Ashley Johnson

Ashley Suzanne Johnson (born August 9, 1983) is an American actress. She became known as a child actor for her role as Chrissy Seaver on the sitcom Growing Pains (1990–1992). As an adult, her television roles include Amber Ahmed on The Killing (2011–2012) and Patterson on Blindspot (2015–2020). She has appeared in films such as What Women Want, Fast Food Nation (2006), The Help (2011), and Much Ado About Nothing (2012), and is a cast member on the Dungeons & Dragons web series Critical Role (2015–present). She became the president of the show's charity branch, the Critical Role Foundation, upon its launch in 2020.

Johnson provided the voice and motion capture of Ellie in the video games The Last of Us (2013), The Last of Us: Left Behind (2014), and The Last of Us Part II (2020). She also voiced animated television characters Gretchen Grundler on Recess (1997–2001), Terra on Teen Titans (2004–2006) and Teen Titans Go! (2013–present), Jinmay on Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go! (2004–2006), Gwen Tennyson in the Ben 10 franchise (2008–2014), Renet Tilley on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2012), Shiseru on Naruto: Shippuden (2015), Tulip Olsen and Lake on Infinity Train (2019–2020), Pike in The Legend of Vox Machina (2022–present), and Purple in Among Us (2026). Her other video game work includes voicing Gortys in Tales from the Borderlands (2014) and Petra in Minecraft: Story Mode (2015–2016) and its sequel (2017).

Johnson has won two BAFTA Games Awards for Performer, winning once each for her performances in The Last of Us and The Last of Us: Left Behind and is the only person to have won the award more than once. She also received multiple nominations for her performance in The Last of Us Part II.

Early life Ashley Suzanne Johnson was born on August 9, 1983, in Camarillo, California, and exploration ship captain Cliff Johnson. She has an older brother named Chris and an older sister named Haylie, both of whom have also worked as actors. Her sister later married singer and musician Jonny Lang. Her father was often away for months at a time and would bring back souvenirs from countries such as Japan. She later studied violin and piano at the International School of Music in Glendale. Johnson needed a back brace for three years due to scoliosis and kyphosis, which affected her during her high school years. From 2015 to 2020, Johnson played FBI forensic specialist Patterson in the NBC drama series Blindspot.

As a voice actress, Johnson's earlier roles included Sean in the English dub of The First Snow of Winter, Gretchen Grundler on Disney's Recess, Terra in the second and fifth seasons of Teen Titans, Jinmay on Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go! and Gwen Tennyson in the Ben 10 franchise. A major voice role came when she provided the voice and motion capture for Ellie in the PlayStation action-adventure game The Last of Us, which was released to critical acclaim and commercial success. She won a video game BAFTA for Best Performer, a VGX Award for Best Voice Actress, and a D.I.C.E. Award for Outstanding Character Performance for her role in the game. On March 12, 2015, she won another BAFTA for Best Performer for the same role in the game's downloadable content, The Last of Us: Left Behind. In 2015, she voiced Petra the Warrior in Minecraft: Story Mode by Telltale Games and Mojang. In 2016, she voiced Tulip Olsen in the pilot for Infinity Train and reprised the role for the series in 2019, additionally voicing Lake and the Steward.

In 2020, Johnson reprised the role of Ellie in The Last of Us Part II. For her performance, she was nominated for Best Performance at The Game Awards 2020, for Outstanding Achievement in Character at the 24th Annual D.I.C.E. Awards, and for Best Performer in a Leading Role at the 17th British Academy Games Awards. She portrayed Ellie's mother, Anna, in the live-action adaptation of The Last of Us. On her performance in the adaptation, The Daily Beast commented that "with less than 10 minutes of screen time, Johnson gives us one of the best scenes of The Last of Us".

