Simone Ashley is struggling to focus. Maybe it’s her circadian rhythm playing catch-up with a schedule that recently took her to nine countries in four weeks, from Australia to South Africa. Perhaps it’s the looming release of The Devil Wears Prada 2, her latest film, which will cement her place alongside cinema royalty Meryl Streep and Anne Hathaway. Or it could be the toddlers running riot around our table at the Notting Hill outpost of Soho House.
“Sorry, those kids are so distracting,” she says with a laugh. Any suggestion of moving to a quieter spot is waved off. “I don’t want to be the person who tells kids to stop playing. What were we saying?” We were discussing the small matter of joining the megawatt cast of one of Hollywood’s most-anticipated sequels, the follow-up to the film that gave us some of cinema’s most quotable lines (“Florals? For Spring? Groundbreaking”) and taught a generation of women what cerulean blue looks like. To borrow the words of Miranda Priestly, the steely magazine editor played by Streep: “A million girls would kill for this job.” And Ashley got it.
Unzipped! with Simone Ashley: watch the actress talk about her fashion favourites and fails
The 31-year-old was already accustomed to projects that come with life-changing visibility. In 2022 her turn as Bridgerton’s leading lady in series two broke streaming records and fast-tracked her into a world of fashion week front rows and magazine covers — the kind of fame that, for a while, meant she couldn’t leave the house unnoticed. Today, the solution is a celebrity incognito-mode staple: a Martine Rose baseball cap, Burberry jeans, baby blue Adidas Sambas and a tan, faux fur-trimmed Charlotte Simone coat.
A blockbuster was always next on her to-do list. Ashley just wasn’t sure what it would be. She floated the idea of every genre from action, à la Uma Thurman in Kill Bill, to musicals that would give her childhood opera training a chance to shine. “I’d never really thought of something like The Devil Wears Prada,” she says, carefully pouring mint tea from an unwieldy teapot. “When I got the call to audition, it was such a penny-drop moment. My team and I were like, yeah.” Her eyes widen. “Slam dunk.”
The call came less than a year ago, followed by a meeting with the original film’s returning director, David Frankel. Then silence. It wasn’t until weeks later, while having dinner with her best friend, that she found out she’d got the part of Amari, Priestly’s new “first assistant”. “I was really emotional — I’ve never reacted that way when getting a role before,” she says. Within a month she’d packed her bags and moved to New York to start shooting.
It was the beginning of a new era for Ashley — just turned 30, in a new city and hungry for a fresh challenge. The surreal pinch-me moments came thick and fast: stepping into the fictional fashion magazine offices of Runway for the first time; meeting and mingling with the cast, which also includes Emily Blunt and Stanley Tucci; filming in Milan and on the streets of New York, where fans waited for hours to get a glimpse of the stars in action. “People found out where we were filming, whether it was inside or outside. It was kind of crazy.” The feverish appetite for this sequel cannot be overstated: after a two-decade wait since the original film, the first full-length trailer quickly became the most-watched in 20th Century Studios’ history.
Ashley was 11 when the first film came out — which is to say, she gets the hype. “The minute you start seeing the 4am phone calls [Anne Hathaway’s character gets from her boss] and having to get copies [of the unpublished Harry Potter manuscript], it’s just: what happens next? You’re in for the ride.” The sequel promises the same drama, updated for a modern media landscape that’s battling declining print sales and advertising revenue. “It’s coming out at a really important time. It will speak very truthfully about what’s happening in fashion at the moment,” Ashley says. “There are budget cuts in all industries. ”
She is careful not to reveal any spoilers, but luckily fashion is a safe topic. She spent hours in fittings, building her character’s style with the former Sex and the City costume designer Molly Rogers. “My character is professional, but I wanted to bring a youthfulness and aliveness to her.” They landed on a wardrobe full of Thom Browne. “It’s definitely preppy. I wanted her to be aspirational, making sure she fitted in with these beloved characters in the movie, following in their footsteps.”
Long days on set were spent negotiating between standing in reverence to her castmates — “literally the greatest actors of all time” — and carving her own space within the established dynamic. Streep was “wonderful”, “friendly”, “gracious” and “intelligent”, so awe-inspiring to watch that Ashley can’t quite put the experience into words. Meanwhile, Hathaway — or “Annie” — has become a close friend. There wasn’t much time for socialising during production, but the pair stayed in touch after filming wrapped last October. “I just remember how welcoming she was on my first day. She’s an incredibly genuine person. I’m very grateful for the friendship we developed on set.”
