Ashley Walters: The Unheard TRUTH About Top Boy! "Me & Kano Didn't Have The Greatest Time"

I was obsessed with the fact that I was gonna die young. (gun shots) I wanted to hurt people the way I was hurt. Some of the things that go through my head scare me. National Award! Artist. I've got 21 seconds to go. Actor. Here we go. Top Boy's in the building. Growing up, had a lot of trauma and it made me angry with the world. My dad was in prison most of my childhood. The local bad boys, they became dads to me and I started to follow in their footsteps. I'm still paying the price for those years now. But once I get in front of a camera, it's not that Ashley anymore. Top Boy. Top Boy. Top Boy. The greatest show that's ever come out of the UK. Light him up. (gun shots) It was crazy. You know, it changed my life. But filming the last season, me and Kane, we didn't have the greatest time. People don't understand, we go hard for that show. We go hard to make sure characters are being represented in the way they should be and we face a lot of resistance. How? The truth is ...

2005, you had rekindled your relationship with your father.

Yeah. And then he died, man. I never realized it would affect me that much. (heartbeat thumping) Took me to some dark places. Making decisions that were gonna come back to haunt me, you know. Um ... Yeah, man. I wanna break down now just talking about it. (instrumental music plays)

Ashley, I've got an interesting observation that I wanted to start with.

Yeah.

I ... The way you speak, the way you've been chatting to me before we started rolling, it almost reminds me of someone who has had a bit of therapy. Or has done some work on understanding the f- unobvious subconscious forces that are at play in their life.

Mm-hmm.

And what you've had to delve into, because I think as I- this is often the case with this podcast, I think our, like, earliest context shapes us in a profound way and is something that's quite hard to un-shape ourselves with, undo as we become adults. So, what is that early context that you've, um, you've had to reflect on to understand yourself?

Ah, man. So where do I start? (laughs) Um, so much. I mean, look, I- I- I s- first of all, I've had a lot of therapy, right? So I've been in a lot of situations where I've been counseled, you know, I've- I've, um, sought help, um, because I needed it, right? Um, had a lot of trauma I guess that- that has kind of stuck with me over my life and think one of the biggest things for me was, um, my dad, really. That's where I stem back to, like, growing up, um, just not having a father figure around, um, and the places that pushed me to. And don't get me wrong, like, a lot of people have gone through that and come out the other side and not been like me, but I dealt with it in, like, a really crazy sort of way, you know? It made me angry. Made me angry with the world. So all throughout my, you know, my So Solid years and my early kind of acting years, um, my attitude towards life and towards other people was very ... I mean, it was wrong, you know? It was quite negative. And I wanted to hurt people the way I was hurt. And sometimes I did, you know? Sometimes I did. It came out in a lot of different ways. Some of the people I cared about, some of the people who were close to me, and some people I didn't know. Random people, but got me into a lot of trouble with the police. Yeah, you know, I just didn't care about myself as a teen growing up. So ... And, look, I had some amazing supportive people around me, like my mum is amazing and I've got an amazing family, but that one niggling thing of kind of being slightly lost about what a man is, um, not feeling like I fit in rooms with other men, you know, ra- in groups of people and stuff like that. Just, like, having this niggling doubt about myself all the time, um, made me quite a difficult person to be around, um, growing up and t- trying to explore that. So yeah, when I ... And I didn't know it was that's why at the time. I didn't know it had anything to do with, you know, not having my dad around. Like my dad, when he was around, you know, he was in prison most of my- my childhood growing up. That was like France. He used to say he was in France. So to me and my younger brothers, like, anytime, you know, my mum would be like, "He's in France." Or someone would say he's in France or whatever, that was like code for prison. Didn't know it at the time. It was something I learned later on. But it was, he was in France a lot of times, so (laughs) you know what I mean? It was like ... Um, so there was a few phone conversations and stuff like that with him, but never had him there and then when he would turn up, he would just turn up randomly at my- at my house and stuff. And one thing I always remember is that I always wanted to go with him, right? Because he was a superhero to me. You know, I didn't care as much as the other adults cared about the fact that he was, you know, in and out of my life and what damage that was doing to me and stuff like that. I was just like, "I wanna see my dad. Everyone else has got a dad. Why haven't I got a dad?" You know? "I wanna know my dad." So ... My mum would- I- I gotta give my mum a lot of credit because she would never badmouth him in front of me even though I know that she wanted to, and she would always give me the option. So any time he would come, she was like, "Would you like to go?"And I would obviously go, and then I'd come back crying because something had happened, you know. Like one of the... You know, my dad drank a lot. I remember one time he took me to a party, it was like a family party, it was, like, after a christening or something like that. Um, and he was... He got so drunk and they threw him out. You know, he had a fight with someone in the party and he was... He got thrown out. And I remember having to, like, I, you know... I'm maybe, like, 10, 11 tops, having to carry him home (laughs) literally down the street. Like, carry this guy home, um, to, to my gran's, to his mum's. You know, being chased by the police in the car, you know. Him pushing my head down in the back. I just remember that image of him going like, "Look, keep your head down," (laughs) and stuff like that, and he was getting chased by police. And I laugh about it now. It's more an uneasy laugh that's happening.