Making Her Mark, with Ashley Williams
Rom-com-versations is an interview series with people from the entertainment industry discussing all things rom-coms.
Hi Meet Cuties,
This week I had the pleasure to chat with actress, director, and writer, Ashley Williams. You might recognize Ashley from her roles in HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER, SOMETHING BORROWED, and THE JIM GAFFIGAN SHOW. Aside from being a successful actress, Ashley is leading a new initiative at Hallmark Media called Make Her Mark that focuses on uplifting and propelling careers of female directors and storytellers. Sheโs on a mission to change the landscape of the entertainment industry for women and Iโm so excited to be chatting with her today!
๐ Naomi: What's your favorite rom-com and why?
๐ Ashley: I'm a big fan of the modern day rom-coms, but I gotta take it back to when I first fell in love with the genre. I would say it's a tie between ANNIE HALL and THE PRINCESS BRIDE because the comedy is all character-based. To me, what makes a great rom-com is being able to really understand what makes the lead characters tick by cracking into their own unique neurosis, life goals, and romantic goals. Comedy comes from truth, so when you can find the truth in a character, that's when it starts to get really funny.
๐ Naomi: I haven't heard THE PRINCESS BRIDE as someone's favorite recently and it is such an iconic early rom-com. It's genre bending, there's an element of fantasy, and it hits so many different audiences. No one can say, "only women like that movie."
๐ Ashley: My dad tells this story of when I was about nine years old, we were driving back from visiting my grandmother and I was trying to explain how amazing THE PRINCESS BRIDE was. I ended up acting out, scene by scene, the entire movie for him in the car. He says this is the first time he thought that I could actually become an actress. What I wouldn't give to be able to watch that little show I put on for my dad that day. I'm sure it's way better in hindsight than it was in reality.
๐ Naomi: Was it experiences like this in your early childhood that lead you to try out acting?ย
๐ Ashley: The reason I'm an actress is purely because I'm obsessed with my sister, Kimberly Williams-Paisley, who became a successful actress when I was young. We all started kind of professionally acting at a young age-- I had my first audition when I was 11 or so. But when she landed FATHER OF THE BRIDE, I was 12 and she was 19. It was as if my sister was suddenly Julia Roberts. I wanted all of her clothes, I wanted to sleep in her bed, I wanted to smell like her, and I was dying to have her handwriting. I wanted to copy everything about her. It may have bordered on creepy? But luckily she seemed flattered.
๐ Naomi: You started auditioning at a really young age and got a really early look into what the industry was like. How did that shape what your experience was as a teenager?
๐ Ashley: When I was in high school, I was on a soap opera as a contract player on AS THE WORLD TURNS. It was interesting because I was working full time on the show, and yet I had become friends with the principal of my high school. This is super illegal now, but this was the 90's: if you're a professional actor and below the age of 16, you have to have a whole host of tutors and there's all these rules about school, but you had to get your education facility to sign off on all of them. So I worked out a deal with the principal of my school that if I went below the high honor roll, then I would get the tutors. Otherwise, I wouldn't have to have them. I had friends bringing homework home for me, I would come into school one day a week and take a bunch of tests, and I had to get a 1300 on my SATs. Luckily, I never went below high honor roll and barely squeaked by on my SATs. It was intense. But I've always had a really intense work ethic. I was raised by two writers who were freelance journalists. There were times when my dad would say, "If you want Christmas presents, I have to work through dinner and I can't put you to bed tonight." We were very hand to mouth that way and I think it created this work ethic in me that serves me today. Although, โhustle cultureโ can be dangerous when it becomes addictive. There's so much going on today that Iโm actively trying to slow down and be present in my life.
๐ Naomi: That's such a great reminder. We could talk about this all day, but I won't derail the conversation. So let's talk about TWO TICKETS TO PARADISE. For those that haven't seen it, it's about two people who get left at the altar yet still decide to go on their honeymoons. They come to find out they're actually staying at the same resort in Hawaii. First off, I love the idea that these characters are taking life into their own hands and going on their honeymoons anyway. How did you relate to Hannah's character? How do you get into character before you're about to go on set?
