“Dancing is definitely always a part of you,” Ashleigh Ross tells FilmInk, which is what makes her role in the new dance drama The Red Shoes: Next Step such a perfect fit. Though now focusing full-time on her acting career, 23-year-old Ashleigh Ross has a long history of dance and performance, with major roles in high profile Australian stage musicals (Mary Poppins, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang) and consistent work internationally. Her acting career has also been bubbling along nicely, with Ross delivering eye-catching performances both on TV (My Place, Dance Academy, Spirited, A Place to Call Home, The Gamers 2037) and the big screen (Back of the Net).
Ashleigh Ross now combines her love of dance and acting with a major supporting role in the new drama The Red Shoes: Next Step, which follows Juliet Doherty’s talented young dancer, Sam, whose world crumbles after an unexpected life-changing event. Emotionally shattered, Sam walks away from dancing and ballet, but life eventually leads back to her old dance school. An old rival, a long-time crush, and her former dance teacher eventually begin to guide Sam back to what she loves most. Directed by actress-turned-filmmaker Joanne Samuel (The Legend of the Five) and her son, Jesse A’Hern, The Red Shoes: Next Step sees Ross deliver a little comic relief amongst the high drama as the bubbly Andrea, one of Sam’s dance school pals.
Photo by Damian Tierney, Primal Studios
You started off dancing, and now you’re acting too. How was that journey?
“I have an older sister, who was a dancer from probably around the age of three. I’m three years younger than her, so she was around six when she came home from dancing one day and I was like, ‘I want to go too.’ It was my grandma, who lived with us, who actually put her into dancing. Then I followed a few years later. I started dancing when I was around three or four, and then I actually started acting when I was around five or six. My mum put me into acting classes. She has told me that I would watch a scene on Nickelodeon or Disney, or whatever I was watching, and then I would remember it and then come back and perform it to her. She was like, ‘This is crazy. I don’t even remember these lines! How are you acting out this scene that you just saw on TV?’ She put me into acting classes and I started doing that. From there, I picked up an agent, who started sending me out for auditions.”
Did you actually have career aspirations while you were at school, or was it just something that you enjoyed?
“I was going for auditions whilst I was in primary school. I actually went for an audition for Mary Poppins The Musical, in Sydney, when I was near six. I ended up booking the job, and we lived quite far away at the time. I lived out towards Richmond, and we ended up moving. My sister went to school in Sydney and she caught the train in from Richmond every day, which is quite the commute. We ended up moving, and all the kids on Mary Poppins had to be homeschooled for the year while we were performing. When Mary Poppins finished, I ended up going back to a performing arts high school for three terms. I ended up booking a role in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang The Musical, and then I went back to homeschooling, which I liked. I could audition during the day, which was great. It was all working out with homeschooling, so I went from there. I loved it. My sister was homeschooled as well at the time, so we got to do it together.”
Ashleigh Ross in The Gamers 2037.
Socially, did you miss out? Or you were fine because you were doing the productions?
“On Mary Poppins, there were ten other kids with me, and we all did school together. And then moving on from that, it was actually fine, because I was still dancing at the time, so I danced Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and that’s where all my close friends were. That’s where I got all my socialising in, which was great. I never really felt like I was missing out because I had my dance friends.”
How did The Red Shoes: Next Step come to you?
“Through my agent. Originally, I believe I was sent for the main character. I hadn’t been dancing for maybe two or three years, and I was like, ‘Oh, I don’t know if I would be able to best perform as the lead.’ In the brief, it said the lead was a professional ballet dancer, and I was like, ‘I do have ballet experience, but I haven’t done it in a few years, so maybe that’s not the best role for me.’ We had a bit of a chat with production, and they were like, ‘Well, we’d like you to have a look at another role. If you could do a little bit of dancing, that’d be great, but it’s not as much professional ballet as the lead role.’ I was like, ‘That’d be fantastic. I’d love to audition for that.’ A few months later, I got a call from my agent offering me the part.”
Ashleigh Ross (centre) in a scene from My Place.
So, you’d quit professional dancing? What was that decision like?
“I was on the same dance tour from the age of 12, up until maybe 18 or 19. That was the most incredible experience. I have fantastic memories from that tour. We went to the US and UK and Europe, and it was just incredible. But I think doing that for so many years took a toll, and I was like, ‘I just want to stay at home for a bit.’ I also really wanted to focus on my acting. I would do auditions while I was overseas on tour…I was even offered a role once but I had to turn it down because I was on tour. I felt like I was missing out with acting. I was like, ‘Acting is more my passion. Maybe it’s time to simmer out the dancing a little bit, and really buckle down and focus on my acting.’ So, around 18 or 19, it just slowly fizzled out a little bit, and I went more into the acting space. I don’t even remember a specific time where I was like, ‘Okay, dancing is done, and now it’s acting.’ It just gradually happened over time, and then one day, I just realised I wasn’t dancing anymore.”
