When we did Top Boy before it had huge critical acclaim.
It was loved but it was a niche market.
It was a small group of people that was fed by it
but it’s now in a climate where people are just ready for it.
Top Boy was different. From the very first cut, I suppose,
from the very first episode, I knew this was something special.
When Top Boy seasons one and two came out I was in school.
Absolutely fell in love with it.
It’s something everyone watches.
Going to school the next day it’s like,
“Ah did you watch last night’s episode of Top Boy?”
This is the only thing I’ve been involved in where
we know the eyes are there.
We know the fans are waiting.
Now it’s just on use to create this amazing piece of art.
And then we were cancelled.
And as a writer you learn to, kind of, roll with the blows a bit.
A show doesn’t get made or a show gets cancelled
you shrug and you move onto the next one
but I felt really bad about this one.
Ashley and Kane, they’ve taken the brunt of the last, sort of,
however long it is.
I dunno, six or seven years or whatever is was,
of being constantly bombarded with questions.
Can’t even put petrol in the car without someone saying
“Yo when’s the... are they gonna do a third one?”
and it’s just like oh my God.
You have such a great well received show
that people have just decided to go “You know what, let’s leave that.”
Anyway, it was dead. It was gone. That was it...
and then this fella called Drake got in touch.
He was a fan of the show when it first came out
and was public about it. Posting it on his social media.
He was just magnificent.
He loved the show. He just wanted to do whatever he could.
Didn’t really seem no ego about it.
It wasn’t about what this show can do for me,
it was about “How can I help assist the show?”
He also did the bulk of the pitch to Netflix
and I hardly had to say anything and that was fantastic.
Everybody’s been quite excited to know that Drake
is involved in the show.
He came to the first read through and the minute he walked into the room
the kids just went “Wow.”
I just wanna express how happy this room makes me right here, ya know?
The show meant the world to me. I wish you the best.
I’m sure we’ll be all together or winning awards or
talking about how successful this is.
Anyway, thank you so much.
For me and Ashley, in particular
it was more of a,
“Oh my God I can’t believe this is happening again.”
Being in a room like that makes it seem very official.
This is definitely happening
and to hear those words on their feet
just knowing you’re about to get stuck in
in a couple week’s time or whatever.
Yeah, it was a real moment.
Ronan Bennett is an incredible writer.
He wrote the first two series and so I think it’s so important that he was
the person to come and bring it back.
Ronan’s writing set the pace so it’s kind of a continuation of his style,
I suppose.
So what we’re gonna do is create a show; essentially the same show
we would have created before
but it’s now in a climate where,
everyone’s gonna be able to consume it.
Top Boy is the most genuine raw depiction of life in
South, East, West, North London so to be a part of it
it feels like you’re being able to tell a story as to where you come from
and what people go through. How life is.
Being a top boy, yeah, that’s just how life goes sometimes.
If you wanna make fast money you can’t really do nothing legit
that’s making you fast money
and that’s the hood mentality.
So I feel like this show really portrays the realness of characters
and what they need to do to be at the top.
Everyone round here thinks they’re a big man.
Everyone wants to be a top boy.
We’re shooting at the places where this stuff goes down.
We were filming on an estate where, you know, the local guys that were dealing
couldn’t deal because we were shooting.
So, they were asking like, “We need money.”
It has to be as real as possible, I feel.
That’s why people loved it so much because it was so real.
It’s always been important for us;
me, Kane and the rest of the cast to make sure we represent well.
I have family members and friends that come from this world and
a lot of the people that are in the production grew up around that world
so we got a responsibility to tell these stories authentically.
You know the vibe is nothing but a hundred percent authenticity.
Action!
We’re so close to the streets.
We’re so close to the world that Top Boy is set in.
We can give Top Boy as a reference and feel confident that it’s not, like,
out of this world or unrealistic. It’s real.
We’re underlining issues that are either swept under the carpet or just
not really spoken about too much.
That’s the power of Top Boy for me.
It is an underrepresented part of the world.
It’s something we need to discuss and we need to have a conversation about
but yet the themes are still very international.
It’s loyalty, family values, respect
and these guys might be doing wrong things but they’re doing it for
the right reasons.
The key for all of that is the casting process
and what we look for is authenticity.
The criteria is; Do they feel authentic?
Do we believe they come from those streets?
Where Top Boy stands out is in that authenticity.
We didn’t go out to stars.
A very high proportion of our actors are first-time actors
from similar backgrounds.
It just felt limitless.
There was no cap on what we could achieve
and growing up, it didn’t always feel like that.
We always felt like we was pushing on doors that wouldn’t let us in.
For years I just remember, like,
watching television and whatever and watching shows
and not seeing yourself. Do you know what I’m saying?
Maybe when a person of colour was on the TV you’d scream upstairs, like,
“Yo, someone’s on TV, yo!”
Everyone run downstairs, watch that character to see what they’re saying.
Over the last four years there’s been a push to have more
people of colour be on screen.
If you read a script and if, you know, a casting director had a script
and it didn’t say ‘black John’
they would never think about casting a John as a black person
but now you can just say ‘John’ and they’d cast anybody,
could be black, could be white, could be Asian.
That’s nice that that’s happening now, actually.
Acting for people where I’m from
doesn’t feel like a real thing and it never actually clicked
that you can go out and do this type of thing until I saw people really, like,
breaking down barriers.
It’s a whole different playing field and it’s allowing us to just level up
as one, basically, and it’s gonna be amazing, man, because of the
platform that we have now.
Top Boy, yeah, is all about how we’re striving and how we’re gonna reach and
try and get to the top.
Dushane engineers that situation to getting back on top
but kind of touching down in London he realises everything’s changed.
The youngers have become the olders, the youngers have got younger
and it’s just a different world.
It’s all about Jamie, so when Dushane comes back he’s no one.
Dushane respects him.
I see Jamie as like a mirror of Dushane when Dushane was that age.
All the characters are multidimensional.
You don’t just see them fucking standing on a corner,
being aggressive, fucking moving drugs,
you know, they all have aspirations
and humanity.
You never actually see my character serving.
I don’t feel like the show actually picks up on that.
It’s more around why they do that.
Why they’re selling drugs and stuff and I feel like the relationships and
everything comes into play like why they would do it.
There’s crime in every part of the world.
Not always on your doorstep but with gentrification
it’s probably not that far from you
and our aim, if you don’t know about it, is to show it to you.
It’s strength is in dealing with universal themes, you know,
about family ambition, where we sit in the world.
It’s thrills and exciting but it has huge heart and humanity and it’s about people.
What this is both a rebirth and a new start
because we’re making this season for an audience who have never seen Top Boy
and we’re also making it for the core fans who love the show and are familiar with it.
I’m confident that this is gonna be amazing, man.
It’s an explosion, man. It’s gonna be seamless.
It’s Top Boy but just Top Boy at its greatest.