A biography for Ashley Waltershasn’t been written yet.
“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 don't have friends, to be honest.”
“It would be beautiful to be able to walk up and down Peckham still, because I love it; it's where I grew up. But it just doesn't work. There are a lot of people who love you but there's jealousy too.”
“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.”
“It's down to schools to educate children about their history, especially black history.”
“The main thing I learned in jail was how much I love my kids, that I never want to be away from them again.”
“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.'”
“Top Boy' isn't the type of programme that is trying to be righteous and have a happy ending, it is just real.”
“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.”
“To be honest, there is going to be no 'Top Boy America.'”
“Acting is something I feel good about doing, I'm lucky enough to love my job as well.”
“I find it hard to network and I have an issue about what people are going to think of me.”
“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.”
“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.”
“I find it really, really, really hard to have relationships with other men. That's one of my biggest problems. Women I seem to get on with quite well.”
“I couldn't take that whole retail thing of being polite to people that are not being polite to you, and showing respect to people when they've got no respect for you. Retail in general is something I just can't do, unless it's my own shop.”
“My father passed away in 2005, and day after, I sat in my flat in Woolwich on my bed, and I feel that I saw him.”
“My whole journey has been televised: the negative and the positive.”
“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.”