Actress Ashley Liao has had an impressive career thus far working on projects like Netflix’s Fuller House and starring in the Paramount+ original movie Love in Taipei. Most recently she can be seen playing Clemensia Dovecote alongside Viola Davis and Tom Blyth in The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes.
Popternative host Petey Beats chatted with Ashley Liao and asked if her previous characters influenced new roles. “Yes, I would say I think it’s more experience in a weird way than anything where it’s like, I’m really grateful to have had so much experience so young to be able to get onto a massive production like The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes and not necessarily feel intimidated. Maybe not necessarily intimidated by the scale of it because I know one of the best days that I had on set was one where it was just Viola [Davis], and Tom [Blyth] and me from the cast and I really got to know our crew and Francis [Lawrence – Director] and Nina [Jacobson – Producer] so intimately and this very larger than life production felt really intimate and personal on days like that.”
Later Ashley talked about seeing The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes come to life from the script. “I think reading the script, I try to imagine how these phenomenal actors were going to take on the role but like, I really couldn’t see it until it happened and then I was like yeah no, no one else could have had this and I think that’s something I’ve been told about me for characters and I just was like ‘I don’t see it’ but thank you, you know I’ll take the compliment. That’s kind of when it hit me where I was like, no one else was going to be able to play Dr. Gaul quite like Viola Davis was…she walked on set in character and I was like ‘she is [the] part’ and how phenomenal because that means I get to work with Viola Davis.”
Watch the full interview with Ashley Liao below.
The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes is available for digital purchase and rental.
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