Did you relate to Juliet’s head space in The Red Shoes: Next Step? In terms of her relationship to dancing? Do you feel like it’s a part of your being?
“Dancing is definitely always a part of you. You spend so much of your childhood and your life doing it. For 16 or 17 years of my life, I was dancing four or five times a week. It’s definitely always with you, but fortunately for me, it’s something that I loved. I wouldn’t change it for the world, but it’s never something that I’m like, ‘Oh, I miss it so much. I regret quitting! I wish that I hadn’t quit, and I was still doing it!’ It happened at the right time and it was the right decision, and I’m very happy to have had the experience, but it’s also in the past.”
Ashleigh Ross in a scene from Dance Academy.
Does being a dancer inform your acting?
“Absolutely. Dance taught me not only things about acting, but just life in general. It taught me discipline, to be on time, and to present myself in a certain way. It taught me so much. It is such a fantastic spot to help kids with growth and all those types of things.”
In The Red Shoes: Next Step, you have more of a comedic role, as you did in Back of the Net…
“It’s so funny, because growing up, the roles that I was put into were quite different to the current roles that I’ve done. I feel grateful for that, because I’ve had a bit of variety in my roles. These last two roles have been fun, and fun to play around with. In the past, I’ve done much more serious roles. I did an episode of the TV series A Place To Call Home, where my character was a young girl who got an illegal abortion, and ended up dying. I did some very dramatic roles when I was younger. It’s pretty crazy, so it’s actually been really fun to flip things around and do more comedy. It’s definitely given me a bit more variety. I could see on the page that my character in The Red Shoes was very bubbly, and not really sure what’s going on. The character of Andrea is very silly. She’s a friend of Sam, the lead character, and she’s just a little bit of comedic relief.”
Mietta White and Ashleigh Ross hamming it up in The Red Shoes: Next Step
You maintain a pretty big social media profile. Is that part of the gig these days?
“It’s super fun. I’ve been doing social media since before it was social media. I started on Instagram like everyone else when I was 12, and I was just posting the most random things. It just feels like I’ve always been doing that. I was posting dance footage, and that’s actually why my social media started to grow. My dance content was ending up on the Popular page, which is this page that Instagram used to have before the Explore page. With anything that ended up on the Popular page, I would just see lots of traction come to my account, and I ended up gaining followers every time that happened. Social media didn’t ever feel like a job or a chore, because I was doing it for fun. I would be like, ‘I’ll make a little dance video, and I’ll post it online.’ It was a fun thing to me, which has now turned into part of my job as well.”
Are you working towards anything in the future?
“Between acting and dance, it’s just straight back to the auditions, which is always fun. I actually do really like auditioning. It’s definitely a different world since before The Red Shoes, because now everything is a self-take, which I actually quite enjoy doing. You send in your own tape. It all changed with Covid. It’s like this whole little production that I get to do by myself. Fingers crossed for another booking. I also work as a fitness trainer. That transitioned from my dance career. Spending so much of your time in a dance studio is like being an athlete. It is definitely a form of sport, so when I quit dancing, I was like, ‘Okay, what now? I still have a passion for moving my body and staying active, so what is the next thing that I can move to?’ I got my certificate in fitness, so now I’m a fitness trainer, which is a lot of fun.”
Ashleigh Ross with Juliet Doherty and Joel Burke in The Red Shoes: Next Step
Have you tried your luck in the States?
“I did do that when I was a little bit younger, but the 01 Visa situation, to live over and work in the US, is so tricky. I even booked a job, and they were still like, ‘Oh, well, you’re not a citizen’. But I love Australia. Every time I come back home, I’m like, ‘Oh, this feels like home.’ This is just where my family is and my friends and everything like that. If I booked a job, I would absolutely go over there in a heartbeat, but I don’t know if I would want to live there full-time whilst auditioning. I prefer to do that here. One of the very few good things to come out of Covid is the self-take. I don’t have to necessarily be in the country to be getting the same auditions as people that live there. Everyone sends in their self-take, and it can be from anywhere in the world. If they need you, you can be there in 24 hours.”
The Red Shoes: Next Step is in cinemas across Australia from April 13
Main Photo by Jessie Lindsay
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