Johnson appeared in several Geek & Sundry shows, including playing occult specialist Morgan on the web series Spooked, as well as the Alhambra and Dead of Winter episodes on the board gaming web series TableTop. In 2015, she began playing Pike Trickfoot on the Dungeons & Dragons actual play show Critical Role; in 2018, she began playing Yasha Nydoorin in the show's second campaign. Critical Role was both the Webby Winner and the People's Voice Winner in the "Games (Video Series & Channels)" category at the 2019 Webby Awards; the show was also both a finalist and the Audience Honor Winner at the 2019 Shorty Awards. After becoming hugely successful, the Critical Role cast left the Geek & Sundry network in early 2019 and set up their own production company, Critical Role Productions. Soon after, they aimed to raise $750,000 on Kickstarter to create an animated series of their first campaign, but ended up raising over $11 million. In November 2019, Amazon Prime Video announced that they had acquired the streaming rights to this animated series, now titled The Legend of Vox Machina; Johnson reprised her role as Pike Trickfoot. In late 2020, she was made president of the Critical Role Foundation, the studio's charity branch. In June 2021, she was added to the cast of Exandria Unlimited, an anthology spinoff of Critical Role. In October 2021, Johnson's Exandria Unlimited character Fearne Calloway returned in Critical Roles third campaign.

Johnson set up a photography company called Infinity Pictures with Mila Shah, her childhood best friend who works as a production assistant and occasional actress; there have been no updates on the company for many years, though it is still registered as active as of 2022. Johnson and Shah also co-hosted a podcast called Wildly Hot & Bothered, which ran for 13 episodes from 2012 to 2014. In 2015, they created and starred in Little Things, a web miniseries on YouTube about two friends living in Los Angeles and their habit of making awkward everyday situations even worse. The series was not released on YouTube until 2018.

Personal life The first campaign of Critical Role began two years prior to the start of the series as a one-off, simplified Dungeons & Dragons game for Liam O'Brien's birthday. The players enjoyed the game so much that they continued to play it and brought in additional friends, including Johnson, who joined in the second game. After Felicia Day heard about the private home game from Johnson, she approached the group about playing it in a live-streamed format for Geek & Sundry.

Johnson enjoys singing and can play the guitar, piano, violin, and cello; she occasionally posted covers of songs on her SoundCloud page until late 2012. Her performance as Ellie in The Last of Us Part II included acoustic guitar covers of "Future Days" by Pearl Jam, "Take On Me" by A-ha, "True Faith" by New Order, and "Through the Valley" by Shawn James. She also joined co-star Troy Baker (in character as Ellie and Joel) to perform a cover of Johnny Cash's rendition of "Wayfaring Stranger", which plays over the end credits of the game. She later provided vocals for the Critical Role theme songs "Your Turn to Roll" and "It's Thursday Night".

In 2012, Johnson began dating writer and musician Brian W. Foster, who later hosted the Critical Role after-show Talks Machina. They were first introduced by Troy Baker, Foster's roommate at the time, during the making of The Last of Us. In May 2023, Johnson separated from Foster and filed a restraining order against him, citing abuse and threats. All videos and mentions of Foster were wiped from the online profiles of Critical Role. In October 2023, Johnson and six other women (including her sister and two Critical Role employees) filed a lawsuit against Foster that alleged assault, domestic violence, gender violence, sexual battery, stalking, civil rights violations, and intentional infliction of emotional distress. In January 2025, it was announced that the case had been dismissed after all parties involved in the lawsuit reached a private settlement.

Filmography Film Year Title Role Notes 1990 Lionheart Nicole Gaultier 1995 Nine Months Shannon Dwyer 1998 Dancer, Texas Pop. 81 Josie Hemphill The First Snow of Winter Sean McDuck (voice) US dub; short film 1999 Anywhere but Here Sarah 2000 What Women Want Alex Marshall 2001 Recess: School's Out Gretchen Grundler (voice) Recess Christmas: Miracle on Third StreetGretchen Grundler (voice)Direct-to-video RustinLee Wolford 2003 The Failures Lilly Kyle Recess: All Growed DownGretchen Grundler (voice)Direct-to-video Stalker Stephanie Beekman Episode: "My Hero" 2015–2017 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Renet (voice) 6 episodes 2025–present The Mighty Nein Yasha Nydoorin, additional voices (voice) Main role; also executive producer 2026Among UsPurple (voice)

Video games

Web series

Audio books