well as the ups of his past – with a bit of prompting – and there have been a few.
Theroux clearly likes his subject, though struggles to find a rapport initially as Walters keeps him at arm’s length. In fact, there’s a real moment of tension when Theroux asks the actor about serving seven months in prison for possession of a firearm, and he responds that it’s, “the most boring topic that any interviewer could choose to talk to me about”.
But this is where Theroux comes into his own. Nodding, with that trademark ‘slightly perplexed look and furrowed brow’, he waits – until Walters bursts out laughing, “Noted, good bants”, Theroux smiles. After that, the chat thaws considerably. They clown around, do weights together and head to Whitstable to eat oysters. They do indeed talk about the low times of prison, and the random attack that nearly killed him when he was a teen.
What also emerges from this conversation is that Walters has long been involved in projects that shine a light on the voiceless, and has often helped open the door for more working class and black creatives to walk through. Certainly that’s the case with Top Boy, which he calls “more than a TV show, it’s a bit of history”. Though it had some criticism of its portrayal of the black community, something that clearly stings.
And there was So Solid Crew, the garage act he joined as a teenager using the name Asher D. “There were a lot of voiceless people at that time. What we spoke or what we stood for was a disenfranchised youth that felt neglected.” He likens himself to a reporter on the front line covering a part of society no one else was and that too received its fair share of push back including from then-Home Secretary David Blunkett.
It came crashing down when he was arrested. “A lot of the time my music was about fear, about fearing for my life,” he says, about the times people were outside his house with guns, shooting at his car. Once he had a gun pulled on him when he was carrying his baby.
So he bought a weapon to protect himself and that’s where it went wrong. When he came out of prison, he starred in Bullet Boy which was based on his own experiences, and his acting career (which had started in Grange Hill at the age of 12) really got underway in earnest.
A poignant part of the piece is the talk about fathers and fatherhood - clearly the source of a lot of pain. He has eight children from three relationships, first becoming a father at 17 and then a grandfather at 38. When asked if he has been a good father, he responds, “I tried my best”. And in a telling moment says he sometimes held his father’s past against him and some of his older children do the same.
Walters’ father, who had only been an intermittent presence in Walters’ life, died in 2005. His anger at his father, “made me angry with the world”. But it also gave him fire and drove him on to the international success he has reached now.
If there’s a criticism, it feels like there is much more material to mine. Though for the relatively slight running time, this is a nuanced take on someone who has had to battle to get to where he is. Who dealt with fame as a teenager, and again in his 30s and who is uncomfortable with all the trappings that come with that. It makes him an enthralling, sensitive and sometimes vulnerable interviewee which is quite a change from the bland platitudes that run through most chats with stars having a moment.
