Dress, price on request, Prabal; shoes, £795, Christian Louboutin; rings, price on request, Chopard
The Unstoppable
Ashley Park
The Emily In Paris star talks to Laura Antonia Jordan about resilience, friendship and getting comfortable with uncertainty
PHOTOGRAPHS SAM GOLD
STYLING BRAD GORESK
Published December 2025
Ashley Park knows it ‘sounds so crazy’ to admit, but ‘I’ve recently discovered there are only 365 days in a year, and only 24 hours in a day. When we’re growing up that’s endless and then you really realise, as an adult, oh, there is actually a finite amount of time and energy that we hold. And how do we best make use of that?’
For Park, 34, the challenge is not so much getting things done (ask a busy person, etc) but knowing when to switch off. So, yesterday – the day after Thanksgiving, which she spent with her parents and Emily In Paris co-star Samuel Arnold, who recently moved to LA – she watched Survivor and crocheted all day. ‘Isn’t that the cutest?!’ she beams, showing me her handiwork, a palm-sized cactus. ‘Should I open an Etsy store?!’
Given how this year’s panned out, the full-time craft pivot will have to wait. Park left home in April to film season five of Emily In Paris, returning for a couple of days before heading off to Alabama to shoot indie comedy Basic with Leighton Meester, a project that was also Park’s first time as a producer. And now, the Emily In Paris press juggernaut is in full swing.
It’s been five years since the show first landed on our screens. A dopamine-inducing, colourful, camp romcom of errors, with big characters and bigger outfits, it was exactly the blast of escapism we were crying out for in the pandemic and has gone on to become festive appointment viewing, pepping up that strange, purgatorial period between Christmas and New Year.
From the get-go, Park’s Mindy Chen – a straight shooter, singer and BFF of the titular Emily, played by Lily Collins – quickly become a fan favourite. ‘I always say Mindy is like that friend you always wanted but never knew you needed. She’s very non-judgemental, but she’s very truthful too.’ People love her dialled-up-to-the-max style. ‘She very much marches to the beat of the drum,’ Park laughs.
Coat, £3,465, Balmain; earrings, price on request, Chopard; shoes, price on request, Gianvito Rossi
When we speak, Park is in a very un-Mindyish tie-dye sweatshirt and is make-up free, hair half up, with a Stanley cup in hand. But Emily In Paris has amplified her appreciation for the storytelling part of fashion. For her Grazia cover shoot, Park and her stylist Brad Goreski played around with narrative. ‘Every look that we chose, we were like, who is she at the party? Oh, she’s the one with the extra, like, bottle of vodka in the bathroom if you want an extra sip. Oh, she’s the one who’s making you heart to heart,’ she says. ‘It’s fun’.
Season five of the show picks up in Italy, and is a full on one for Park. ‘I’m in harnesses, I’m doing stunts on a trampoline. I was like, I remember when Mindy just sat at the café and listened to Emily!’ But there’s another reason why this season is a big one for her and, at this point, for those of you who are yet to binge-watch the lot, I will sound that spoiler alert klaxon.
This season sees Mindy and Lucien Laviscount’s Alfie (former paramour of Emily) become romantically involved. Park likens Laviscount to a ‘best friend and brother’ and says it’s been fun to explore more of the storytelling together. But, a girls’ girl through and through, she admits to being nervous about that plot twist. ‘For me personally, if someone’s an ex of my friend, they’re already in a category where I’m definitely going to look at them a certain way, you know?’ Although she concedes that the characters’ comfort with each other makes it feel natural.
She might have to keep reminding herself, ‘Ashley this is acting! It’s fictional!’ but something very real is the close friendship Park and her co-star Collins have developed. The connection between the two actors was instantaneous; one onlooker compared them to magnets at the first ever table read, totally drawn to one another.
‘She’s always been just like the best sort of big sister, but also a white ally before it was trendy to be one,’ says Park of Collins. ‘We found each other at the exact right time of each other’s lives, you know? We’ve seen each other through huge chapters of our life, that’s what’s so crazy. And I think that’s what’s reflected [in the show]’.
