Ashley Dyke

Actress Ashley Dyke is best known for her roles as Anna in Steve McQueens Academy Award winning film 12 Years A Slave and as Stacey in John Krasinskis The Hollars Ashley was raised in Fairfax Virginia She is the daughter of two lawyers Ellen Dyke and the Honorable James W Dyke Jr the first AfricanAmerican Secretary of Education for the Commonwealth of Virginia and immediate past Chairman of the Greater Washington Board of Trade Her mother is Jewish of Hungarian and Polish decent and was born and raised in New York City Her father is an AfricanAmerican Christian and was raised in Maryland and Virginia They met at Howard University School of Law from which they received their law degrees Ashley is the third of four children She went to Fairfax High School where she was highly involved in student government and was an All American Athlete She went on to get her degree in theater from the prestigious University of Virginia and also studied at the celebrated New York University Tisch School of the Arts where she acquired her first taste of television as a series regular on a campus produced show called Stratagem She also performed in several productions while in college including a lead role in The Vagina Monologues Ashley moved to Los Angeles to further her career in film and television and hasnt looked back since She continues to work in theater landing lead roles at theaters including Second City Acme Theater and La Mirada Theater For the Performing Arts Building a solid career in Hollywood in both comedy and drama Ashley most recently guest starred on Robin Williams show on CBS The Crazy Ones the series finale of Stephen Merchants HBO show Hello Ladies CBSs season finale of CSI NY NBCs The Cape and the CWs 90210 Ashley has successfully portrayed a wide range of characters a young tormented slave in 12 Years A Slave the wildly outrageous Gigi in Budz House a young girl struggling in a halfway house in the thriller New Hope Manor on stage as a young woman surviving a concentration camp in I Never Saw Another Butterfly and as a young black woman living in the segregated 1940s Ohio in the theater production of Toni Morrisons The Bluest Eye