Simone Ashley is trading in her Bridgerton corsets for some sexy cutouts.
On July 13, Ashley arrived at the Los Angeles premiere of The Gray Man at TCL Chinese Theatre wearing a strappy black Mônot dress with cutouts along the abdomen, back, chest, and collar bones. Stylist Rebecca Corbin-Murray—who also put together Florence Pugh’s iconic sheer Barbiecore moment—had Ashley pair the look with black pumps, a Tyler Ellis clutch, and a watch by TAG Heuer.
Simone Ashley let her hair cascade down her back and kept her makeup glowy with a neutral smokey eye. Basically, she looked every bit like a Bond girl at the premiere of Netflix’s latest spy thriller. Better yet, perhaps she could pull off 007 herself. James Bond producer Barbara Broccoli did tell Deadline that they are “reinventing” the British agent for the next installment….
Ashley is very familiar with stepping into a beloved franchise and facing its fans’ high expectations head-on. Not just any actor could take on the lead role of Bridgerton season 2 and make everyone shut up about the loss of Regé-Jean Page (at least for a moment).
“I’d like to think that I’m not a very fearful person,” she told ahead of the season 2 premiere in March 2022. “We’re in an industry that, yes, as an artist you can feel certain pressures at times, but we’re not performing heart surgery or curing diseases or having lives dependent on us. That’s real pressure. When I put that into perspective, I’m like, ‘It’s fine.’”
Though we can expect to see Ashley in Bridgerton, the actor also told Glamour that she’s itching for something unexpected. “I’m interested in culturally specific roles, but also very much so non-culturally specific ones,” she said. “I want to go up for roles that anyone can relate to. I want to be seen for my talent. I think I’m very smart and I’ve got great ideas, and I want to be seen for that and not for how I look.”
The actor said she’s been offered “a lot of Bollywood stuff” but has turned the roles down. “I said no to a lot of that because I want to change it up,” she said. “I want to take roles that maybe people wouldn’t expect me to play.”
Shall we start the #SimoneAshleyForBond hashtag now?