Ashley felt so at home in New York that she decided to stay, after ten years of bouncing around flats in London. “There’s a big part of London where I still feel very much like a kid, but New York encourages you to be more confident, more upfront.” When she was growing up her family would often travel from their home in Camberley, Surrey, to visit relatives in LA. As soon as she was old enough she moved out there on her own, armed with the kind of youthful determination only a 16-year-old could have, chasing her big break in Tinseltown. “I didn’t have to do it — in an age of streaming, you don’t have to be in Hollywood to work in Hollywood.”
She was born Simone Ashwini Pillai to first-generation immigrants from India. Her mother, an accountant, and her father, a pharmacist, pursued more traditional careers. She credits her rebellious streak to her mother, who had to abandon aspirations of becoming a fighter pilot when she was younger. “I think she saw that in me and was incredibly supportive.” As soon as she started singing lessons at six, Ashley knew the arts were her calling. By her teenage years, “I would write my dreams in my diary, or in letters to myself”. She smiles and shrugs. “It was just fact. I never wanted to have a smaller life. It wasn’t if, it was when. I knew that I could do it.”
Her first big on-screen role, in Netflix’s Sex Education, took Ashley to south Wales, not California, when she landed the gig in 2019, nearly a decade after her Hollywood gamble. Before her big break she’d only had bit parts in TV shows such as Broadchurch, Doctors and Casualty. The quiet periods were tough. “When you’re an unemployed artist, in the winter especially, it’s really hard. I had to surrender to the idea that this is a period when I have to invest in my personal life and learn not to put all my worth and happiness in whether I’m busy or not.”
Being cast as a dark-skinned love interest in Bridgerton turned her into a symbol of diversity overnight. “Art is an incredibly political industry — anything you do, any movie you make. Me being a woman of colour is political whether I like it or not, and I’m proud of that. I love that girls with similar hair or skin to mine can see women that look like me on billboards.” But times have changed, she notes. “Now the temperature is slowly getting towards a place where it’s normalised.”
Leaning into her musical background, Ashley’s debut EP, Songs I Wrote in New York, dropped on April 10, just three weeks before The Devil Wears Prada 2 hits screens. “I’ve always wanted to sing professionally, whether it was in a musical movie or to release music.” So, three years ago, she sat down with her agents and asked how to make it happen. Since then she has been in the studio with the Grammy-winning producer Fraser T Smith, who has made hits with Adele, Stormzy and Dave. Together they’ve landed on a “soul pop” sound, influenced by Ashley’s sprawling music taste: Sade, Björk, Yungblud, Madonna, Oasis and Eminem.
Does this mean a full transformation into Simone Ashley: pop star? Not quite. She’s already working on her next two film projects: the A24 comedy Peaked, starring and directed by The Bear’s Molly Gordon, and the musical rom-com Falling, with Evan Peters and Sam Claflin.
But first there’s the supersized The Devil Wears Prada 2 press tour to complete. She and her stylist have been planning looks for months. “Every time we do a red carpet, I’m like, ‘Oh my God, this is the best look yet.’ It gets more fun, I feel more confident, we push boundaries a little bit more.”
When she’s not working, she’s vigilant about protecting her privacy, dodging the “magnifying glass” of the public eye as best she can — the internet lost its mind last summer when she was spotted out with the actor Joshua Jackson, for instance. Is she dating now? Ashley smiles politely: “I’m going to keep that private.”
Happiness is meeting up with the people she loves, walking around the city or going on hikes while travelling. “I’ve ticked the box on a lot of the things I set myself to do,” she says, as if becoming a movie star and releasing an album were a simple side hustle. “I have this feeling — and my instincts are usually really good — that in the next few years some exciting new things are going to start happening.” Any hints as to what those might be? Ashley flashes the type of smile that suggests she’s holding a delicious secret and decides, not for the first time, to keep it to herself. “Everything’s just going to align.”
The Devil Wears Prada 2 is in cinemas from Friday
Hair Yoko Setoyama at Dawes & Co using L’Oréal Professional Make-up Nikki Wolff Nails Chisato Yamamoto at Caren Agency using Essie Set design Nicholas Rogers On-set production Town Production
