For Ashley Walters, life has had its ups and downs. Now, ahead of a new season of Top Boy – not to mention directing and musical projects – the pieces are finally falling into place. He talks to Tim Lewis about loyalty, prison – and his new life on the Kent coast
Edinburgh International Book Festival: Week one recap theskinny.co.uk - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from theskinny.co.uk Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Last modified on Sun 4 Apr 2021 02.31 EDT
In 2015, when he was a young actor from Peckham with a couple of theatre credits and, naturally, an episode of
Casualty to his Equity card, Damson Idris somehow wangled a big TV audition in Los Angeles. The part was Franklin Saint, a bright kid in South Central LA during the 1980s who becomes a drug kingpin just as the city is on the cusp of a crack cocaine epidemic.
Snowfall was the vision of John Singleton, the director of the seminal 1991 coming-of-age film
Boyz n the Hood. Word was that every tyro black actor in America, and beyond, wanted to be cast as Franklin.