A stage comedian who plays defiant, odd women with more feeling underneath than the writing usually asks for. Television has so far used her in the margins, and as Betty DiMello in Masters of Sex she showed how much a margin can hold.
Fi1m perspective
Betty DiMello, the prostitute who helps William Masters find his first volunteers in Masters of Sex (2013), is the one person in that programme who talks to him as an equal. Everyone else in the hospital defers, schemes or flinches. Annaleigh Ashford does none of those things, and the scenes lift whenever she walks in. We noticed, somewhere in the first run, that we had started waiting for her, and that the basement felt smaller when she left it.
She came to that part from Broadway, where she had already played Glinda in Wicked and Margot in Legally Blonde in 2007 and originated Lauren in Kinky Boots in 2013. Masters of Sex ran from 2013 to 2016, Betty growing from a recurring visitor to a regular, and it was the job that made people outside a theatre know her face. Television has kept calling since, mostly for supporting work: Paula Jones in American Crime Story: Impeachment (2021), one of three jobs she has done with Ryan Murphy, and parts in Unbelievable, Bad Education, Welcome to Chippendales and B Positive (2020–2022). The stage, meanwhile, has kept giving her the leads, Dot in Sunday in the Park with George (2017) opposite Jake Gyllenhaal and Mrs Lovett in Sweeney Todd (2023). We have not seen those and will not pretend to judge them.
What we have seen is a particular kind of comic actor. Her women are headstrong or eccentric or both, the comedy is broad and physical, and there is always something under it that she declines to play for a laugh. Betty is funny because she will not be embarrassed by anyone, and she is affecting because the programme keeps giving her reasons to be. Ashford holds both at once and does not signal which one we should be watching. That is harder than it looks, and most performers cast for the comedy never bother with the second half.
The caveat is that the screen has not yet asked her to carry anything. She has said as much herself, in her own way: "Anytime I come up against a wall with somebody being afraid to cast me because of them thinking of me as just a comedy person or just a drama person, I go, ‘Hey, that’s the best compliment you could ever get.’" It is a good answer, and it is also a description of the problem. Broadway has trusted her with Mrs Lovett; television has trusted her with the fourth name on the call sheet. Until somebody closes that gap, Masters of Sex is where to see what she can do, and Betty is worth the twelve hours on her own.
Biography
Annaleigh Ashford is an American actress, singer and dancer. Born on 25 June 1985 in Denver, Colorado, she trained at Marymount Manhattan College and began her career in musical theatre.
She appeared in Broadway productions of Wicked (2007), Legally Blonde (2007) and originated the role of Lauren in Kinky Boots (2013), for which she received a Tony Award nomination. She won the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play for her performance as Essie Carmichael in the 2014–15 revival of You Can't Take It with You and starred as Dot/Marie in the 2017 revival of Sunday in the Park with George.
On television, Ashford portrayed Betty DiMello in the Showtime series Masters of Sex (2013–2016). Her other screen credits include roles in American Crime Story (2016–2021) and the film Bad Education (2019).