๐ Ashley: Thanks for bringing up this movie, I really loved making this one. The conceit was so unique for Hallmark. I related to Hannah through a little bit of what we were just talking about: I am incredibly task and goal oriented, I'm a career woman, I'm a mother, I'm an organizer, and Hannah and I share that. She's very Type A, she's an actuary, so she's constantly calculating risk-- which I can relate to though I'm probably not as good at math as her. What Hannah discovers throughout the movie is her own need to be able to go off of the plan. That's something I'm working on all the time. I notice sometimes at night I'm reading to my kids and I rush through the story. Playing Hannah helped me remember to slow down, sit there, look at the pictures in the book before you turn the page. I really like that Hannah's mind is opened over the course of the movie to go off the plan and off the path. In terms of getting into character, when I got the offer for this movie, I looked at my husband and I said, "We're taking the kids to Hawaii."
๐ Naomi: From filming TWO TICKETS TO PARADISE, was there a funny, behind-the-scenes moment you can share with us that audiences might not know about when they watch the movie?
๐ Ashley: There was a scene we shot that was in a graveyardโ like a ghost tour situation. We were shooting in a real life cemetery at night, and being in Hawaii, you're really close to nature no matter where you are. We came in to rehearse when the sun was still out, we walked through, we figured out what we were going to do, and where the cameras were going to be. When the sun set, we finally started to shoot. What was crazy about this particular cemetery was that at night, the grass was absolutely infested with cockroaches, and I was in these little open toed, stiletto beach heels. I had no problem with cockroaches until I lived in New York for five years, and then cockroaches and I had a problem after that because they were just a part of our life there. I have a zero tolerance policy for cockroaches now. But back in the cemetery, you would look down and it was like the ground was moving. You could actually hear the crunching under your feet! It was so gross and so graveyard-y too. Ryan Pavy, I gotta give it to him because he totally had me and he carried me over the grass. He put me over his shoulder, carried me to my mark, we would do the take, then he would pick me up again and move me over to the pavement when we were done. I'll never forget it. I was beyond.ย
๐ Naomi: I would love to see a blooper reel of that exact scene! I want to shift directions to a new initiative that you are leading with Hallmark called Make Her Mark. Announced a few months ago, the purpose of the program is to create opportunities and propel the careers of female directors and storytellers. Thinking about entertainment holistically today, I think that's so incredible being able to create opportunities for underrepresented groups in entertainment. What was the origin story of you and Hallmark working together and how did this partner start to flourish into the Make Her Mark program?ย
๐ Ashley: This is something I'm so excited about! Hallmark has such an amazing opportunity because they generate a hundred movies a year. Years ago, I came to them and told them that I wanted to direct. There's a lot of really incredible directors that they already have, most of them are men. I think last year out of a hundred movies, we had 16 female directors and 84 male directors--many of which are some of the kindest, most generous men I know. A lot of them are Canadian, some of them are from Utah, Connecticut, and various other places. They have this incredible skill set and I wanted it. Basically I asked them, "Is it possible to employ our veteran male directors to train up and coming young, smart, promising female directors, and use the skill set of these veteran directors and transfer their skill over into the producer world at Hallmark to ensure the success of the newer female directors?" I have to give it up to Hallmark because they were so supportive, especially Wonya Lucas. Wonya came in and took over at Hallmark a couple years ago. This initiative is especially complicated because pairing these people together is key. The idea is that you bring on a newer female director and you pair her with a veteran director at Hallmark. She shadows the veteran director and follows them around for all of prep (3 weeks), all of shooting (3 weeks), and for as much of post-production as is reasonable. So she basically watches that director through every step of directing a movie. After that, you switch them so that the veteran director becomes her creative producer and is by her side for every second of her directorial debut. Hallmark is uniquely suited to this because they have such a high volume of movies, but it's a complicated partnership because you want to make sure the pairings works, that the veteran director is cool with being a producer, and you want to make sure they know what they're doing. We also wanted to open up opportunities for diversity in terms of social class, which meant that we needed to pay our women as they were being educated and we needed to work out insurance needs. It took a while, but the leadership at Hallmark was so supportive from the very beginning. I offered to start with two a year and in the initial meeting, Lisa Hamilton Daily said, โI think we should do more." It's taken us a while to hammer out the details, but we're so excited to announce our first director in January 2023, so stay tuned for that. I couldn't be more proud and excited. Hallmark is a really uniquely female network in many ways. The stories are female driven and it's sort of a feminist network in many ways. It makes a lot of sense to me that those stories would be told with a female perspective.ย
๐ Naomi: A huge part of this program, like you said, is mentorship. So I'm curious from your perspective, having worked on so many movies, what is the biggest piece of advice that you would share with female storytellers who are trying to find their way in entertainment?
