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DECEMBER 2022 ISSUE

Simone Ashley: “I Don’t Want To Be Put In A Certain Box. I Want To Be In The Driver’s Seat”

In the blockbusting Bridgerton as in life, Simone Ashley radiates intelligence, charm and independence. So, asks Radhika Seth in British Vogue’s December 2022 issue, what next for streaming’s leading light? 

When she was a teenager, Simone Ashley would often spend New Year’s Eve alone, writing letters to herself. “I was a bit of a rebel,” the actor explains, half amused at her own self-seriousness. “I went to a predominantly white all-girls school. I didn’t fit in, there was bullying and I was wishing my life away.” She would remind herself to have perspective, that it’d all be over in a few years. “I would tell myself, ‘You’ll move away from this place, you’ll find your people and you’ll do whatever you want.’”

Now, more than a decade later, that steely resolve is still visible in the assured, if decidedly less angsty, 27-year-old in front of me. It’s the tail end of the August heatwave and she is barefoot, sprawled across a blue velvet sofa in her sunny West London loft, wearing Levi’s cut-offs and a silk tank with the insouciance of someone who is entirely comfortable in their body. Her cocker spaniel, Myla, is curled up at her feet, her nose against the tattoo of a sphinx cat on Ashley’s ankle (one she cavalierly drew and then tattooed on herself during the first lockdown). Dangling from her fingers is a vape, which she puffs on absent-mindedly, letting her natural curls fall down her back as she gazes up at a wall lined with prints – a Basquiat, a poster of Michelangelo Antonioni’s Blow-Up, a vintage map of India.

It’s a rare moment of stillness for Ashley in both a day and a year that have been lacking in them. When I arrived at her home over an hour ago, I found her packing boxes. Rushing to make me a mug of mint tea, she told me that she was getting ready to move to a bigger place, having outgrown this split-level studio in the 18 months that she’s spent here. It’s been a transformational time. When she moved in, she was mid-shooting the third season of Laurie Nunn’s revolutionary Netflix comedy Sex Education. Now, another streaming behemoth has brought her global recognition: Shonda Rhimes’s racy Regency romance Bridgerton.

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