It was about 5 a.m. when the ghost started haunting .
She was straight off a much-delayed flight from Los Angeles and eager to finally get some sleep in her Manhattan hotel room. Alas, the supernatural world had other plans. The door suddenly swung open on its own, making the actor bolt upright in bed.
“I don’t even believe in this stuff!” Ashley laughs later that day when we meet for fettuccine, fries, and espresso martinis—the “comfort food” she needs. “I swear something was there. It scared the crap out of me.
” That’s saying something, because at this point, you’d think it would take a to frighten Ashley. . She won over Broadway’s notoriously picky audiences as , nabbing a Tony Award nomination in the process.
She’s endured auditions where the only feedback was “No, you’re Asian” and held her own onscreen with Meryl Streep and ( ), Ali Wong ( ), and Sherry Cola ( ). And this past January, . Doctors thought she might die; instead, she got out of bed and filmed the ( , where it remains one of the platform’s most-viewed shows ever).
Through it all, Ashley has publicly transmitted an unrelenting “happy but chill” aura. Her halogen smile, glossy hair, and sunny-yet-structured style (pink Balmain tweeds and black Nina Ricci ruffles mixed with everygirl athleisure) are the visual version of a “Trust me, I’M FINE” text. On anyone else, this vibe would come off annoyingly fake.
On Ashley, it somehow feels refreshingly natural—because it’s grounded in her childhood experience with cancer, she says. “I’m so used to people thinking I’m not okay. Believe me, I’m great.
I’ll let you know otherwise.” Honestly, in hindsight, even the ghost didn’t unnerve her *that* much. “I was very forcefully like, ‘ ’” she explains.
“I think it worked.” Well enough, at least, for her to get a couple more hours of needed sleep before taking a long shower and making her way down the street to meet me..
.to the delight of the brunch-bound girl gangs who gawk and squeal. “People used to just yell, ‘Hey, !’ when they saw me,” she says.
“Now everybody calls me ‘Ashley.’” “Still,” she pauses, “‘celebrity’ is a really weird word.” It’s one she must accept—and soon with a capital C.
After , she’ll appear with in the film , written and directed by alum Nora Kirkpatrick. Ashley is now a front-row regular at fashion shows in New York and Paris and for . She’s also uniquely adept at engaging and via candid posts spreading awareness about sepsis or with her onscreen love interest/real-life boyfriend, actor and model .
Can she still remain grounded with so much on her plate? Yes, she says, especially because of some new boundaries and the support of besties like and , whom she texted in the middle of ghostgate. “Lily said the ghost was probably just lonely,” Ashley relays. Or maybe, like her millions of fans worldwide, it just wanted to hang out with her.
I’m better now than I was an hour ago, which is always good. That’s my goal throughout the day. I actually hate this question, but I liked it this time.
I think the was a good call. No. It was such a big part of what was happening with me, and it was going to affect me forever.
If people didn’t know that, it would feel false in some kind of way. When I went to the ER and ICU for the first time, I was in the Maldives with Paul. I don’t think I would’ve made it without him.
Everybody else was on the other side of the world from us. Paul had been filming for two months on a show called I had been all over the place. But for both of us, our love language is quality time.
So we did Christmas with his family in Thailand, and then we went on our own New Year’s Eve vacation. I only packed bikinis! Once I got there, I got really sick with tonsillitis. Then everything really started going wrong.
I was in different ICUs and then air ambulances for a month. I couldn’t leave because I wasn’t allowed to fly. When I finally could, it was a shorter distance to Paris than to L.
A., so I had to go straight to Paris to recover, not home. When I woke up in the hospital and they said, “You have septic shock.
” And I was like, “Oh my gosh, I shocked I have sepsis!” This is why I like comedy so much! As we were starting to recount stuff, Paul noticed that. He was like, “Wow, you already have the bright points ready to say to people to make it accessible and funny.” Absolutely.
It makes it easier. As an adult, I understand what coping mechanisms are. Stuff I didn’t know when I was a teenager.
And even though both of the extreme illnesses I’ve had have been such flukes in a way—no one who’s 15 should have cancer, and no one who’s my age should have septic shock—I feel lucky, actually. It’s been kind of a miracle how I’ve recovered. I pushed myself too far.
I was not listening to my body. Now, I’m thinking about my future and asking, That starts with my health. I’m getting back to my old self.
