Asha Banks: “I really love doing it all”

To call Asha Banks a high achiever would be a serious understatement. She’s been in one play, one film, one documentary, two short films, four TV shows and six musicals. Her next project, a romance film called My Fault: London, streams on Prime Video on 13 February.  She’s also written and released two singles. Her first EP comes out in March. And she’s only 21. “It sounds like I’ve not really had much of a life,” she laughs, “I hear it all back and I’m like, ‘God.’”

Asha’s definitely packed in a lot so far. She’s not the sort of person who sits still for very long. Even as she talks, she gestures with her hands and readjusts her hair. After this interview, she’s travelling up to London to see her friend in a play at the National Theatre. Then going to a birthday party. She’s recovering from a bad cold, yet still feels she must make up for the few hours she was recovering in bed.

Asha started acting professionally before most children learn to ride a bike. When she was seven, she signed up to weekend drama classes because her best friend did. “I became absolutely obsessed with it. My parents must have known I was innately a performer.”

Her first professional role was as an extra in EastEnders. The soap is filmed a 25-minute drive away from her family’s house in St Albans; the EastEnders team often asks local drama clubs if they know any talented kids. Most of Asha’s childhood was spent in West End theatres. She went on to play young Éponine in the West End production of Les Misérables, Violet Beauregarde in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory at the Theatre Royal, and an orphan in a UK tour of Annie. Not bad for a 14-year-old.

Asha would do about three or four shows a week. She’d sit through a full day of school, a parent would take her up to London, she’d perform in a three-hour musical, then be up early again to go to school the next morning. “It was a Hannah Montana situation,” she jokes.

Asha had to be strict from an early age about prioritising theatre. She’d do hours of catch-up schoolwork at the weekends, and often say no to after-school clubs and birthday parties. She doesn’t regret giving up such activities for theatre, though. 

“Because I’ve been doing it since I was so young, my personality has become moulded around it. I didn’t feel like I was missing out on anything, because I didn’t want to do anything else.” Plus, starring in a West End musical the next day is an excellent excuse to not stay out late.

It never occurred to Asha to have a Plan B in case the acting didn’t work out.  “It was probably silly and naïve on my part,” she admits, “but because I started when I was so little I just had tunnel vision. I only saw a future in doing this and put my all into hoping it would work out. I didn’t allow myself the space to think about what would happen if it didn’t.”

Thankfully, it did work out. She portrayed Princess Pamina in a 2022 film version of The Magic Flute. In the BBC series A Good Girl’s Guide To Murder, she was the hero’s best friend Cara. Plus, now her friends from school have gone off to university, she can join the student parties without doing any of the actual work.

The Culpables books are a bestselling Spanish romance trilogy. The series got a Spanish-language film adaptation called Culpa Mía (My Fault) in 2023. It became the most watched non-English language original film on Prime Video. Now, the books are being adapted for an English-speaking audience. The cast is British, the location has swapped to London. And Asha Banks plays the heroine Noah in My Fault: London.

When Noah’s mother remarries, she moves from America to her new step-father’s swanky mansion in London. He oh-so-conveniently has a mysterious brooding son called Nick. He’s played by Matthew Broome from The Buccaneers. Asha explains, “It’s an enemies-to-lovers story. They have an immediate connection, whether that’s good or bad.”

She read the books religiously, but avoided the beloved Spanish film. “I thought I’d overthink it and I’d be stuck trying to recreate something, rather than starting from the ground up. We played the characters we found through the scripts and in the book. Hopefully people like them.”

Asha lucked out with her prep . Matthew Broome had to be in the gym at 6am each day; Asha had to watch a load of TV. The director sent her a watch list of classic romance films such as How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days and Twilight. Noah is into motor racing, and Asha knew truly nothing about this sport. So the director instructed her to binge Drive to Survive as homework. Asha’s dad is a huge Formula One fan, and was all too delighted when she finally let him explain the sport to her.

“It was so much fun to film in the landscape of London and really celebrate it,” Asha says. My Fault: London was filmed in a range of iconic London locations including Battersea Bridge, Burlington House in Piccadilly, Union Street in Southwark and Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. Most of the cast are from London, so they worked hard to make the film feel as authentic to the city as possible. “The character dynamics and cultural differences of Noah being American and Nick being British was really fun to play with. It just brings a different energy.”

Nick and Noah’s house was filmed in Mill Hill – a 15-minute drive from where Asha lives with her parents and brother. So, she could go home at the end of each day and watch Made In Chelsea with her mother. “Noah’s a bit more badass than me,” Asha jokes, “Noah would love Charli XCX. She’d be a brat girl, for sure.” Asha was deeply jealous of Noah’s “racer chick slash tomboy-esque” wardrobe. Plenty of bomber jackets and ripped jeans and boxers worn as shorts.

When Asha transitioned from stage to screen roles, she had to learn a whole new style of acting. “My theatre girl instincts were just to make everything massive,” she says. “With theatre, you have to reach the back of the audience and show everybody in real time and space what you’re feeling. Whereas with film and TV, it’s so close-up and intimate.”

Luckily, her co-star Matthew Broome shared her background in theatre. He was happy to spend hours and hours workshopping and rehearsing each scene, like a theatre company would. For Asha, acting is about enjoying the process as much as the end result. 

Many of the supporting characters in My Fault: London are Nick’s teenage friends. So, Asha had plenty of people to explore London with after work. “I was very lucky to find a best friend in Matthew. We’re the same. We have the same level of excitement about everything.”

 An early scene takes place in a nightclub in Tenerife. The cast decided to go on a big night out in this club. Purely for research purposes, of course. It was “a bit strange” when the cast had to film in the club on Monday morning, with their energy levels depleted and the lights all switched on. “It was a bonding experience,” says Asha.  

There’s another feather in Asha’s rather large cap: her songwriting. “Music is always my escape,” she tells me. She’s been making up songs since she was about six. Her repertoire has expanded from thirty-second songs about how much she loves her dog to her upcoming EP.

After a long day on a TV set, she’ll retreat to her bedroom and get writing. There are two guitars propped up by her desk, ready to go. Straight after filming My Fault: London wrapped, Asha recorded the six songs for Untie My Tongue. The first tracks ‘So Green’ and ‘Feel The Rush’ are already out. The remainder start streaming on 7 March. It’s already shaping up to be quite the year for Asha Banks. 

Asha’s parents raised her on Joni Mitchell and Norah Jones. She’s always been drawn to guitar-led, writing-driven music, like Lizzy McAlpine and Bon Iver. Asha categorises her own sound as “indie folk slash pop. Music that feels earthy and folky and summery and floaty.” The bridge of ‘Feel The Rush’ layers up Asha’s vocals to create an ethereal, glittering sound. ‘So Green’ racked up 100,000 streams on Spotify within the first two months.

The real joy for Asha isn’t just watching the numbers go up and up, but being able to share her music with other people. She performed these songs live for the first time at Shoreditch Treehouse in December, and hopes to do many more shows around London. “Given my background in theatre, I crave the performance. Because it’s live, it evolves every time and you get to live with it for ages.” Watch this space. 

It’s impossible for Asha to pinpoint which form of creativity calls to her the most. She can’t pick between theatre and film, or even acting and singing. She wants to do everything – and no doubt she will. “I’d love to do loads of different roles and play loads of different sort of characters and try loads of different things and different styles and different mediums. I really just love doing it all.” 

My Fault: London is out on Prime on 13 February