๐ Ashley: When I was in that position, I was told to generate my own material and go shoot it. I do think that's good advice, but I also would say train yourself before investing money and starting to shoot: take classes, read books, reach out and assign yourself professional mentors. One of the things I did was I designed a curriculum for myself-- my husband called it my grad school program. I reached out to a bunch of directors that I'd worked with previously and I asked if I could be their student. I had to sort of beg and bribe them with bottles of wine to sit in on their process. I warmed my way onto set and was able to shadow several high profile directors. Bethany Rooney, who's one of my directing mentors, has a list of rules for the shadowing director: you're there before the director, you are never late, you're never on your phone, and you're the last person to leave. You're not there to socialize, you're not there to get to know the actors, you're there to watch and learn. I followed that very closely for all of my shadow experiences, and I think it made my experiences so much richer. Another thing I did in my "grad school program" was I made for myself write a short a week for 13 weeks, which was a really big job. Several of the short films that I wrote during that time ended up being kind of great. Most of them were terrible, but one of them we ended up making into a short that got into Sundance. So my biggest advice for people is treat your education like a real education and also start generating your own materials.
๐ Naomi: It sounds like Make Her Mark was kind of modeled off of your own curriculum you made for yourself.ย
๐ Ashley: I had not thought of that, but that is so true. It would've been really easy for Hallmark to just give me a directing job, but I didn't want it. I wanted to be educated first. It's not as much about getting the job, it's about nailing the job.ย
๐ Naomi: I love that! You mentioned your husband, Neal Dodson, who is also a film producer. How often do you two get to work together?ย
๐ Ashley: Neal and I have 11 projects in development right now-- we're going crazy! It's really interesting because we also have two children, not sure where in the list of development projects they fall. We have a daily family meeting, which is checking in on the kids as well as priorities for the day in terms of our projects. It's a constantly shifting list of priorities and they're all our children, all 11 of them. He's the smartest person I know, an incredible creative partner but also happens to be brilliant at the logistics of production. He once negotiated a contract with the National Bank of Canada for a movie, and at the end of the negotiation they offered him a job. Just yesterday, I called a writer's meeting for a movie I'm writing. We sat in our bedroom which has note cards all over the wall right now, and I said, "I'm confused about act four," and we broke it together, and that was purely story. Not only is he amazing at math, he's also good at the story process. I got really lucky with this guy.
๐ Naomi: Speaking of stuff that you're writing right now, are there any upcoming projects that you're working on that you can give us a sneak peek into?ย
๐ Ashley: I've got a Hallmark movie that I shot, called FIVE MORE MINUTES: MOMENTS LIKE THESE. It's a follow up to the Hallmark movie last year called FIVE MORE MINUTES starring Nikki DeLoach. It's a really sweet Christmas movie and gives you all the feels. It's a lot more emotional than TWO TICKETS TO PARADISE and is heavier on the drama. It's premiering on Hallmark on December 17th, but also Hallmark just partnered with Hulu and Peacock, so it's going to be a lot easier to find. I've got AMBER BROWN, which is my Apple series. It's a really sweet coming of age story, and we're really hoping for a season two pickup *knock on wood*. I'm also writing a movie right now, which I can't talk about, but it's very fun.
I hope you enjoyed this rom-com-versation! Be sure to watch FIVE MORE MINUTES: MOMENTS LIKE THESE premiering on 12/17!
Stay tuned for my next Rom-com-versation.
xx, Naomi