I look and feel better, and I’m trying to stay as stable as I can and keep the same energy that people expect. When I first moved to New York, I worked at Juice Press. I got cast in and I loved working at Juice Press so much that I was like, “I’m just going to keep working here.
” I got a 50 percent discount! To this day, as soon as I feel like I’m not well or really tired from any kind of work, if I can get a cold-pressed green juice and a ginger shot, I’m like, “I’m good.” Oh god. I think that’s hilarious, because I consider myself messy to a fault sometimes.
Not literally—I’m actually very neat. But emotionally, I’m too open and honest. I don’t know how to be anything else.
Maybe that’s what people find angelic? Whether it be sepsis, cancer, or mean people in class, I have learned how to smile through stuff that I didn’t want to smile through and how to find a genuine way to do that. It’s so much easier than being angry. [ ] I am not.
As a teen, people said, “You’re a teenager with cancer. You must go to therapy.” And I was like, “Absolutely not.
That means there’s something wrong. That means the cancer has won.” Then as an adult, I’ve always been like, “If I go to a therapist, there’s just so much to catch them up on.
What do I even start with?! What? My cancer, racism, Broadway? Being cheated on?” I don’t fucking know! What I heard from friends is that the best time to go is when there’s nothing wrong. So, you know when I was literally about to go? Right before sepsis. I swear.
I was asking my friends, “What therapists can do this over the phone if I’m traveling?” I was looking into star readers, different healers...
and then...
nope. It really was just about survival for me. I can’t remember anything because I was not well.
But one thing I’ll give myself credit for is, I don’t think I’m the most talented, prettiest, any of those things. But I do the best I can, and that work ethic always means a lot. I think I’m super resilient.
She has a great moment in Rome. It’s an original song by , and it’s the first time we’re seeing Mindy really sing from herself—her character “wrote” the song. Filming those scenes made me really enjoy singing again.
I will say, I can’t hit the highest notes. I can’t be the loudest. But I don’t know how to sing without it being from my heart and my gut and my soul.
And that’s the kind of song that Mindy sings. It’s so beautiful. [YOUTUBE] In the beginning, we were just friends, because I was at a point where I was like, “I will never date an actor again.
” And one of the first things he said to me was, “I’ve never dated an actor.” And I was like, “Amazing.” I mean, let’s face it, he’s eye candy.
So I was also like, “Oh my god, definitely not. I am past that. I would never fall for someone who looks that impeccable.
So we were just friends. Very platonically, we would hang out. .
It was going to be a whole week in Poland and I didn’t want to do it alone, so I thought, I come from the theater! You want to bond with your costars, and I was like, “He’s my new scene partner.” So I invited him. Fast-forward, we’re filming one of our last scenes together, and he said, “I am getting really attached to you.
” I felt so all-knowing and above it. I was like, “Oh, you poor man, let me explain. This is a show.
You’re just excited about the whole thing.” Lily noticed the chemistry. She was like, “Ashley, what is going on?” And I replied, “Nothing.
I told you I wasn’t dating actors.” It was the first time I was really standing up for myself. I told her, “Lily, your disbelief in my growth is sad, because he’s the exact type of guy that I said I wasn’t going to go for.
I told you, and so I really want you, as my friend, to believe me.” Oh yeah. But back then, she just asked, “So why did you guys kiss during the rehearsal?” I was like, “It’s because we’ve been doing scenes all week.
” And she said, “Well, you guys seemed excited.” Then that night, we got together. We went out, and I thought I was going to be third-wheeling on a date with him, and it turned out it was just us.
And I was like, We went on that trip to Poland. Watching him play chess with these children who did not have a home and acting like this father figure to them because their fathers were at war, watching him be so present, it was amazing. So I had to do a little loss-of-dignity tour.
I had to be like, “Lily, everyone, we are so in love.” That was about two years ago. Oh, more.
...
It’d been a year and a half. It’s funny now: The Maldives trip was going to be our hard launch. Literally, if you ask any of my friends, if you ask my assistant, I was like, “We’re hard-launching.
” And then I got sepsis. We joke that if our next vacation is literally just taking out the trash, it will be amazing by comparison. One of the reasons I wanted to be friends with him, and eventually fell in love with him, is that he’s so generous and kind as a coworker and a friend.
I’ve never been with a straight white male who has been more generous or better to work with on a set. Ever, ever, ever. I’d been on Raya in New York, and the first person who popped up was someone I knew.
