Ashley Walters: Top Boy Academy is all about creating change and pushing new talent

Ashley Walters — the star of Netflix’s revived drug gang drama, Top Boy — can count on one hand how many black actors he had as role models growing up. “A lot of them were quite a bit older than me,” sighs the Peckham-born actor, 37, sheltering from the rain in a dressing gown in his kitchen in north London.

 “Idris [Elba] was around, Adrian Lester, Lennie James. I used to watch these guys growing up but the disconnect was that I couldn’t reach those people. There was no way for them to advise me, support me, tell me about the mistakes that they made. I felt like I was navigating this whole journey by myself.”

Top Boy changed this. The gritty show, a cult hit when it first aired in 2011 on Channel 4 and now picked up by Netflix and Canadian superstar Drake for a third series, has always pioneered new talent, street-casting from schools and council estates as well as drama schools. The cast and crew for the latest season were discovered on Instagram and around Hackney, and this weekend sees the launch of the inaugural Top Boy Academy: a free two-day programme of workshops, Q&As and demos on breaking into the creative industries for 16- to 25-year-olds living in and around the borough. It will include TV, film and music professionals from across rap, grime, drill and podcasting.

“It’s all about creating change and pushing new talent,” says Walters, who has eight children himself and will be among the line-up of on- and off-screen stars speaking at the academy, hosted by Top Boy, Netflix and NTS at The Curtain hotel in Shoreditch. “When I’m in my dotage, some of the people we see this weekend will be directing me or writing [for] me or acting with me. You have to give them that leg-up to that first rung on the ladder.”

Music supervisor Abi Leland, who dropped out of her A-levels to join a production company before landing her “dream job” on Top Boy, will lead a Q&A on crafting the soundtrack; writer Ronan Bennett will speak about creating season three; and costume designer Charlotte Morris will speak about making contacts and negotiating pay as a freelancer. “That can be scary, especially in London because it’s so expensive,” she admits.

Money is an important talking point for young Londoners, agrees Walters, whose on-screen character Dushane, a drug dealer, is seen attempting to hire new recruits with the promise of cash. He admits he was “dazzled by money” growing up and “lost a lot of money” after signing his first record deal with no legal representation. The show also tackles issues of mental health, masculinity and male pride that “run rife among kids of that age group,” says Walters, admitting that his eldest son, now 19, has “got into trouble at times” over the years. “If you want to solve and reduce crime, a big part of it is mental health. It gets me emotional a lot of the time because it’s something that can be focused on.”

He hopes that reflecting issues like this on screen will help to drive change. “That’s the first rule of Top Boy,” he insists. “We’re not a charity flying the flag for change, but actually we’re doing it through a show that entertains you. It can get very tense when we’re filming because we’re dealing with real people’s lives: none of us want to go home and have people where we come from saying we didn’t do it right.”

Walters hopes political leaders such as Boris Johnson will watch the series to see what life is like “on the ground” but he isn’t letting himself get too weighed down by the current state of politics. His mantra is “when things are bad they’re going to get good — so I think life after Boris is going to be great.”

Who does he think should follow Johnson as prime minister? “Me!” he laughs, though he admits that he won’t be putting himself forward. He believes “citizens should be a lot more involved with politics” — “I don’t know whether it would be a rotation thing or a jury service sort of thing” — but the current system has become “a joke”.

“It’s all just political gesticulation and people out for their own personal development; meanwhile, I’m watching people walking down the street who need some serious mental help. People are losing their lives here.”

Walters believes the timing of Top Boy’s comeback is important (“everything happens for a reason”). “In those six years a lot of things have changed,” he says, referencing Brexit and the rise of knife and gun crime on London’s streets. “[Season three has] come at a time when people needed it: something that represented what was happening as accurately as possible. Those characters in the show fully represent young people and I don’t think that’s something they see very often.”

Do his own children watch? “Actually, they hate my job,” Walters admits. “My eldest especially, because it’s taken me away from them so much. They keep a slight distance from it.”

He won’t push any of his sons or daughters to go into acting because “it’s way too hard” but he’s “open” to them trying and excited for a new generation of actors, directors and producers to come through.

“I have no doubt in my mind that it’s going to create the stars of the future,” he says, looking to this weekends’s event. “It may just be a weekend, but it’s the start of something greater.”

The Top Boy Academy takes place this weekend at The Curtain, EC2. Guests include 1Xtra DJ Tiffany Calver, Black to Techno director Jenn Nkiru, drill producers Sean D and Limitless and Skepta’s manager Grace Ladoja, alongside the Top Boy cast and crew.Free tickets are available via the Dice app (dice.fm), though spaces for the talks and workshops are limited.