![]() “On any TV series, you’re hoping to find actors that can can grow with the part and the part can evolve to encompass all their abilities,” says Lorre, who compares Ashford to Christine Baranski, another theater veteran fluent in both Sondheim lyrics and sitcoms rhythms. Because of the pandemic, the multi-camera sitcom has had to tape without the customary live audience and, Ashford says, “It feels like we’re missing an old friend.”Īhead of Season 2, which premieres this month, the show has been revamped to focus on her character, who uses an unexpected financial windfall to help the residents of the senior living center where she works. “B Positive” leans heavily on Ashford’s deft skills as a physical comedian - in the pilot she drunkenly falls out a window - and her knack for playing lovable eccentrics. ![]() But she’s not ready to let her goĪfter reclaiming Marcia Clark, the actor expected her latest role to change minds about ‘the most hated woman in America.’ She may have miscalculated. Television Sarah Paulson has regrets about playing Linda Tripp. “I vividly remember sitting in the audience when I first saw ‘Kinky Boots’ and just being astounded at her abilities and her comic chops,” says Chuck Lorre, executive producer of “B Positive.” “This tiny, blond-haired girl takes over an entire theater when she’s on stage, seemingly effortlessly, and I remember thinking, ‘Someday, I would love to work with her.’” There’s a throwback, screwball quality to many of Ashford’s signature performances, including her Tony-winning role in a 2014 revival of the Depression-era favorite “You Can’t Take It With You.” (It makes perfect sense she’s attached to play Judy Holliday in a biopic about the Oscar-winning “Born Yesterday” star.) Ashford remembers renting a copy of “All That Jazz” from Blockbuster so many times the tape wore out.Ĭontinuing her precocious streak, Ashford graduated high school early, moved to New York and made her Broadway debut at 21 in “Legally Blonde: The Musical.” In 2013, she earned her first Tony nomination as a plucky factory worker in “Kinky Boots,” opposite Billy Porter, and played an amusingly candid sex worker in Showtime’s period drama “Masters of Sex.” She found a kindred spirit when she enrolled in a local dance school run by a woman named Kitt Andrée, “who wasn’t French but wanted to be,” she says, and introduced her to the magic of Bob Fosse. “I didn’t understand why my friends didn’t think I was funny,” she says. Raised in the suburbs of Denver, Ashford gravitated to age-inappropriate pop culture early on, watching “Cheers” and doing impressions of Linda Richman, the Mike Myers character from “Saturday Night Live,” that were often met with blank stares from her peers. ![]() “Then when you’re playing comedy, if it’s not grounded - if it’s not organic at its base - then it’s not gonna be funny.” ![]() You always laugh harder because you need to let out the pressure,” she says. “In our greatest dramas, there’s always a beat of relief, and that’s what makes them great. Though “Impeachment” and “B Positive” are strikingly different in tone and format, both projects play to Ashford’s ability to be funny and vulnerable in the same breath. It’s the quietest place on set, she explains, even though she often hears loud jazz played by her next-door neighbor, “the legend, Hector Elizondo,” through a shared vent. “I’m hiding in the corner of my bathroom next to a trash can,” she says, affecting the tone of a self-important thespian - one of many voices she slides into almost subconsciously throughout our conversation. after an appearance at the Tony Awards a few nights earlier, her comedic instincts are on display as she provides a virtual tour of her glamorous surroundings. Though Ashford’s a bit groggy, having just flown back to L.A. Ashford is sitting on the floor of her dressing room at “B Positive,” the CBS sitcom in which she plays another well-meaning woman who finds herself out of her depth, in this case for laughs: Her character, Gina, donates a kidney to a high-school acquaintance and has to get sober to do so.
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