Ashley Walters changed by Adolescence
Ashley Walters thinks Adolescence has changed his parenting and believes it has helped others too.
Ashley Walters thinks Adolescence has changed his parenting.
The 42-year-old star - who has Amaiya-Love, 10, and nine-year-old River with wife Danielle Isaie, is stepfather to her child, and also has adult kids Shayon, China, and Panera with former partner Natalie Williams, and Antonia and Ashley from another relationship - has become more present and engaged in doing things with his youngest son in particular since starring in the Netflix miniseries in order to encourage him away from the online world.
He told the new issue of Men's Health UK magazine: “[As parents] we’re really about uplifting and pushing the things that they love. He’s an animator, so he has a lot of animation software on his iPad and spends his time doing that.
"But sometimes, he’s not animating when we think he is. We’ve been very conscious about that and drawing back on his screen time. Half the week, he can’t even touch his device.
"And then actually, it’s about me stepping in as a dad and saying, ‘Let’s go fishing, let’s do more stuff,’ so he doesn’t want to be on there as much as he is.”
Ashley noted that parents often don't intervene with their children's screen time because they don't want their kids to feel left out, but believes Adolescence has empowered them to intervene more.
He added: “No one wants to be the ogre parent that comes in and goes, ‘All right, that’s it, everything off.” I don’t want them to feel like they’re not the same as their friends. You get caught up in all of that stuff as a parent, but I feel like around the world this show has allowed parents, to go, ‘F*** that s***. Adolescence says this could happen. Now we’re going to start having this conversation.’ I think that’s a good thing.”
The former So Solid Crew rapper played DI Luke Bascombe in Adolescence and though he'd love to reprise the role for a second series, he thinks that's unlikely to happen.
He said: “I'd love to, but I strongly believe that it will be completely different characters with a completely different story. I think that the constant will be the one-take process.”
The full interview with Ashley is available in the July/Aug issue of Men’s Health UK, on sale from 24 June, or visit https://www.menshealth.com/uk/mental-strength/a65111319/ashley-walters-interview/ for more.
