Ashley Benson

The Noise of Seven Seasons

Ashley Benson was born in Anaheim Hills in 1989. Before turning ten, she already had a contract with Ford Models. But her real training came with three years of daily filming on the soap opera Days of Our Lives.

That discipline of memorizing page after page of script in record time helped her keep up with the pace of commercial television. In 2007, she starred in Bring It On: In It to Win It. It was a direct-to-DVD release that barely hinted at her desire to break out of the teen circuit.

Hanna Marin was both her prison and her steady paycheck.

In 2010, she signed on to appear in Pretty Little Liars. The series ran for seven seasons and 160 episodes. That commitment gave her the financial security to start turning down empty rom-com roles as the popular blonde.

During a break from filming in 2012, she decided to take a chance with Harmony Korine. She shot Spring Breakers alongside James Franco and Selena Gomez. It was a risky bet aimed at breaking away from the clean-cut image of ABC Family (owned by Disney).

Breaking the California Mold

International critics began to see her differently after her time at the Venice Film Festival. She wasn't seeking the approval of the major studios. In 2015, she took part in Pixels, but the experience of working on big-budget digital effects productions didn't quite win her over.

She preferred to take refuge in independent film. In 2018, she worked under Alex Ross Perry in Her Smell. Playing a musician in the midst of a self-destructive spiral allowed her to step away from the Instagram filters that dominated her public image at the time.

Creative control became her absolute priority.

In 2021, she produced and starred in The Birthday Cake. It's not common for an actress from the TV factory to set up her own production company so early. But Benson understood that in Hollywood, if you don't generate your own material, you end up waiting for a phone that only rings to offer you more of the same.

During 2023, she shot Mob Land alongside John Travolta. At this stage of her career, she picks projects based on the strength of the cast or the freedom the director offers. She no longer needs to prove she can carry a dramatic close-up.

Box Office and Dispatches

Her career as a businesswoman goes beyond the film camera. In 2023 she married Brandon Davis, and in 2024 her first child was born. These personal changes coincided with a voluntary step back from the media spotlight in Los Angeles.

Her social media presence generates income that rivals the salaries of many top-tier supporting actors. She has more than 20 million followers across her main profiles. She uses that critical mass of audience to fund her forays into genre cinema.

And this strategy lets her control her own schedule.

In 2022, she starred in the slasher Alone at Night. It was a small production shot almost entirely in a single location. The budget was minimal by industry standards, but she kept her percentage of the film's final distribution profits.

Filming her role in the series Wilderness in 2023 confirmed that she is still interested in episodic formats as long as the script is dark enough. Benson divides her days between motherhood and reading scripts for her production company, Benson and Benson. Production of her next independent feature film for 2025 has a budget of $5 million.