By Katie Hudson-Martinez/feature editor
Ashley Head packed up and moved to Los Angeles in 2002 with $60 and a dream.
Now the former TCC student is making it big in Hollywood.
Before the move, Head had extensive experience in stage acting and dance, having been a student at the Mary Ann Little School of Dance in Grand Prairie for 17 years from the age of 2.
She got her first starring role in a stage production at 8, and at 15 she was one of 500 public school students chosen to participate in the annual youth opera performance at Carnegie Hall.
Head comes from a long line of accomplished artists—most notably her great-great aunt, Edith Head, an eight-time Academy Award winner, whom the Encyclopedia Britannica calls “America’s best-known and most successful Hollywood designer.”
But despite her best efforts and performance experience, Ashley found it difficult to break into television and film from Texas.
After getting down to the final reading and then being passed over for a lead role in The Life of David Gale with Kevin Spacey because the other girl was “more serious about her acting career,” Head decided to pack up and head for Hollywood where the action is.
“I didn’t know what to expect when I got there. I was a little nervous, but I was mostly excited … and determined,” she said.
When she got there, she hired an agent and worked three jobs until she got her first call back, which happened just three months later.
Head played the role of Amber, the victimized girlfriend of a batterer, in the made-for-television movie What Should You Do? on Lifetime.
“ I had done student films for UTA and SMU that went to festivals, so I had seen myself on the big screen, but this was my first experience with television,” she said.
“It was the first time that my family and friends could catch me on re-runs,” she said.
She went on to do some commercials and made an appearance on Walker Texas Ranger before she got another big break in the indie film, My Big Fat Independent Movie.
The film is a comedy that spoofs other indie films, much like the Scary Movieseries spoofs horror films.
Head won the NY Times Critic’s Pick for her portrayal of Anomalie, a French-speaking, bike-riding do-gooder.
Anomalie seems to have an aura of bad luck because everyone she tries to help ends up dead in some freak accident a few moments later.
“It is weird because that film has this cult-like following, but we had a lot of fun making it. It was just a great experience for me,” she said.
She now has a recurring role on the new HBO series, Tell Me You Love Me, playing a hairdresser.
During the summer of 2007, Head went back to New York to study at the prestigious Circle in the Square Theatre School on Broadway.
“It was such an unbelievable honor to be there, in the same place where great actors like Sean Penn, Kevin Bacon and Benicio Del Toro have studied,” she said.
“Sometimes I wake up and I’m shocked that I made it this far. I’m excited to see how far I can go.”
Head recently returned to Dallas to produce the stage production of Oleanna.
She is working on the production with her good friend Larry LeMaster, who is starring and co-producing the play at the Black Box Theatre inside the Hampton-Illinois Library in Oak Cliff.
“It’s a totally different experience for me, producing and working off stage, but I love it,” she said. “I am looking forward to doing it again.”
Head and LeMaster already have plans for a second production next year, in which she will star and co-produce.
Head believes the sky is the limit when it comes to future plans, and she has a lot of projects occupying her time.
In addition to her accomplishments in television, film, stage production and dance, Head is also an architectural photographer, a certified travel agent, yoga instructor and singer.
With so many accomplishments already to her credit, she said she couldn’t really say about which she is most proud.
“I try not to look back and say, ‘Oh, I’m so great,’” she said. “I am more excited about the future than the past and seeing how far I can take this.”
“That’s what I really like to daydream about,” she said.
For more information on Ashley Head and to view a demo reel of her work, visit www.ashleyheadonline.com.
For advance ticket sales or more information about Oleanna, visit the production Web site at www.oleannadallas.com.
