In the last show of a series that included interviews with Joan Collins and Chelsea Manning, Louis Theroux talked to former So Solid Crew member and star of Netflix smash show Top Boy Ashley Walters. This is what he had to say...
On what he’s like as a person
“I’m quite a reserved, introverted sort of person. Having people in my space is different for me. Social anxiety comes up for me a lot.”
On his upbringing
“My upbringing was okay. I didn’t grow up rich, but I had no reason to sell drugs or be out on the streets. But I was walking with some real gangsters at the time, so it was easy to become the target.”
On being stabbed in a random attack as a teenager
“Everything just faded to black. I was gone. That’s the only time in my life I thought, ‘I’m dead’, that I was going to die.”
On buying a gun
“There’s something that comes with owning a firearm, a sense of power and entitlement. That grew within me. At some point it stopped being about fear and became about control. I think that’s where it went wrong for me.”
On serving seven months in prison
“It was a big part of my life, and I never wanted to go back.”
On his time in So Solid Crew
“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.”
“We felt we were the correspondents of our space. We were out there on the front line reporting what was going on around us. No one else was talking about it.”
On Top Boy
“If I’m playing a drug dealer, I want drug dealers to watch the show and say, ‘That’s good. I feel like that resonates.'”
“It is probably the only show from that genre that exports worldwide. Outside of that we have maybe Sex Education, The Crown and period dramas.”
“If you don’t like it, you don’t like it, it’s fine but it’s more than a TV show, it’s a bit of history and it’s a door that’s open now for a lot of black actors and creatives.”
On Doctor Who, which he was in for one episode
“I think Doctor Who fans are a lot wilder than Top Boy fans.”
On giving up drinking
“One was never enough for me.”
“I do meetings. My life is pretty much based on recovery.”
On what made him get married
“The dream woman… I wanted to hang up my boots.”
On fatherhood
“There have been moments when I haven’t been the best dad, because I couldn’t be. I wasn’t around or wasn’t in the right place to be right.”
On his own father
“I was very angry with him and that made me angry with the world. It’s taken me to some dark places. I’ve done some stupid things.”
“All of that anger and pain, hurt that I had, and the resentment that I had against him gave me fire.”
On his mental health now
“I keep an eye on it every day. I have a messy head and that takes daily maintenance. It takes meditation, it takes prayer, it takes connection. That’s what keeps us afloat.”