And I was like, “Bye.” I did do Raya again in Paris when it was the height of COVID and everything was closed. I met a guy, and he lived on the outskirts of town.
He said, “I can come to where you live.” And I replied, “No, I want to go where you live”..
.so that I could leave early. Yeah.
And when Lily found out the next day, she was like, “Never go to a stranger’s house and not location-share again!” I was discussing with Lily the other day what an adult friendship is. And first of all, we are so fucking lucky, me and Lily. We both came into each other’s lives at a time when we needed that exact kind of friendship.
Her, Florence Pugh, Sherry Cola—we came to each other at the exact right moment. Selena is amazing. Selena is someone that’s very much like a Flo or a Lily, just really down-to-earth.
At a certain point, you sense those people right away, the ones who are just wanting to exist with the best heart and soul. We text all the time. She was like, “Where should I live in Paris?” .
Lily and I don’t have to check in every day. It’s so amazing when you can see someone after months and go deep immediately. And also, you don’t feel like you need to have ownership over that person.
It’s cool if they’re hanging out with other people, living their life. I love when my friends hang out with each other. You feel secure.
There’s no anxiety. When you find the right person, you’re like, “I want to be with him, and also, he doesn’t take away from who I am.” Which includes building and maintaining your friendships.
I am a ! I just got into it. Geminis, we’re double-sided. When people get to know me, I have such a business mode, like, type A.
I’m on it; I focus it up. But I absolutely feel like when I’m alone and you really get to know me, I’m super emotional, introverted. One thousand percent.
I can’t tell you how many people I’ve been around, whether they’re famous or not, and I’m always intimidated. I can’t get it through my head that they might be intimidated too. That’s crazy to me.
Guts? Determination? I don’t know. There have been so many times where I’ve just asked, . It’s how I felt all of college and all of high school.
The joke is, the answer was usually like, “You’re not white.” But you just do it. You just go.
Oh, wow. That was my first lead. I fought tooth and nail for that role.
And please credit the director Bart Sher for this, because I was not the most qualified. But Bart said, “Oh, she’s got the guts and the balls. She’s got something inside.
That’s this character.” And I didn’t even realize it until this very moment, years and years later, but “the smile you’ll never see” is all of this pent-up energy that says, They call it code-switching, navigating, whatever. No.
I’m so grateful for all of that because it made me the person I am. Revenge? No. I believe in karma.
I think revenge is when you feel something has been done wrong unto you and you try to pay it back to that person versus karma, which is, “If that person’s done that kind of thing, let me see what the universe gives them back.” And I might have to wait 10 days or 10 years. But it’s interesting.
...
I think we spend a lot of our younger years praying that karma will come for other people, and then in our 30s, we’re like, “Oh, karma comes for us too.” Well, sometimes I have the worst travel luck. Everyone knows that every mishap in the book has happened to me, every single travel mishap.
Lost luggage, I sprained my ankle, delays, everything. And I’m like, “Who have I been mean to?” What I love about villains and antagonists is that we know, in life too, that bullies think they’re correct. They think, “I am the victim.
” And because I’ve dealt with so many people like the person I played in , I was like, “I’m so ready to play this woman with such honesty.” Part of what I love about acting is being like, “Why did this person treat me this way? Let me just try to figure it out.” ’ actually my therapy.
I will say, nobody’s ever been as mean to me as the girls in college in Michigan. I don’t know what was in the water there, but wow. Now, not as much, because as adults, we’re better at curating our circle, right? But look, I was the only person of color in my musical theater graduating class.
I didn’t have any friends among the girls. None at all. And I had one teacher who was awful to me.
He said, “Oh, it’s so good you’re going into the industry right now, because it’s really trending to be ethnic, so you could take those roles.” When I came back to accept an alumni award, they did a panel for the whole university, and that man was supposed to be the moderator. And that’s the first time I ever put my foot down and said, “No.
” Scary. And good. My revenge is this: If you make it onto my two-and-a-half-person shit list, I will never publicly say anything bad about you.
..but if somebody asks me about you, then for me, it’s not about revenge.
It’s about honesty. This morning when I woke up in my haunted hotel room! And I cried not being with Paul on the plane yesterday. I’ve never had that, where I’m like, I actually boarded last because I was sobbing so hard that I scared people.
You know, I was just scared to be alone. I’ve never been like that. I used to be so proud that I didn’t cry at all unless I was onstage.
And now I’m, like, a puddle. Well. It’s good for my skin, anyway.
More hydration..
