Sekou Diaby won the antagonist role in Ashley Walters’ youth detention centre drama Animol (Berlinale 2026 premiere) by taking a counter-intuitive approach. “It was, ‘How do we shift this, how do we humanise this character?’” says the Lambeth-born actor. “I came into the audition room very laid back, very chilled. It was a scene where I’m telling [protagonist] Troy to go and slash someone, and in my head it’s as if I’ve sent him to the shop to get bread and butter.”
Backed by the BFI, Film4 and Sky, and released in UK cinemas by Studiocanal in October on behalf of Sky Cinema, Animol certainly offers a change of pace from Diaby’s amiable breakthrough role in BBC Three series Boarders, playing one of five Black teens who win scholarships to a prestigious boarding school. And across all his work — including 2025 short From Sidney With Love, executive produced by Spike Lee, and upcoming Molly Manning Walker series Major Players — a defining quality is his range.
Diaby studied dance at the Brit School (“I wanted to be a break-dancer”), graduating in 2019 before a year with the National Youth Dance Company and another at dance theatre company Far From The Norm. Physical-theatre productions, curated by Diaby with collaborator Harvey Burke-Hamilton, took him to writing and words-based performance, and he pursued acting and filmmaking on a twin track, also studying acting with RAaW London. “I was able to tap into things I had not tapped into and find things I didn’t even know existed within me emotionally,” he says of the latter experience.
As a writer, Diaby has two features in development — an action comedy and a drama — and takes inspiration from words written on his office wall: “Rehumanise the dehumanised.”
“I want to change stereotypes, and I want to take risks,” sums up Diaby, who this summer has been busy shooting a role in BBC mini-series Open Water, adapted from Caleb Azumah Nelson’s 2021 novel, and has also begun filming an unannounced series for ITV. “There’s no character that I can’t play, because it all exists within me and you and everyone else. I’m going to try my best to tap into as many as I can.”
Contact: Kate Morrison, B-Side
No comments yet