Ashley Walters has revealed that watching teenager Owen Cooper act in the hit Netflix show Adolescence may have saved his own acting career.
Walters, 42, who was in the So Solid Crew before finding fame in the acclaimed show Top Boy and other shows, plays DI Luke Bascombe in the show, about a teenager accused of murder.
He said that the experience of making the four-parter, unusually filmed in one take and starring newcomer Owen Cooper in his first professional acting engagement, had reignited his love for acting.
Walters said: ‘It totally revived acting. For me, there was a light that was slowly dying inside of me, and coming on set and watching Owen reminded me of what acting is all about.
‘It’s because he was so pure, and, you know, that’s why he could go and play swingball after takes through and stuff.
‘We take it so seriously, you know, over the years, it just powers on. And you’re thinking about the craft all the time, and what’s your next job, and what’s this, and what’s that.
Ashley Walters, pictured in Adolescence, has revealed that watching teenager Owen Cooper act in the hit Netflix show may have saved own acting career
‘And Owen just kind of comes and is just so casual about. You remember the moments of watching your kids play with toys in the corner, and just being so free, and they believe in whatever they’re doing?
‘That’s where we’re all trying to get to, you know, working with these kids, that’s what they have the ability to do. And, you know, Owen was, I was watching him in awe most of the time. Like, how the hell is he doing this?
‘Like, how is how is it happening this magic. But you know, he’s just a very skilled actor, and I hope he goes on to great things.’
Walters said that they had up to ten takes for each hour long episode which had been a challenge.
‘I always wanted to work with [director] Phil [Barantini] in that kind of way. And then I got there and I realised how tough it is. It’s quite challenging, you know what I mean, and quite daunting at times.
‘You know, I spent many, many evenings kind of burying my head in the script, sometimes a bit few tears in my eyes, just thinking, “Am I going to be able to achieve this?” But actually, when I let go, that’s when I started to understand what the process was about.
‘There is an ensemble cast. Everyone picks up the ball, no matter how quickly they pass it over or how long they have it, it doesn’t matter.
Owen has received critical acclaim for his performance as Jamie Miller in the four-episode series, with each part filmed as a single continuous take
‘We’re all in it together. And when you drop it, someone else picks it up and gives it back to you, you know?
‘And that was the process. And the minute I started to just respond to what was happening in front of me, and believe in my mind that I knew the text, I knew what was going on, that’s when it became free and amazing.
‘And, I just wish I could work like this, like every day, you know, it’s just one of the best experiences in the world.’
The star has eight children and has previously said that he wasn’t around enough for some of the older ones.
He said: ‘It really threw up questions for me about, you know, how I deal with my own kids, how I talk to my own boys, and do I need to spend more time with them, just connecting because you’re doing all the great things, right?
‘As a father, you’re out there, you’re like, I go to work, I make the money, I pay the bills, we go and kick ball on the weekend or whatever. But how much do you really get to sit down and talk to your kids about what’s going on inside them?
‘And that’s what it threw up for me. And it was quite emotional. It was emotionally draining by the end of it.
‘But actually, it did help me to talk to my kids, more and I hope, hopefully it brings that question up for other parents.’
Writer Stephen Graham revealed that the concept of the show came to him during a car ride – as the result of his love for the show 24 Hours In Police Custody.
He said that he and director Phil Barantini, who previously made Boiling Point with him, had an hour journey together. ‘I had an idea and me and Phil discussed it. Literally. It was one of those moments that just, you know, a flash of lightning.
‘I went, I think this is what it might be. And I started telling him about episode one. And we both have a healthy obsession with 24 Hours in Police Custody.
‘What we wanted to do is we wanted to make a police procedural drama which wasn’t your conventional police procedural drama.
‘There’s a collective between me, Phil and [writer] Jack [Thorne] and [Stephen’s wife] Hannah hugely as well.
‘What we wanted to do was not tell the normal narrative that we’d normally see in the structure that you find these dramas in.
‘We’d normally see it from the perspective of the family of the victim, and rightly so. That’s the kind of story that should be told as well.
Ashley admitted that before appearing in Adolescence, his passion for acting was ‘slowly dying’ but starring in the drama has reignited his love for it
‘But we wanted to do something different. We wanted to change the narrative. So we wanted to tell it from the perspective of the kid who’s committed the act.
‘And then we wanted to eliminate the kind of normal cliches which are rightly so in those places, in a normal drama of this kind of ilk, and we wanted to relieve that kind of dad that never raised his hand so that dad wasn’t violent.
‘Mum was not an alcoholic. He hasn’t been abused physically, mentally or sexually by one of his uncles or another member of the family?
‘We wanted to eliminate all of those possibilities and just look at it from a different perspective, and see why he done this.
‘Jack went away, and really delved into this and looked at the dark side of the kind of stuff that’s out there on social media, and, you know, that’s where the whole kind of INCEL construct and all of that thing came from.
‘So that was the aspect that we were looking at it from when we wanted to create something slightly different.’
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