Ashley Park

Ashley Jini Park (born June 6, 1991) is an American actress, dancer, and singer. She is best known for her portrayal of Mindy Chen on Netflix’s Emily in Paris, which garnered her a Critics’ Choice Award nomination, and for originating the role of Gretchen Wieners in the 2018 Tony Award-nominated musical Mean Girls, for which she received Drama Desk Award and Tony Award nominations. Her theatre roles also include Tuptim in the 2015 Broadway revival of The King and I and MwE in Ars Nova’s KPOP Off-Broadway.

Park was born in Glendale, California, and grew up in Ann Arbor, Michigan.[3][4] Her parents are Andrew and Sara Park, and she has a younger sister, Audrey. She is of Korean descent, and is a second cousin of actor Justin H. Min.[5]

Park was placed in dance classes at the Oceanside Dance Academy at age three and began piano lessons at age five.[6][7][8] Park’s love of performing led her to participate in Ann Arbor’s community kids’ theatre throughout middle school and high school.[7] She also attended Interlochen Summer Arts Camp in 2003.[9] Park attended Pioneer High School where she participated in both theatre and choir.[7][10] She also co-founded a women’s a cappella group at Pioneer High School, Soulfege, which placed second at a national competition in 2009.[11]

During her sophomore year in high school, at age 15, Park was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia and was hospitalized for eight months.[7][12] Park was a recipient of a “wish” from the Make-A-Wish Foundation for which she and her family went to New York City and saw the Broadway productions of A Chorus Line, The Lion King, Spring Awakening, and Wicked.[12][13] In interviews she has stated, “My cancer experience is, I think, the reason I do theater…As soon as I was out of the hospital, all I wanted to do is be around people.”[6] After chemotherapy, Park returned to high school, and three months later, she was cast as the lead role of Millie Dillmount in her high school’s production of Thoroughly Modern Millie.[7][12][14] Park has disclosed that during this time, “putting on a wig and putting on shoes and costume and being a different person was the best escape from being just the girl who had cancer”