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Adolescence star Ashley Walters: 'what's behind male anger? Fear.'
The star of Top Boy has eight children of his own — watching every parent’s worst nightmare play out in Netflix’s hit new show Adolescence is like a horror story, he says
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Ashley Walters really wishes people would stop asking him about jail. It was almost a quarter of a century ago that the Peckham-born rapper and actor was arrested by armed police for waving a firearm at a traffic warden. Half a lifetime ago.
Back when So Solid Crew had No 1 singles and home secretaries gave speeches about the dangers of gangster rap. “It’s a distant memory,” he says of the nine months he spent in a young offenders’ institute. “I didn’t want to be there. Obviously. But it was a moment in time. It happened.”
Since then, of course, Walters, 42, has emerged as one of Britain’s most successful actors, five seasons playing Dushane in the Hackney drugs drama Top Boy having brought him international recognition.
He has eight children, a house in Kent, a small dog, he is a granddad for goodness sake. He is, in other words, a successful grown-up with responsibilities and a glittering career. So, he politely suggests, it might be time to draw a line.
“It was something I had to go through to be sitting here now, talking about the projects I’m doing,” he says. “Other than that? I’m over it. I have no regrets because I’m a better man for it.”
And it’s not as if there isn’t anything else to discuss. There is prolific. And then there is Ashley Walters in 2025. He just released his first music in years, an EP, Test the Walters 2. His Victorian boxing drama, A Thousand Blows, from the creators of Peaky Blinders, dropped last month on Disney+. He has written a memoir, Always Winning, due in May. He has just finished shooting Animol, his debut directorial feature film set in a young offenders’ institution.
Oh, and he stars in Adolescence, the Netflix crime drama described by one critic as “the closest thing to TV perfection in decades”. Co-created by Stephen Graham and Jack Thorne, it collides classic British social realism with a Netflix budget to miraculous effect, each of its four episodes filmed in one continuous take by director Philip Barantini. “It’s a tough watch, I’m not gonna lie,” he says. “I can completely see why it’s having such an emotional reaction. If you’re a parent, this has to resonate with you.”
Jamie Keith
Walters has been open about his struggles with alcohol and depression in the past and is by his own admission “not a talker”. Still, the man I meet has a definite spring in his step and proves thoughtful, engaging and at peace. “The life that I have now,” Walters smiles.
“Who am I to be sitting here moaning? I get paid to dress up in clothes and run around pretending to be someone else all day. You can’t get a better job than that.”
It clearly helps that he has embraced a quieter life, moving to Herne Bay with his wife, Danielle Isaie, and giving up alcohol to which he attributes his recent surge in activity. “I’m the evidence,” he says.
“Being productive, turning up on time, doing what I said I’m going to do. But the biggest changes are the ones people don’t see. My relationship with my family, my mum, my wife, my kids. My kids’ progress has taken off — how they are in school, their education. My wife feels she can go and do her own thing without worrying about me too much. Those pressures are relieved.”
“This show is hitting people so hard. Everyone is going to find a bit of themselves here”
Ashley Walters
It might be easier to leave Walters’s past behind if he didn’t return to themes of crime, punishment and redemption so often in his work. He spent his childhood acting — he attended the Sylvia Young Theatre School from six and had a role in Grange Hill (of course) — but it was the prison drama Bullet Boy, made immediately following his release, that really served notice of his talent.
Likewise, Adolescence is all about the passage of a teenage boy through the criminal justice system. It opens with a police raid on the home of 14-year-old Jamie (Owen Cooper), who is accused of murdering his classmate Katie.
Walters plays DI Luke Bascombe, the detective leading the investigation — but he says it was really the fact of his character being a father that drew him to the role. “I did loads of research into police procedures, but in the end, that meant nothing. What I really had to get down to was why this man was so invested in the case — and it was because he was a dad. That’s why this show is hitting people so hard. Everyone is going to find a bit of themselves here.”
Walters as Detective Inspector Bascombe in Adolescence
Courtesy of Netflix
He’s right. Adolescence is devastating. There are stunning performances from Graham as Jamie’s father and Erin Doherty as his psychologist — and the decision to film each of the four episodes in one nervy take makes each moment drip with tension. Walters describes it as a horror movie. “You want to hide behind the sofa but carry on watching at the same time.”
He had wanted to work with Barantini ever since seeing his restaurant drama Boiling Point, also filmed in a single take. “I was so taken aback by the process,” he says. “And then I quickly realised it’s a lot harder than I expected. You’re forced to be totally locked in from start to finish. It’s an amazing way to work. You never want to be the one who messes it up.”
