Annaleigh Ashford – C'mon Get Happy

The fabulous Annaleigh Ashford brings optimism and joy to B Positive.

- By Brantley Bardin

WHO KNEW THAT IN 2020 WE WERE SO gonna need something called B Positive?” asks Annaleigh Ashford, who stars in the new Chuck Lorre–produced sitcom bearing that moniker. “At first, I thought, ‘That’s an OK title,’” the Denver-born, Tony Award–winning actress exclaims with a laugh, “but now I’m, like, ‘That’s deep!’” B Positive is the tale of a newly divorced therapist (Thomas Middleditch) who is in need of a kidney donor with the titular blood type. Ashford plays Gina, a high school acquaintance who turns out to be a weed-smoking, pratfall-prone, madcap kook of a match. “They’re an odd couple pairing but a match in life, too,” says Ashford. “He needs a kidney and a friend, and she needs accountability and a friend. See, she likes to partake in the party too much and put all the ‘things’ in her face—so he tries to keep the things out of her face so he can get her kidney!”

Best known to TV audiences as Masters of Sex’s sassy lesbian prostitute turned receptionist Betty DiMello, Ashford is a triple-threat star on Broadway whom The New York Times has called “a sly comic genius.” “But I’ve been waiting my whole life to get to make people laugh on Thursday nights in a Chuck Lorre show on CBS,” confesses Ashford. “So I really hope people will think I’m funny!”