Top Boy and The Beautiful Game’s Micheal Ward: Football made me depressed, so I tried acting

Micheal Ward is interviewed for The City A.M. Magazine Spring edition. The Top Boy star once trained to be a professional footballer. Now he’s reliving his dream (and turfing up tough memories) in his new Netflix film The Beautiful Game. Interview by Adam Bloodworth

When Micheal Ward changed primary schools aged eight, he had a confronting experience. The kids in Essex seemed far smarter than the ones in east London. “They were asking all these mad questions,” he remembers. At his old school he was one of the brightest pupils: “To be with all of these smart kids was really weird.”

But then the bell went and a boy called Reece asked Ward if he could play football. “I was like, yeah, I can play a bit,” says Ward. “Then they brought me outside and I was just mashing it up,” he laughs. “Everyone just loved me. So that was kind of my thing. Literally everyone I made friends with at football trials are still my friends now and a lot of them I’m still close to. Football has always been that glue for me.”

Until his late teens football defined him; he tried to make it work as a career, trying out for Chigwell Boys and then again at his secondary school, the Chadwell Heath Academy, but says the clubs didn’t have the infrastructure to develop him. His studies didn’t offer the same release. “I was going to Sixth Form and just being depressed,” he says. Even drama was unfulfilling: “There was hardly any practical work, which annoyed me.”

As you might have noticed, another career came into fruition: an illustrious one in film and TV. In 2020 Ward joined the likes of James McAvoy, Eva Green, Shia LaBeouf and Kristen Stewart in taking the Bafta Rising Star gong, a signal for future success if ever there was one. In 2022 Bafta plaudits came again when he was nominated for Best Actor in a Supporting Role for snogging Olivia Colman, double his age, in Sam Mendes’ drama Empire of Light. Then there’s his career-defining role as Jamie in Netflix’s Top Boy. Now the 26-year-old returns to the football pitch for his first leading role, as Vinny in Netflix’s The Beautiful Game, a feature about the Homeless World Cup, a real- life annual event where hundreds of people who live on the streets are brought together for a tournament. It struck a nerve for Ward, who still uses football as an escape and a form of therapy.

“A few months ago I was feeling so upset, bro, I was so down,” he tells me. “I didn’t know what to do. You know what I mean? But Arsenal was playing and I went to the stadium and nothing else mattered. I didn’t speak to no one about nothing that I was going through. I just watched the game and went through the emotion. By the end of the game I was just like, ‘this is mad.’ It’s just euphoric.” Revisiting football for The Beautiful Game brought memories flooding back about the halcyon days of his youth, making him reflect on what might have been if a sports career worked out.

My discipline ain’t great. I’m still thinking whether I should go to drama school Micheal Ward

Micheal Ward on returning to The Beautiful Game

“I might never have been how I am as a person had I not played football,” he says, talking in a way that suggests he thinks carefully about every word. “That’s what I was thinking when I was filming it, man. It was quite deep, to be completely honest with you. I wasted a lot of time chasing something that has no significance in my life anymore. It brought up stuff like that. I was also thinking ‘You’re never gonna make enough money to live the life of a footballer’. Being honest, that’s another reason why we play football. I could have put that time into acting or learning about tax, stuff that will actually help. But I’m just glad I’m able to make a living doing what I do now.”

You’d certainly hope so. It sounds like a cliche, but Ward has the type of talent that makes acting seem effortless. He can go from vulnerable to imposing in one fell swoop, lending effervescence and charm to his roles. In The Beautiful Game he stars opposite Bill Nighy, playing one of the homeless men brought into the England team who travel to Rome to compete. The Beautiful Game is the first time Ward has worked with formally trained actors. “Kit [Young] went to Rada. And I’m just like, ‘Okay, you can see the stuff he’s learned’, not in his performance, but the way he thinks as an actor, which was really inspiring. Obviously Bill, being so dedicated to the craft, is inspiring to watch too. In work I’ve done before, I don’t know if people cared about acting on that level. It was nice to be around people like that.”

I notice Ward seems somewhere far away from the wind and rain howling across London Bridge right now. Behind him on our Zoom call the weather is sweltering and there’s a classical mural depicting horses sprinting that looks almost biblical. “I’m in a place called Truth or Consequences in New Mexico,” he says through laughter. “That’s what the town is called! It’s mad out here.” He’s in New Mexico filming until early summer on Eddington, a Western which “follows a small-town New Mexico sheriff with higher aspirations.” He’s billed alongside Joaquin Phoenix, Emma Stone, Austin Butler and Pedro Pascal, so he’s in good company. It’s produced by A24, the company responsible for Everything Everywhere All At Once, Midsommar, Lady Bird, Moonlight and HBO’s Euphoria: a confirmation if ever we needed one that the man who grew up in east London is ascending to Hollywood.

