Lauren Ash Joins New ABC Comedy Series ‘Not Dead Yet’
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EXCLUSIVE: Superstore alumna Lauren Ash is joining another single-camera broadcast workplace comedy as a series regular: she has been cast as a lead opposite Gina Rodriguez on ABC’s Not Dead Yet.
Written by Casey Johnson and David Windsor based on Alexandra Potter’s 2020 book Confessions of a Forty-Something F**k Up, Not Dead Yet centers on newly single and feeling-old Nell Serrano (Rodriguez), a self-described disaster who works to restart the life and career she left behind 10 years ago. A once-successful journalist, Nell put her career on hold to help her fiancé get his restaurant off the ground. Following their breakup, she takes the only job she can get – writing obituaries – which at first seems like a step backward but ultimately might be exactly what she needs to move forward.
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Ash will play a new character, Lexi, the daughter of a wealthy newspaper owner and recently appointed editor. Lexi was raised in a rarefied world of boarding schools and private planes and is comedically out of touch with how normal people live. A former almost-Olympian horse jumper, Lexi exudes extreme confidence. But the truth is she’s in way over her head and if the newspaper fails, she’ll never win her father’s approval – something she desperately wants.
The addition of Ash and fellow new series regular Hannah Simone, who plays the editor of the Life & Style section of the newspaper, is part of the post-pilot retooling of Not Dead Yet, which now is leaning more heavily into the workplace. The female-friendship storyline from the pilot was phased out, with Jessica St. Clair and Mary Elizabeth Ellis, who played Nell’s girlfriends Annabel and Fiona in the pilot, leaving as a result.
In addition to Rodriguez and Simone, Ash joins Not Dead Yet series regulars Joshua Banday, Angela Gibbs and Rick Glassman.
Johnson and Windsor executive produce with Rodriguez, Wonderland Sound and Vision’s McG, Mary Viola and Corey Marsh. The series, from 20th Television, part of Disney TV Studios, is set to debut in midseason.
Actor-comedian Ash starred as fan favorite Dina Fox on all six seasons of NBC’s Superstore. She also recently voiced the character Scorpia in Netflix’s She-Ra and the Princesses of Power and Diane in Chicago Party Aunt. Her other credits include Another Period, Super Fun Night, Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2, Lars and the Real Girl and The Disaster Artist. Ash is repped by Authentic, UTA and Kimberly Jaime from Jackoway Austen Tyerman.
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