Ashley Judd (born Ashley Tyler Ciminella on April 19, 1968) is an American actress and political activist.
She grew up in a family of successful performing artists. Her mother, Naomi, and older half-sister, Wynonna, were part of the musical duo The Judds. While she is best known for an ongoing acting career spanning more than two decades, Ashley has increasingly become involved in global humanitarian efforts and political activism.
Notable filmography:
- Star Trek: The Next Generation (two episodes) (1991) as Ensign Robin Lefler
- Sisters (recurring role) (1991-1994) as Reed Halsey
- Kuffs (1992) as Wife of Paint Store Owner
- Natural Born Killers (1994) as Grace Mulberry
- Heat (1995) as Charlene Shiherlis
- Smoke (1995) as Felicity
- A Time to Kill (1996) as Carla Brigance
- Kiss the Girls (1997) as Katie Mctiernan
- Adventures from the Book of Virtues (1998) as Cornelia (voice)
- Our Friend Martin (1999) as Mrs. Dale (voice)
- Double Jeopardy (1999) as Libby Parsons
- Where the Heart Is (1999) as Lexie Coop
- Frida (2002) as Tina Modotti
- Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood (2002) as Younger Vivi
- High Crimes (2002) as Claire Kubik
- Bug (2006) as Agnes White
- The Tooth Fairy (2010) as Carly Harris
- Dolphin Tale (2011) as Lorraine Nelson
- Dolphin Tale 2 (2014)
- Missing (2012) as Becca Winstone
- Olympus Has Fallen (2013) as Margaret Asher
- Divergent (2014) as Natalie Prior
- The Divergent Series: Insurgent (2015)
- The Divergent Series: Allegiant (2016)
- Twin Peaks (2017) as Beverly Paige
- Berlin Station (2017-19) as BB Yates
- A Dog's Way Home (2019) as Terri
Tropes relating to her work:
- Action Girl: Commonly cast as such. She's also one in real life, being an avid practitioner of various martial arts such as Taekwondo, Kung Fu, Judo, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and Kickboxing.
- Aloof Dark-Haired Girl/Fiery Redhead: She has auburn hair, and her characters are usually "cut-the-crap/no-nonsense" Plucky Girls.
- Disco Dan: Her hair and clothing in Heat look straight out of the 1980s in a film made in 1995.
- Granola Girl: She's a social and environmental activist and was a vegetarian for many years.
- '80s Hair: Wears a tight perm in Heat.
- Hollywood Hype Machine: She managed to break out and had many big roles, specially in the thriller genre. But after 2004 had two Box Office Bombs in De-Lovely and Twisted, her career fell in a rut, with mostly secondary parts, independent works or ensemble pieces. And years later she revealed someone was blackballing her behind the scenes. (see What Could Have Been below)
- Interplay of Sex and Violence: Most of her movies contain either profanity, nudity, sex or violence. This came to a point that her mother, Naomi Judd, has publicly objected to many of it.
- Irony as She Is Cast: She plays a lot of mothers but doesn't have any kids in real life and has even said she thinks it's irresponsible to have children when there are already so many without families.
- Mama Bear: Her most recent roles.
- Naked People Trapped Outside: She likes being "in a cathedral of trees and the sanctuary of canyons." Judd's love of nature led her to be locked out of her cabin at the Ahwahnee hotel in Yosemite without her clothes. Judd leaned outside her door trying to get her yoga mat when the door slammed behind her. She covered herself up with her yoga mat and went to the lobby to get a new key. It was only later that she realized that not only was she naked, her face had been covered in pimple cream.
- Shameless Fanservice Girl:
- At the 70th Academy Awards, she walked on stage in a white dress with a high front slit and no panties and was briefly exposed on camera.
- She once flashed her breasts at the Paparazzi while in a car with Salma Hayek, and afterwards she seemed to be saying, "What's the big deal?" and Salma had her hand over her mouth in shock and appeared to be thinking, "Oh my God, you're crazy, I can't take you anywhere."
- Those Two Actors: She and Morgan Freeman starred in quite a few films together.
- Two First Names: It's only her Stage Name though (in contrast, both her sister and her mother had their names legally changed to Naomi's maiden name Judd).
- What Could Have Been: Peter Jackson revealed in 2017 that she was in talks to play Arwen or Galadriel in The Lord of the Rings and met with Peter Jackson about it, even looking over costumes and discussing which role she'd like to play, but she was dropped when Harvey Weinstein had smeared her and Mira Sorvino, two of the many actresses he was accused of sexually harassing, to Jackson by saying they were difficult to work with, something which other actresses and victims have said happened to them as well on other projects.
- She was originally cast in Home Improvement as the announcer for "Tool Time", which eventually became Lisa played by Pamela Anderson. The role was supposed to be much larger, with her as Tim's female presence at work. Her agents had her back out, feeling she was destined for a film career.
