Ashley Walters

Rather than enjoying my success I was stressing about it. Wanting it, but at the same time I couldn't handle the consequences. I was intimidated by people. ”

I remember at a very early age ringing up record labels I found in the Yellow Pages, and asking them for a record deal. ”

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.' ”

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. ”

I don't want to say I'm a role model because I've not been the most clean-cut person, and there were times I could have gone the other way. ”

This game is full of rejection. As an actor, you are being told 'No' an awful lot of the time. You have to keep getting up and carrying on to get to where you want to go. ”

As a rapper, you're taught and you practice being hard all the time. You're not crying on your tracks, you don't sound like Neyo singing an R&B song about what you've lost or whatever. ”

I have done a lot of short dramas that are three, four or five episodes and so that makes the filming process similar to the independent film process; it is very intimate, and it is a small cast and a small crew and everyone is there with a common goal and want the best for that project. ”

My mum was well-travelled, well-educated and made me understand from books, from my imagination and from just taking me away on holiday once a year, wherever she could, that the world was bigger than Peckham. ”

I'm not a fan of social media, to be honest. ”