![\"LONDON,](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/SEI_317642521-44e4-e1792768658226.jpg\")
\n\t\tAshley Walters takes us behind the lens (Picture: Getty Images)<\/p>\n
\t\t
\n\t\tAshley Walters takes us behind the lens (Picture: Getty Images)<\/p>\n
You might think Ashley Walters had it sussed.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The star of Top Boy<\/a>, who recently featured in A Thousand Blows and gained an Emmy<\/a> nomination for the staggering Adolescence<\/a>, seems like a natural on screen.\u00a0<\/p>\n Think again. \u2018It just takes a lot for me to step in front of the camera, and to be watched and criticised and judged\u2026sixty people just watching you all day,\u2019 he shudders. <\/p>\n \u2018The anxiety<\/a> that I have acting was really getting to an unbearable place\u2026how it affected my family, my home life, and just me and my mental health<\/a>. It\u2019s been really hard to cope with.\u2019<\/p>\n It\u2019s a candid admission from the Peckham-born former rapper, who \u2013 under the moniker Asher D \u2013 was part of UK garage outfit So Solid Crew. In the early 2000s, he turned to acting \u2013 even winning a British Independent Film Award for most promising newcomer for the superb movie Bullet Boy. <\/p>\n \u2018For context\u2019, he adds, \u2018I was an addict. I was an alcoholic for 15 to 20 years. The last six years, I\u2019ve been sober. That\u2019s when my anxiety has been the biggest. I traded off my addiction to get that my feelings back, and that\u2019s what I was left with. So it\u2019s like learning to deal with a new normal now and trying to navigate that.\u2019<\/p>\n While most would probably curl up in a ball, faced with such anxiety-inducing sobriety, Walters has channelled that energy elsewhere. A father to eight children \u2013 he\u2019s been married to actress Danielle Isaie (now Walters) since 2013 \u2013 the 44-year-old is the perfect example of someone who has overcome life\u2019s boobytraps to come out the other side. <\/p>\n \t\t \t\t How did he do it? By finding his niche behind the camera. Directing 2021 short Boys led to helming episodes of TV show Ackley Bridge<\/a> and A Thousand Blows. \u2018I just felt calm in that space,\u2019 he says. \u2018It changed my life.\u2019<\/p>\n Now he\u2019s delivering his first feature, Animol \u2013 a raw jailtime drama that may lean on Scum, the daddy of all prison flicks, but still feels box-fresh. Inspired on some level by his own troubled past \u2013 in 2002, he was sentenced to 18 months in a young offenders institution for possession of a firearm \u2013 it casts Tut Nyuot (from Cillian Murphy<\/a> drama Steve) as Troy. <\/p>\n Being held in a juvenile detention centre for conspiracy to commit murder, Troy is thrown into this lion\u2019s den, forced to survive by any means possible \u2013 which includes smuggling in contraband for unstable inmate Dion (Sekou Diaby).<\/p>\n To do his due diligence, Walters went to prisons and young offenders institutions across the country, speaking to inmates. \u2018They knew who I was, but that made it even worse,\u2019 he admits. When he told them he\u2019d been locked up for possession of a firearm, they all started laughing.<\/p>\n \t\t \u2018I was sitting in front of people doing life for murders and they\u2019re looking at me like, \u201cYou haven\u2019t got a clue what we\u2019re going through\u201d and I realised I didn\u2019t.\u2019 With this fresh in his mind, he knew he needed to get it right. \u2018I had to honour those people.\u2019<\/p>\n Scripted by Nick Love, who Walters worked with on Bulletproof, what Animol shows well is what happens when you hook up with the wrong crowd. <\/p>\n \u2018You see in this film, loyalty seems to kill,\u2019 he says, \u2018and that\u2019s been my experience with it. I was loyal to a fault to some people that really didn\u2019t care about me, and it led me to all sorts of crazy places. [It\u2019s disastrous] when you don\u2019t have a solid foundation, a solid figure, essentially a male role model\u2026especially for the young boys, you\u2019re really learning as you go along. You\u2019re learning and making those decisions.\u2019<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Walters grew up without his father being around. \u2018My mum was a single parent, and I was desperately looking for male role models in every walk of my life. And unfortunately, they became the wrong people. So my loyalty to their influence led me to young offenders institutes, and I made some really silly decisions, and I\u2019m pretty aware of that now. I\u2019ve done a lot of soul searching and stuff since then, but I\u2019ve made it my life\u2019s work without shouting about it\u2026 kids I see that are going through the same thing as me, I want to help them. This film is an extension of that.\u2019<\/p>\n Intriguingly, Walters casts Stephen Graham<\/a> in Animol as the prison welfare officer, following their work together on A Thousand Blows and Adolescence.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u2018I love him,\u2019 says Walters. \u2018He saved my life. I\u2019ve saved his life. Not physically\u2026 but we\u2019ve supported each other through a lot of stuff over the years, and we\u2019ve come through some of the same experiences, and that has kept us as kindred spirits.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n They go way back \u2013 to 2004 sitcom Top Buzzer \u2013 where Walters also met wife Danielle. \u2018I\u2019ve seen him at his lowest, and I\u2019m now seeing him at his highest, and he\u2019s seen me at my lowest and my highest, and we just stuck with it.\u2019<\/p>\n \t\t\t\tAnimol: The details\t\t\t<\/p>\n Director <\/p>\n Ashley Walters<\/p>\n Cast<\/p>\n Tut Nyuot, Sharon Duncan-Brewster, Stephen Graham, Vladyslav Baliuk<\/p>\n Writer <\/p>\n Nick Love <\/p>\n Rating <\/p>\n 15 <\/p>\n Runtime <\/p>\n 1h30mins <\/p>\n Release date <\/p>\n Friday October 30, 2026<\/p>\n He starts to look emotional. \u2018He\u2019s a genuine, down-to-earth human being, and you just rarely find that in this game.\u2019 <\/p>\n Together, he and Graham were able to enjoy all the plaudits that rightly came to Adolescence \u2013 the four-part Netflix procedural<\/a> which saw each episode filmed in one take. It was a rare chance for Walters, who played a Detective Inspector, to enjoy acting. \u2018Celebrating Adolescence and seeing what it\u2019s done \u2013 the success of it and how well it\u2019s translated \u2013 is amazing, and so I live for that. I live for these moments. I don\u2019t mind the pain that often, going through it.\u2019<\/p>\n For the record, he still loves going in front of the camera. Featuring in the upcoming second season of Dune: Prophecy, he\u2019s next up in Remain, the new psychological thriller from M. Night Shyamalan, alongside Jake Gyllenhaal. \u2018I don\u2019t ever want to stop acting. That\u2019s not what I\u2019m saying\u2026I still want to work!\u2019 he laughs. \u2018But I now understand what triggers me, what makes me feel a certain way or not. And I do really [want to] indulge in the beauty of directing.\u2019<\/p>\n Animol is in cinemas now.<\/p>\n Arrow Arrow Arrow![\"Ashley](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/SEI_317861970-9d05.jpg\")
\n\t\tHe has made his directorial debut with Animol, out today (Picture: Sky)<\/p>\n![\"Stephen](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/SEI_317861972-32d2.jpg\")
\n\t\tStephen Graham stars in the prison drama (Picture: Sky)<\/p>\n![\"Poster](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/SEI_317862061-e202.jpg\")
\n\t\tAnimol was partly inspired by Walters\u2019 experience in a juvenile detention centre (Picture: Sky)<\/p>\n
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