This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine.
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Ashley Walters hadn’t even seen a script for Adolescence, but when Stephen Graham calls and offers you a role, you say yes. “This revived a part of me that was dying a bit,” the actor says. “It’s taken a real friend of mine, Stephen, to see me outside of the box.
“I was in the mindset of ending my career acting and going more into producing and directing, because it was like, ‘Am I getting roles I’m enjoying?’ As much as I love Top Boy [the Channel 4/Netflix drama in which he played narcotics distributor Dushane Hill across five seasons] and the other stuff I’ve done, once you’ve played a role for so long, people find it hard to see you as anything else.”
In Adolescence, Walters, 42, plays DI Luke Bascombe, who arrests 13-year-old Jamie (Owen Cooper) for killing a teenage girl from his school with a knife. According to figures from the Ben Kinsella Trust, 57 young people aged under 25 were murdered with a knife or sharp object in England and Wales in the last 12 months — 17 of them were aged under 16. Over the past ten years, the number of teenagers killed with a knife or sharp object has increased by 240 per cent from 22 to 53.
“Knife crime has been happening since I was in school,” Walters says. “It’s really easy for any one of us to slip into. I remember being pretty scared of it myself. At times, I felt like maybe I needed to have a knife in order to protect myself.
“Most of the stats say people carry them out of fear. It’s sad, and these are just kids with young brains still developing. We’re very quick to blame the parents, but as you clearly see in Adolescence, it’s not about that. It’s about influence and where that’s coming from.”
Ashley Walters stars in Adolescence. Netflix
In 2002, Walters, then aged 19, was sentenced to 18 months in a young offenders’ institution for possession of a gun. “Similar to Jamie, I had a great upbringing with a great family trying to keep me on the straight and narrow. I was never seduced by a life of crime. The trouble I got into was because I fell into the wrong crowd.”
The malign influences youngsters are exposed to today include individuals who spread misogyny and hate on social media. In Adolescence, DI Bascombe has a teenage son at Jamie’s school who fills him in on how certain phrases and emojis are actually code for more malicious messages.
“It really baffled me, but it just shows how complex and how deep that world is, and how much these kids are having to put up with and think about in order to not be bullied, to not be a victim,” says Walters, who’s a father of eight children, four sons and four daughters.
“I did worry a lot about my boys going through their teenage years. There were scrapes here and there, but I’m very proud that they were able to get through unscathed. Managing to get them through without anything major happening was tough. There is still a fear, because I have an eight-year-old, but the idea [as a parent] is to be present, give them your time and listen.”
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Laura Rutkowski is the Junior Commissioning Editor at Radio Times magazine, where she looks after a column called "What it's like to…", which spotlights behind-the-scenes roles within the TV and film industry – from stunt coordinators to costume designers. She loves finding out how productions are made and enjoys covering a wide variety of genres. Laura is half-American and half-British and joined Radio Times in 2022. She has a degree in Psychology and a Master's in Magazine Journalism.
