Top 60 Ashley Walters Quotes

I have done a lot of short dramas that are three, four or five episodes and so that makes the filming process similar to the independent film process; it is very intimate, and it is a small cast and a small crew and everyone is there with a common goal and want the best for that project.

I don’t have friends, to be honest.

My mum‘s been my backbone, my inspiration, and the person who‘s pushed me in my career.

To be honest, there is going to be no ‘Top Boy America.’

The main thing I learned in jail was how much I love my kids, that I never want to be away from them again.

I gave up acting while I just pursued my music career.

So Solid was more to me about the camaraderie, the unit between me and the other boys.

There’s a lot of negative things which happen in the show we’re not trying to lie about that, that’s the beauty of ‘Top Boy,’ it’s unapologetic.

Acting is something I feel good about doing, I’m lucky enough to love my job as well.

A lot of black actors will sit there and go, ‘Every role is about being a gangster‘ – then they get an opportunity to write a script and they write about a gangster. You know… write about a superhero.

When I was released from prison, I didn’t want to leave my house for the first three months.

I used to eat under my grandmother‘s dining room table. I wouldn’t eat at the table ever until I was about 10.

My mum was well-travelled, well-educated and made me understand from books, from my imagination and from just taking me away on holiday once a year, wherever she could, that the world was bigger than Peckham.

I’m a father eight and I’m married as well – in real life.

Top Boy’ didn’t try to glamorise anything. It gave it to you how it was. But it also dealt with mental health, social situations, immigration.

I had an inkling that I was going to prison before I actually did, because I’d witnessed my father and my elders going through it. It seemed like that’s the way that you got respect, which is a sad thing.

I stayed well clear of roles like ‘Top Boy’ for years before I did it, but I had to do it because the script was amazing. It was the most authentic thing that I’ve ever read when it comes to that sort of life.

After one brandy, I’m already slurring. I’m quite a lightweight.

I find it hard to network and I have an issue about what people are going to think of me.

As an actor, you’re different in every role.

I remember at a very early age ringing up record labels I found in the Yellow Pages, and asking them for a record deal.

In my opinion, gentrification can sometimes affect what’s happening on the ends. You’re placing people in different places, moving them around, and you’re taking them out of their comfort zone and into places they’re not used to being in.

There’s always that romantic Hollywood element to it. But people appreciate ‘Top Boy’ because it is what it is.

Rather than enjoying my success I was stressing about it. Wanting it, but at the same time I couldn’t handle the consequences. I was intimidated by people.

There was a long period where every time someone was shot or stabbed the BBC would call me. I started to think, ‘I’m an actor and a musician, I don’t want to be a politician or a spokesperson.’

I loved English and I tell kids that without English I wouldn’t be able to rap.

Politics isn’t about helping people, it’s about maintaining whatever people have got, whatever it takes to maintain their position at the expense of us.

When it comes to friends, as in people to relax with, that’s my wife and my kids.

With So Solid, we had overnight success and I bought stupid stuff with my money, I bought a 35k car while I was still living in a council flat.

Drake and his camp are people of their word. I’ve never seen them say they’re going to do something and not do it.

I have grown up being a father. When my first son was born I was 17. I was a child bringing up a child. I was not capable of understanding what a dad was meant to be.

Music for me, it’s pretty annoying, because I’ve never had a successful solo career and it bugs me.

I grew up on an estate in Peckham.

Once you’ve been at the top, you’re always gonna know what it’s like to be at the top. If you’ve never been at the top, you’re not worrying about what it feels like being there.

But I’m quite liberal as a dad.

I’m inspired by the fact that for every kid we see committed to crime, there’s kids determined to go to uni and not follow their peers.

Drake revived ‘Top Boy,’ if I’m honest with you. You’ve got to give him a lot of credit.

When I was in So Solid Crew, people were always asking if we were associated with the rise in gun crime.

My dad spent most of my childhood behind bars. He went to jail 17 or 18 times. It was only when he was diagnosed with cancer in 2004 that we started to have a relationship.

As a rapper, you’re taught and you practice being hard all the time. You’re not crying on your tracks, you don’t sound like Neyo singing an R&B song about what you’ve lost or whatever.

Growing up without a father has made fatherhood harder for me.

When we think someone is a great dad, what it really means is that we like the way they try.

There were not a lot of roles for a black man like myself that were different. Then ‘Top Boy’ came. I read the script and I loved that the characters were human.

I worked in WH Smiths on Sloane Square and my first boss was a woman called June. My shift was half a day on Saturdays, and nine to six on Sundays. I was in and out of the place and only turned up when I wanted to.

The strength of ‘Small Island‘ is the fact that it deals with heavy issues in a way that is appealing to watch, and it’s a story that people can relate to no matter what colour you are.

It’s important for people to listen and take time to watch what’s going on in these shows, especially the ones like ‘Top Boy’ that are painting an accurate picture.

The fact that ‘Small Island’ is ‘period’ is amazing for me because it’s something that I’ve never been involved with before. Also, half my family is Jamaican and this story is essentially a story about Jamaican people, and it’s portraying a part of history that I was not that familiar with myself.

I don’t want to say I’m a role model because I’ve not been the most clean-cut person, and there were times I could have gone the other way.

I was stabbed in the neck when I was 15.

I went to a branch of the City of Westminster College in Maida Vale to do drama, sociology and English literature. I stayed for three or four months.

I sit down on my sofa and I turn on ‘Judge Judy.’ That’s my guilty pleasure. I could do a whole day of that.

I was angry when I was young, but I was never really that violent. I hardly ever fought, mainly because I wasn’t very good at it.

Using a gun is a coward‘s way to hurt someone.

A lot of people out there are not content with their life, but I am.

Selling out is a myth. Bill Gates isn’t selling out, is he? Richard Branson isn’t selling out. Why can’t black people make money?

It’s down to schools to educate children about their history, especially black history.

Drake is involved heavily, and they’re kind of working away to find the right home for ‘Top Boy,’ whether that be Netflix, whether it be on TV, whether it be Amazon, I don’t know.

I’m not a comedy guy. I don’t do comedy shows.

Some days it seems I’ve done as much as I can here and I think I’ll go and try my luck in America. But then a call comes from the Globe theatre. They want me for King Lear, playing Edmund.

This game is full of rejection. As an actor, you are being told ‘No’ an awful lot of the time. You have to keep getting up and carrying on to get to where you want to go.