I was more religious before. I’m trying
to keep God at the forefront of everything and show him gratitude Ward on the importance of female company, which he’s been lacking since he moved away from home

He’s still only 26 and he says he dearly misses home, particularly his mother and sisters, with whom he lived in his family home until 2022 (he moved out when he found the set up too “annoying”). His father died in a car crash when he was two. He credits his sensitive temperament to growing up around women, and when he talks about family, his tone changes. When he speaks about work he speaks in confident, rhythmic sentences, but when he talks about family he trails off and he becomes more introspective.

“It’s weird, because I feel closer to my mum now than I did when I was living in my house. We actually have conversations, before I’d just go to my room. But now, man has to check in, chat to my little sister. That’s what’s been weird about being here – I miss that comfort. I miss my bed, I miss my gym, I miss loads of things, man, I miss my car, I miss going out, having a drink with my boys. I don’t really drink here much, there’s not really any nightlife, anywhere to go out, shake a leg. It’s just different. It’s nice to experience this as well but when you’re used to some things it just becomes a little bit more difficult.” Being away has made him realise he needs female role models in his life: “I’ve really recognised that more. I miss that comfort. I definitely need to figure that side out, to be honest.”

Ward has big doe eyes and an ease about him that you can’t teach. Just as well that he skipped formal training to take an acting course at Epping Forest College. Before that Ward won a modelling competition run by JD Sports, which was his catalyst to try drama full time. “It was like, man can I make money just posing for pictures? This is crazy.” During A-Levels he’d skip class to go to modelling jobs. “I had this teacher at Epping, Ellie Nelson, who used to give me this look when I didn’t turn up, I just felt so bad,” he says. She ended up becoming his agent and the two still work together a decade later. “She still gives me those looks if I’m late for a meeting. It’s just like college all over again. It’s humbling: it means I’ll never forget where I started. I tell her I love her so much because she saw something in me that maybe I didn’t even see in myself, and I’m so blessed that she was able to soak in whatever talent I have, whatever that even means.” The feeling’s mutual: “Micheal always had a natural charisma that cannot be taught,” Nelson tells me. “It’s a pleasure to be a small part of his journey.” But drama school is still on his mind: “Even now I’m thinking, maybe I should go,” he says. “Because my discipline ain’t great.”

I just immerse myself in the lines and situations as much as I possibly can with the information I have. Try to think ‘if I was in this situation, how would I react?’

In 2019, gang drama Top Boy was Ward’s big breakthrough. Based on the fictional Summerhouse estate in Hackney, he played drug dealer Jamie, a man caught up in the brutal world of narcotics and violence. Born in Spanish Town, Jamaica and raised in Hackney, Ward said the series didn’t reflect his own experiences in London. He almost turned down a similar role on crime-thriller Blue Story because he felt “afraid of how similar” it was. Last year he became a critic’s darling for his role in 1980s drama Empire of Light, with one describing Colman and Ward’s chemistry as “electric.” “I just immerse myself in the lines and situations as much as I possibly can with the information I have,” he says, as if this is beyond obvious. “I just try to think ‘if I was in this situation, how would I react?’”

When he’s in London, Ward tries to live like an ordinary twenty-something, trying out the houseshare life not far from where he grew up. His flatmate is Hope Ikpoku Jnr, who played Jamie’s brother Aaron on Top Boy, but he hopes to soon buy his own place. One of his big dreams is to get into nature more, although he says rallying his friends to go on a trip to the Lake District is proving difficult. “What’s the word, is it ‘expedition’?” he asks. “When you do kayaking, all of them kind of things, that’s the stuff that I want to do, but it’s so hard to find the time.” He would also like to readdress his faith. “I was more religious before, I’m trying to get back there but it’s so difficult sometimes. Obviously I’m trying to keep God at the forefront of everything and showing him gratitude as much as I can.”

Ward had high hopes for a recent day off in New Mexico, hoping to emulate his pre-dawn shoot routine, but it didn’t quite go to plan. “I done fuck all,” he jokes. “Literally. I set out the day, I got up at the same time as filming, 6.30am, showered straight away and thought I’d do all these things – but I didn’t, I just chilled. Watched stuff, went to Walmart. I try to soak once a day in the hot springs. My hotel has one; I don’t have to go anywhere, it’s nice. I’ve never really heard of that before, to be completely honest with you.”

He has no such luck today – Ward says he needs to shut his laptop and go to work. Joaquin Phoenix is waiting. It’s a testament to the talent of this young Londoner that that sentence doesn’t sound the slightest bit absurd.

The City A.M. Magazine is out now and features 90 pages of luxury lifestyle content, including articles onwhat it means to be middle aged right now, how AI is shaking up travel and inside former gang territories in Colombia. Also inside, food inspiration, why allotments are the new members’ clubs, a spectacular pink Rolls Royce goes on tour through France and there’s a food tour of Vietnam.

The Beautiful Game starring Micheal Ward is streaming on Netflix