Micheal Ward on Top Boy, Virgil Abloh and being a fashion darling

Remembering Abloh, he notes the BFA as a reminder of those who have supported him on his professional journey. ‘With Virgil passing, it felt like it was dedicated to him. Out of all the designers who were there that day he was the only one who reached out to me personally.’

Indeed, for Ward attending the BFA was surreal for other professional reasons — it was the first time he had been back to the Albert Hall since accepting the Bafta rising star award in 2020. Around the first revived season of Top Boy in 2019, profiles had often focused on his speedy trajectory, so I ask him if he now feels more settled and like he’s reached stardom. ‘I wouldn’t say I’m settling into fame, I really don’t feel famous. I feel known,’ he says. ‘People who are famous are like Drake, people like that where they will not be able to walk down the street without getting troubled. I still feel very much firmly on the ground.’ He still lives in his family home in Romford, with no immediate plans to move out to a plush bachelor pad. ‘When the time is right, everything will kind of align. I’m not rushing anything man.’

Despite his modesty, Ward, 24, is reaching great heights. Having wooed the nation as Franklyn in Lovers Rock, part of Steve McQueen’s Small Axe anthology in late 2020, he’s been getting the calls for high-profile roles. After the shoot, we catch up again, with Ward speaking from the production office for the Searchlight drama Empire of Light, directed by Sam Mendes, which will see him star with Olivia Colman. Filming hasn’t begun yet, he’s in for a costume fitting, and public details are sparse so he’s tight-lipped about the precise nature of his role: ‘Everything you want to know you will come to know soon’. Fans also have his upcoming performance in Netflix’s football drama The Beautiful Game to look forward to.

But of course, what’s inspiring the most buzz around Ward right now is the impending release of the next season of Top Boy. Next week he reprises his role as Jamie in the social realist drama that tackles gang wars, the drug trade and the crisis of masculinity facing young Black men in the UK . He still remembers being a teenager watching the original series, and messaging Ashley Walters on Twitter asking for an audition.

‘I don’t think I’ve taken it in. Obviously, filming the last season was mad anyway. But it really hit me when I went to go see the billboard in Waterloo. Of all the people in London, let alone the world. I’m up there with these people I was a fan of, I’m doing something that I love. It’s such a blessing.’

At the end of the last season, Jamie, leader of London Fields gang, had been imprisoned and offered a lifeline by rival Dushane (Walters), who offered his freedom in exchange for service. The new season sees Jamie attempt to balance meeting those demands while continuing to show up for his brothers. ‘This season is a lot more of Jamie trying to rebuild with his family because of what happened with the setback in the last season,’ he says. But Ward admits sometimes feeling frustrated with his character, which complicates his portrayal: ‘Finding reasons as to why he makes certain choices, that’s been a difficult one for me.’

I want to know if Ward ever feels fatigued by journalists attempting to force connections between his own background and the knotty criminal life of Jamie, but he preempts the discussion, sympathising with the pressures that drive young men whose lives resemble Top Boy’s characters. ‘I’m the first to tell you I’ve never been involved in stuff like that. It’s upsetting because we’ve got a stigma around us as Black people, but there’s so much more to us than that. I feel like now is the time people are starting to realise that — especially when we see people that are doing good work and winning Oscars like Daniel Kaluuya, who’s from the same sort of background as me, speaks like me, moves like me, you know what I’m saying?’ Ward says that the kind of stigma and assumptions around behaviour especially affect boys who ‘speak like him’. Certainly, he has the voice of working-class Black Londoners — his sentences are punctuated with slang and ‘yeah man’ and ‘you know what I mean?’, a style of speaking that is often discriminated against and even policed.

He feels that Top Boy is not only a cautionary tale to youth about the risks of gang life, but also a tacit political broadcast emphasising that Black youth are set up for failure by the conditions they find themselves in. ‘What I try to do is show consequences and how vulnerable these people really are in these situations. Because when you think of people “on road” you like to think of these bad, tough guys. But when you really look at Jamie, had he grown up in a different circumstance, he could have been a businessman, or a carer, you get what I mean? I guess Top Boy is just a story of your circumstances and your situation and how those things can lead you down a certain path.’

He credits both his parents for his direction in life — his mother, because he feared the consequences from her if he ever involved himself in gang life, and his father, who passed away when he was two, for the disposition he inherited. Though he doesn’t have much recollection of his father, he has built an image of him through probing the memories of his family members. ‘He was a lover, he loved my mum dearly. Even with his brothers, he didn’t like them fighting and it just made me realise, if I know there’s anything I got from him it’s that heart.’

Born in Spanish Town, Jamaica, Ward left for the UK at the age of four, first living in Hackney and then relocating to Romford. He hasn’t since returned to Jamaica. ‘Listen man, don’t shame me!’ he says anxiously. He hopes to return to his place of birth in the near future, Top Boy having strengthened his relationship with the island. ‘I need to get back there man. My dad died and I’ve never got to see his grave. I’ve got loads of family still there, and a lot of fans now there. That’s where my heart is, that’s where I was born.’

For now, Ward is taking London for all it has to offer. He’s become more acquainted with the centre of town despite the long journey from Romford, but doesn’t brag about a champagne-soaked lifestyle — instead he’s mostly here for the art and culture. ‘I’d definitely love to be on stage one day,’ he says. ‘Even now doing The Beautiful Game I’m working with Thea Sharrock who’s an Olivier-winning theatre director, and with Sam Mendes, a theatre director as well. Seeing how they approach their craft, for me I’d definitely love to do it one day.’

There is certainly the impression that anything Ward touches could turn to gold. He hints at wanting to tell stories beyond acting, behind the camera, perhaps in production, but he keeps his cards close to his chest. ‘Anyone could be reading this,’ he says with a grin. With all this celebrity, he hasn’t lost an iota of his local identity — even while making a name in fashion, on a regular day he dresses like the same Micheal from Romford: ‘I just like to wear like most young Black boys [wear] in London — a nice tracksuit, Jordans, and I’m good.’ When he names his favourite personal items of clothing it isn’t any designer garment, but a yellow hoodie that says ‘FAST MONEY’ in the Fanta font. When we finish speaking, he closes off with ‘love, my brother’. For all his achievements, credentials and good looks, it’s his heart that’s the most impressive thing.

The new season of ‘Top Boy’ is on Netflix from 18 Mar