Ashley Park vibrates with energy and warmth like a downed power line on a beautiful summer night.
Spending time with Ashley is a cross between Paris Fashion Week, one of those dancing inflatables outside a car wash, and a TikTok compilation of “funniest jump scares.” I first met Ashley when she auditioned for the role of Gretchen Wieners in Mean Girls on Broadway. She got the part immediately and went on to be nominated for a Tony. Her singing, comic timing, and heart-wrenching vulnerability were everything we needed. But on her way out of the room, she also stopped to make sure our director Casey Nicholaw knew that she could dance, and that he could give her as much challenging choreography as he wanted. So Ashley spent the next two years jumping around in impossibly high heels. She’s basically been jumping around the world in impossibly high heels ever since.
With breakout roles on Emily in Paris, Joy Ride, Girls5eva, Beef, and Only Murders in the Building, Ashley’s presence in a project signals that what you’re watching will be fun, fresh, and relevant. She is an ultramodern woman—smart, kind, relatable, and uniquely beautiful. She works super hard while remaining completely at play, which is what makes her such a pleasure to watch. I predict Ashley’s career will be so long that we’ll still be watching when she has to switch to flats.
Fey is an Emmy-winning actor, writer, and producer