Adolescence touches on many urgent themes: the link between male insecurity and violence; the alienation created by social media; the easy availability of knives. Andrew Tate is namechecked and emojis play a key role. But it defies easy answers — and Walters isn’t about to step in and provide them. “I’m the least political guy in the world,” he says. “I don’t know what the solution is for knife crime. Like everyone else. I just hope shows like this create conversations between parents and children. It can’t be solved in a day. It’s deeper than that.”
The show is less a whodunnit than a whydunnit. The evidence all but proves that Jamie did it. What DI Bascombe is trying to understand is why. For Walters, the drama is ultimately about “our lack of human connection and inability to talk. There’s so much power in speaking your feelings. Letting them be words in your mouth instead of thoughts in your mind. Sometimes things don’t come out right. But especially for men, that’s all fear-based. What’s behind anger and aggression? Fear. It’s people struggling to say how they feel because they’re scared of being judged.”
Jamie Keith
Walters insists he never struggled with expressing emotion. Raised in a largely female household, his father was absent, but short of decrying a lack of male role models, he emphasises how empowering it was growing up surrounded by strong women. “My mum, my aunt, my gran — they were my male role models as well as my female role models. I always had the space to cry. I never saw that as an issue. I’ve been the same with my kids. They’ve seen me in all sorts of positions, and I don’t shy away from that. Hopefully, I’ll pass that on.”
In Adolescence, one of the most poignant moments arrives at the end of the second episode, when DI Bascombe’s fraught investigation of Jamie’s school eventually results in a reconciliation with his own son — and the pair of them head off to share a bag of chips together. The moment resonated with Walters too. “It’s the simple things kids want,” he says. “It’s always time. My 23-year-old daughter is jealous of my younger daughters because they get more time with me.”
“There’s so much power in speaking your feelings”
Ashley Walters
I’m glad he brought all that up. Eight children. How does he begin to find the time for each of them? “Let’s not even go into that,” he laughs. “I’m literally scheduling time in my diary to call them. It’s tough, but it’s important. And I don’t think it gets easier. They need you more as they get older. And then they want houses, cars … It’s expensive!”
The success of Top Boy has clearly helped in this regard. “It changed my life,” he says. “It made me recognised within the industry and just in general. It was one of those roles that became part of the fabric of our culture. I’ve been lucky with So Solid, with Top Boy, to have had a hand in some of those more pivotal moments.”
Walters says playing Dushane in Top Boy changed his life
Courtesy of Netflix
It’s a measure of his self-confidence that he is releasing music again. “I used to worry about my music being at the same level as my acting. But a wise musician friend told me: it should just be fun. I’ve been making music for years and not releasing it, so why not? Who cares about charts in the streaming age? I’m just throwing stuff against the wall, seeing what sticks. Enjoying being free.”
The word “gratitude” comes up a lot in his conversation — it’s almost like talking to a Californian influencer, albeit with a south London accent and imposing. “The gratitude I have to still be here, still in the game, still doing great things — it’s next level,” says Walters. “The higher power is working in a good way for me at the moment.”
“Even before prison, I grew up in hardship. Prison was just another challenge”
Ashley Walters
He puts this down to the fact that he has spent much of the last year revisiting his life for his book, part memoir, part self-help, co-written with his brother-in-law Chris Isaie. The process was arduous.
“Hours and hours, tapes and tapes, my brother-in-law asking me loads of questions about things I didn’t necessarily want to talk about.” But he wanted to present his story on his own terms as “this might be the only time that everyone gets to hear all this stuff”. The first thing he did when it was finished was send a copy to his eldest daughter, so she could understand how her father thought.
Walters’ memoir comes out in May
Jamie Keith
In all, it has given him a renewed appreciation of his own trajectory. “Let me just say this. Even before prison, I grew up in hardship. Prison was just another challenge that I had to get through. When you’re used to those setbacks — when you’re used to working harder than your counterparts to get to where you need to get to — it’s just another thing that makes you stronger. I never look on it as a bad time. It made me more powerful. It made me who I am today. I wouldn’t say I’m proud of making mistakes. But sometimes I’m happy I did, because where would I be if I didn’t learn the lessons at the time I learned them?”
He seems to be enjoying life. “I didn’t love me, for a bit. That’s what was going wrong and it’s completely changed now. I’m really proud of the person I’ve become and long may it continue. I’ve worked out that failure doesn’t have to be a loss. It’s a win if you learn from it. That’s why I called my book Always Winning. I’m just happy to be here. I praise God every morning that I’m breathing.”
Adolescence is on Netflix now. Always Winning is published in May (Penguin)
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