by Simone Ashley runs empty. In the past few months, the British actress has juggled shooting and pressing tours, not to mention that she did the hackney half marathon at the age of 30 the day before her BASAR photo shoot. It took a sinus infection to force them to take some time. “It turned me off and I just slept for days. It was incredible,” she says halfway, while I took a shot of mayonnaise with a French surf.
We sit in a calm corner of a busy Soho restaurant and talk for lunch over chicken salad. Ashley is fresh with natural, tapped waves, dressed in light green trail suites and a long-sleeved T-shirt with a colorful pearl necklace and chunky trainers.
Just a few days before our interview, she turned up on the red carpet at the Cannes Film Festival, a vision of the old Hollywood glamor in a low-cut, corty white Vivienne Westwood dress with wing-like decorations on her sleeves. “It was brilliant to have seen the dress on a model that my hair and a similar skin tone had for me – that doesn’t happen very often,” she says of the play, the part of Westwoods Gateway to India Capsule Collection. However, there was a dangerous moment. “I had a nip slip in some of the photos! I think it’s very Westwood that to do that …” She takes a break and rolls her eyes. “I didn’t care, but it is interesting to see how some people react – they are very happy about a nipple.”
Ashley’s trust was too good. As a romantic leadership of Bridgerton’s second relay-die role, which she had to take on the international fame with her co-star Jonathan Bailey, who plays Anthony Bridgerton, takes over several intimate scenes. “It is imagination: it’s about ‘what if?’ And how love conquers everything, ”she says. “Bridgerton represents nudity with a feeling of romance, and I felt very safe and comfortable in what I showed the world.” Her rapid representation was praised by critics and spectators, and the show quickly exceeded the popularity of her last season in order to become the most watched English -language program on Netflix at that time.
Ashley quickly took note of the worlds of fashion and beauty, which made them a priority list and a L’Oréal Paris ambassador. She recently became the face of IWC Schaffhausen Watches, whose chic watches she wore at Grand Prix events around the world, since the Swiss brand is the official engineering partner of the Mercedes Formula -1 team. “I always loved fast cars, but now more. I was so lucky that my job gave me this access,” she says. It was occupied in the newly published film F1, in which Brad Pitt plays as a racing sports legend in the leading role and shows a number of scenes that were shot in actual races, but – disappointing for fans – does not appear in the final processing. She always threw her support behind the film and instructed her Instagram followers to “see this film!” And to make a typically striking appearance of the red carpet in the premiere in a hourglass-shaped golden Balmain dress.
Ashley admits that it took a while until she relyed on the speed of her ascent to fame (she now has more than four million Instagram followers). “When Bridgerton came out, these were some of the best years of my life, but I was also very afraid,” she says, “I resigned myself to what I wanted and what I did not learn and learn lessons what is really important to me, and my ego Zamte, my ego heard where I just don’t care.”
Ashley’s “trip” so far is a sheer persistence. She grew up in Surrey and later Buckinghamshire, the younger ones of two siblings in a close -meshed family; Her mother, an accountant and her father, a pharmacist, moved from India to Great Britain after her birth. Ashley she was attracted to the performing arts on more traditional topics. At the age of 15, she decided to leave the house to visit the Arts Educational School in Chiswick before her sight of Hollywood at the age of 18 when she moved to Los Angeles alone. “It was pretty ruthless of me,” she admits. “There was not this safety bubble that the drama school had completed to get an agent to do it in a normal way. I was really shabby. Since I was small, I would do something to get it.
The error was not an option. “You cannot have a plan B – you are either all in or not. It’s like a relationship. If you have a plan B, it will probably not work.” At the age of 19, she secured a background part in the Oscar-nominated American film directly from Compton and then landed larger jobs at home, including an appearance together with Olivia Colman in Broadchurch and her first recurring role as a popular girl Olivia Hanan in sex education, the tabo-building Netflix series about teenagers who research their sexuality. “I think, because of the way I look, many people don’t really understand where I fit into the industry.” It was about showing people in all forms and sizes, colors and tones. “
It was not just about breaking into the industry: Ashley had a strong vision for the kind of roles that she wanted to take over and refused to bow to a certain pressure – especially with the types. “I don’t want to play stereotypes. That doesn’t inspire me as an artist,” she says. “It can be intimidating to be in a room full of men – sometimes really intimidating. But I think it’s about learning, growing in yourself and owning your voice.”
Ashley has set itself the task of taking over the stories she tells. In 2021 she started a production company, Good Catch Entertainment, and quoted Margot Robbie as inspiration. “I always looked up at her,” she says, “and when she comes across a story that arrives with you that you trust that you can deliver it, it’s a great journey.” As a producer on the Amazon Prime Romance Romantic comedy, she is attributed to this, in which she plays a number of blind data as a photographer, with her family playing matchmaker. “The first design of the script was good, but there were parts that felt a bit flat. It was important for me that the South Asian family was in focus and that it was funny because the characters were funny, not because we made fun of them. The same with my character: I wanted it to be reliable for anyone.”
Ashley not only takes over creative control over her model projects, but defies expectations by starting a new chapter as an recording area. She started working on her debut album with the Adele and the Stormzy producer Fraser T Smith, the results of which are still very under lock and key. While she has sung classically at a young age, the music that she hears is soulful and poppy artists like Roberta Flack, Alicia Keys, as long as, des’Ree, dua Lipa, Toni Braxton – which could indicate what we might hear from her.
Although she hesitates to define her music prematurely, she says that it is “the most personal” that she has ever done. “It will be a bit significant … and beautiful and chaotic,” she adds. Ashley recently separated from her long-term friend, the entrepreneur Constantin Klein-a separate experience from which she pulled during the songwriting process. In the past, she was relatively reserved when she discussed her private life, but she is a responsibility not to gloss over this time. “This idealistic expectation of being single and having a completely clean start is not what I have followed,” she reflects. “Good songs do not come from times when my life is regulated and predictable. They come when I feel vitality, and normally they either feel that when their heart is broken or they are euphoric. This work was an amazing channel in which they can use all of these feelings.” She continues: “I spoke to many people who had experienced something similar, and that was very calming. So I hope that everyone who goes through a dark time in their lives can feel view and understood.”
When we speak, she has just completed her scenes for the fourth season of Bridgerton. When the attention of another connection to a different connection turns, I wonder what it feels like to group now as an established stars with the line -up. “This show is getting bigger and bigger. Everyone has started to do incredible things, but we come back and it is as if time has not moved,” she says with a smile. “Every season, someone will join new things, and we are all as supportive as we can – if they want to talk or if they have questions – because we understand how exciting it is.” Next is a role as an action heroine on her acting wish list: “Like Ana de Armas in Ballerina or Uma Thurman in Kill Bill. This is a big dream of mine.” She also has a few projects in the pipeline-one indie drama and a musical, but both are currently strictly secret.
In the rare cases that she has a free weekend, Ashley spends it in her house in West London, cooks with friends or walk with her cocker Spaniel Myla. “Life has so much more than our industries, do you know?” it reflects. “My dreams become true and more doors open up to future dreams – but it is about concentrating on what is really important and does not get lost in the sound around him.” Simone Ashley sees everything for me as lost.
Styled by Crystalle Cox. Hair from Shon Hyungsun ju. Make-up from Liz Pugh. Manicure by Emily Rose Lansley. Stylist’s assistant: Nine Gahrén Williamson. Photographed on site at Mandarin Oriental Mayfair
You could also like
