ABOUT ASHLEY...

When you first get into this business there are a lot of people that will tell you what you need to do, who you need to be, and what you need to change about yourself to be successful. My first-ever acting teacher in college Tracey Copeland Halter (shoutout to you my Queen) told me I didn’t need to change anything about MYself to become an actor. I didn’t need to lose weight, I didn’t need to look different, I didn’t need to dye my hair, I didn’t need to lower my voice, I didn’t need to say ‘jam’ the right way phonetically, I didn’t need to learn placement of how to say words and Shakespeare, I could just be myself and be an actor. I was the character that God created. And in that, I learned that I was wonderfully unique and infinitely more interesting than any character I can ‘create’-I mean Stanislavski was kind of right about that. And plays, scripts, words, movies, and dialogue could flow through ME. I’ll never forget that explosion of courage from her and more recently I have been thinking about that and how I have tried to stray from myself for a long time. And although ‘that’ version of myself has changed throughout the years and sometimes I still get lost in a not-so-right version of me - her telling me that has resurfaced. The fact is I can be myself and I can be successful and I can be an actor just by being me and showing different versions of me. There are different masks we wear and we are different people to different people on different days and in different places, it changes every day and part of the joy of acting to me is exploring those different facets of myself, filtering stories through my own personal and vulnerable human experience in an effort to connect more deeply to people and the world. But, Tracey reminded me I didn’t have to change MYSELF and I am sticking to that. So, this is me not changing myself or molding myself into weird imaginary standards of what other’s idea of me should be. This is me just being me and showing you that. Everything is here and I hope you enjoy looking around and seeing what makes me. Hopefully, it will encourage you to be more yourself. And hopefully, you like me and will watch my movies and my work so we can connect through that beautiful human existence cinema creates.  I hope to keep creating so I can keep connecting with you. 

Love, 

Me