A new film starring Adolescence actor Ashley Walters aims to start a conversation around mental health among men, its director has said.

Short film Echoes was inspired in part by true events and follows two men, Andre (Walters) and Robert (Leo Gregory) who unexpectedly reconnect amid an inquiry into historic child abuse allegations at their old school.

The fictional project is a joint venture between Walters’ co-star Nathalie Emmanuel and her partner, writer and director Alex Lanipekun.

At a preview screening at Soho House in London, Lanipekun said he wanted to portray how men struggle with mental health and trauma in different ways.

As part of that, Gregory felt it was important to adapt his acting style. He said that there was a “masculine trait that we’ve been taught for decades, of a stiff upper lip, to suck it up, keep it in and get about your day”. But for this piece, he explained, it was important to feel the range of emotions, and as an actor “play it down the line”.

The film’s creators noted the shared themes in Walters’ hit Netflix series Adolescence. Created by Stephen Graham and Jack Thorne, the series received critical acclaim and sparked international conversations around toxic internet culture, masculinity and violence.

In Adolescence, Walters played DI Bascombe, the detective who arrests 13-year-old Jamie Miller (Owen Cooper) in front of his horrified parents Eddie and Manda (Graham and Christine Tremarco) on suspicion of murdering a schoolmate.

Over the course of the series, both the police and Jamie’s family attempt to understand the context around the killing, raising issues such as incel culture and the “manosphere”.

While this short film focused more on portrayals of masculinity offline, rather than the effects of social media, Gregory said that the film spoke to the culture of how men “bury things in an unhealthy way”. This was something he and his director wanted to avoid doing themselves, especially as they had a “personal connection to the piece”.

At the screening, Emmanuel said “it should be industry standard at this point” to have mental health support workers on set, with Lanipekun noting “you never know what people are bringing to work with them on any given day”.

He said the project, alongside the mental health workers, was supported by the UK’s leading mental health charity, MIND.

Apart from learning about the importance of talking about your emotions with professionals, Gregory said that working on the film itself had taught him that “art can be a form of actually working through issues as well”. He also revealed that going home each night after filming and having “a big old cry” had been cathartic.

At a second screening of the film, Walters told the audience that he believed that Echoes has the potential to replicate the success and impact of Adolescence, and said the project meant a lot to those involved “because of the content and the meaning”.

“Mental health is difficult to navigate and difficult for people to talk about,” he said, Digital Spy reports. “And films like this are really important to kind of open that door for people [who] are struggling.”

A release date for Echoes is expected to be announced at a later date.