Ashley Walters: ‘Locking people up 23 hours a day doesn’t work’

Ashley Walters knows you might not have the highest expectations for his directorial debut feature. When I speak to the 44-year-old actor-turned-filmmaker a day before Animol comes out in cinemas, I tell him the coming-of-age thriller wasn’t what I expected. As I correct myself and struggle to find a more precise description for what I meant, Walters interjects: “Your average prison film?”

He laughs as I again stumble over my words. “I get what you’re saying. In the UK, we do prison films. Some great, some not so great. And this is a really different prison story, isn’t it?”

Animol is indeed different for a number of reasons, the main one being a late revelation that two of the young male characters are gay. Penned by Nick Love, a screenwriter known for his Danny Dyer collaborations like The Football Factory, Animol is a sensitive drama that follows Troy (Tut Nyuot), a shy Black teen, as he enters a young offender institution and forms a bond with another quiet kid, Krystian (Vladyslav Baliuk).

Before entering the prison, Troy is coerced by a tough-talking bully, Dion (Sekou Diaby), into smuggling a phone past the strip search by hiding it “where the sun don’t shine”. Inside his cell, Troy is then pressured by Dion to prove his loyalty by using a razorblade against another inmate. In private, though, Troy reveals his true self to Krystian, which leads to a tender kiss at the story’s midpoint. The glimmer of romance emerges like a twist – except it’s only a surprise if you assume everyone in prison is heterosexual by default. In a supporting role, Stephen Graham plays a welfare officer who encourages the kids to dance to “get over shame”.

“Prison as a whole is quite a homophobic environment to be in,” says Walters, sat in a London hotel. “It’s like gay men in football that are afraid to come out because it’s such a masculine environment. That’s what we wanted to explore. It’s not a queer film. That little part of the story is more about the need to survive together. I tried to leave the audience with a bit of openness as to what happens to Troy and Krystian after.”

Born in Peckham, Walters found fame as a teenager as a member of So Solid Crew under the rapper name Asher D. These days, he’s known as a prolific TV actor whose credits include Top Boy, Bulletproof, and Adolescence. He acknowledges it’s in stark contrast to his childhood: at the age of 19, he received an 18-month prison sentence for possessing a firearm. He ultimately served seven of those months behind bars.

“Going to a young offender institute when I was young shaped me as a person. I don’t regret my life, because I wouldn’t be where I am today. It gave me fire, baby. It changed a lot of things.” How did it feed into Animol? “I wanted to show a tender, vulnerable prisoner navigating the experience of being amongst the wolves. I was a really high-profile prisoner because of my music career. My first night was how I tried to portray Troy’s first night, as a fish out of water. He wasn’t meant to be there, and that’s exactly how I felt – although I did commit a crime.”

In Animol, prisoners smuggle in drugs through drones and conceal smartphones in their cells. Still, Walters believes not much has changed. “Your world, inside a prison, is really at a stand-still, and everything outside is moving fast. We need to rethink how we’re doing it, because locking people up 23 hours a day doesn’t work for everyone. Some people are just getting worse.”

When you speak to young prisoners, they’re really hopeful because they’ve got so much life ahead of them

In terms of prison movie cliches, Walters points to the genre’s griminess as a product of privileged, middle-class artists taking a voyeuristic approach. “They have a judgement on what it feels like, rather than talking from the perspective of the prisoners within.” To counter the greyness, Walters and his cinematographer studied movies like Moonlight and Beasts of the Southern Wild. “We were obsessed with colour representing hope. When you speak to young prisoners, they’re really hopeful because they’ve got so much life ahead of them.”

He felt hope as a teenager in prison? “Yes. I remember being that age and not caring. I was like, ‘I’m young and can come back from my mistakes. I’ve got plenty of time.’ As you get older, you realise it’s less about actual hope, and more about having hope in order to survive.”

In 2001, Walters played a gay man in The Bill and was subsequently heckled in public. “I wanted to be treated as an actor, not a guy from the streets that plays a guy from the streets, and it was hard to deal with the backlash.” In 2026, it seems unimaginable for Nyuot to receive the same treatment, at least not overtly. If anything, I suggest to Walters, he’s more likely to be congratulated by strangers.

“I’ll be quite frank with you,” says Walters. “I’m really surprised by the reaction we’ve gotten from the film. The whole reason I stepped into this role was to challenge the taboos and preconceptions, especially in my own community, that I’ve grown up around and heard. At my first screening in London, the kiss came, and there were gasps around the room. At that moment, I was like, ‘People are going to leave now.’ But everyone stayed locked in until the end. Afterwards, they commented on how happy they were that that part was in there. It’s obvious that in 2026, things are different. I’m pleased with how far we’ve moved on as people, although there’s still more conversations to be had.”

When Walters refers to backlash from his “community”, does he mean the hip-hop world or as a young Black man? “Predominantly being a Black man, but hip-hop went against those things. Which is sad.” He adds: “It’s beautiful to see how Tut and Vlad are being supported and loved for making those choices.”

If Walters was typecast from the popularity of Top Boy, he’s now entered a new stage of his career. Since playing a detective in Adolescence, Walters has received an influx of job offers from America. One of them involves co-starring with Jake Gyllenhaal and Phoebe Dynevor in M Night Shyamalan’s new movie, Remain, a supernatural romance co-written with Nicholas Sparks. (He refers to Shyamalan as a “next-level guy” and “a friend”.)

Walters has also spoken publicly about addiction. Last year, in Men’s Health magazine, he detailed losing jobs to excessive partying, and said that he entered rehab in 2020 for drugs and alcohol abuse. He tells me: “Since I’ve been sober and clean for the last six years, I’ve really excelled. I didn’t get sober and clean to have a better career; I did it to have a better life, to be healthy and to support my family in the way that I should.”

Does being so open allow him to fully connect with his art, or is it a product of nosy journalists discovering he’s an honest interviewee? “A bit of both,” he says, laughing. “I never wanted to be dishonest about my journey. Too often, because of social media, we’re always showing the end product, and never the hard work. I’m always going to be an open book. If we’re not trying to be an inspiration for those coming behind us, then I don’t know what we’re doing here.”

Animol is out in UK cinemas now.

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