I can’t tell you how many choir solos I didn’t get, how many roles in school musicals I didn’t get
ASHLEY PARK
I can't tell you how many choir solos I didn't get, how many roles in school musicals I didn't get
ASHLEY PARK
Dress, price on request, Erdem
Dress, price on request, and shoes, price on request, both Marc Jacobs; earrings, price on request, Shy Creation
With Emily In Paris first coming out during the pandemic, Park was somewhat buffered from fame’s impact. Sure, she could see the boggling viewing numbers (58 million households streamed it within 28 days of release), ‘But we didn’t interact with people or see that, have any sort of in person press until maybe season three. We didn’t even have a premiere until season three. So, for us, it felt like a very grounded relationship in terms of celebrity.’
Her profile has continued to rise, with roles in the acclaimed Beef and Only Murders In The Building (in which she duetted with Meryl Streep) and her top billing in raunchy comedy Joy Ride. Park considers herself lucky to have been a ‘full-grown adult’ by the time fame came a-knocking. ‘I really got to live my life and figure out who I am as an artist and feeling grounded in myself before any of this happened,’ she says.
Coat, £4,330, top, £1,750, and skirt, £1,150, all Gucci; earrings, price on request, Chopard
After graduating from theatre school in Michigan, Park moved to New York and worked her way up on Broadway, from understudy to ensemble part to lead roles in The King And I and her Tony-nominated performance as Gretchen Wieners in the Mean Girls musical. ‘I know that I’ve earned every rung of that ladder,’ Park says, saying she felt so grateful to be on stage she wasn’t constantly striving for the spotlight.
‘Not that I wasn’t ambitious, I was just realistic. I genuinely thought I was never going to speak a line. And I knew moving to New York and pursuing that [career], I had to be so OK with that.’ It’s funny, she adds, when people ask if she was ground down by rejection ‘[because] if I saw it that way, then I would have never kept doing it’.
Park credits her parents for her resilient attitude. ‘I can’t tell you how many choir solos I didn’t get, how many roles in the school musicals I didn’t get, and I always remember my mom being like, “Hey, are you still going to show up tomorrow to rehearsal and enjoy it? Your job is to take the high road. How are you going to make this the best thing for yourself?”’
Dress and shoes, both price on request, Dolce & Gabbana; bra, £49, Intimissimi; earrings, price on request, Messika
Park certainly knows a thing or two about perspective. When she was 15 she was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukaemia. She was so determined not to be defined by it, she says, that ironically it became ‘my most defining quality. I will not have anything hold me back or put me in a certain box.’ Then, in December 2023, she became gravely ill with critical septic shock, spending a week in intensive care.
Emily In Paris was about to start filming again and Park flew straight from the ICU to start work on season four. She realises now it was too soon. ‘Really, I should have listened to the doctors and let myself heal, because then it takes a lot longer to really get back to yourself. It was very hard mentally for me, you know?’ The experience ‘definitely has affected my perspective on what I prioritise in life’.
What does that look like? For one thing, she’s hoping to go to South Sudan in her role as a Goodwill Ambassador for the UN World Food Programme. But on a personal level it means not operating from a place of fear. Park reveals she is about to release a single. It’s nerve-racking, she says, putting herself out there in that way, and she did toy with the idea of ‘giving’ the song to Mindy to perform in the show instead. ‘But you know what? It’s called My Own’, she laughs. ‘If I’m hiding behind character or behind other people’s art, then it’s a lot easier for me to let go.’
Why is it worth it, then, exposing yourself like that? Because Park is passionate, she says, about the value art and storytelling have in helping others. ‘People always say it’s a narcissistic, selfish industry, and it’s like, no, no, no! The point of it is to make people feel seen and understood and not alone when it’s being done right.’
Besides, she wants to be open to new experiences. Park’s New Year’s resolution will be to reframe anxiety around uncertainty as excitement. ‘I truly never know where I’m going to be the next month. And I am changing it from being “how stressful” to “how lucky am I that there are so many possibilities?” That’s a big privilege.’
‘Emily In Paris’ season five is on Netflix now
Stylist: Brad Goreski at The Wall Group. Hair: Clayton Hawkins at A-Frame Agency. Make-Up: Jenna Nicole at Dew Beauty Agency. Nails: Kimmie Kyees at The Wall Group. Tailor: Rose Stepa. Prop Stylist: Daniel Horowitz. Shoot Producers: Anna Dewhurst and Eliza Hoyland at First Base Productions. Photographer’s Assistants: Michael Camacho and Erick Mendoza. Production Assistant: Calvin Hite. Fashion Assistants: Amber Backhouse and Clarke Johnson.
Editor-in-Chief: Hattie Brett; Deputy Editor: Hanna Woodside; Associate Editor: Rebecca Lowthorpe.