After living in New York, Boston and London, young Ashley Williams moved to Los Angeles during the recent television pilot season. The morning she auditioned for "Good Morning Miami" was also the second time 23-year-old Williams had ever parallel-parked. "In L.A., the driving was harder than the auditions!" says the New York native who had previously mastered public transportation in Boston, London, and New York City.

Now safely parked in her role as hair stylist Dylan Messinger on "Good Morning Miami," the recent bachelor of fine arts graduate of Boston University?s theatre conservatory looks forward to charting new roads in the world of prime-time television. After college, she studied in London for a year at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art as well as at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art where she also studied Shakespeare. She then spent the following summer at the Williamstown Theatre Festival in Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

Williams was born in Westchester County, New York. Her father is a freelance medical journalist and her mother is a fundraiser for the Sloan-Kettering Cancer Institute. She also has an older brother who is a Southern California firefighter and a sister, actress Kimberly Williams, currently on the show "According to Jim." She eventually got an agent and at 14, appeared in her first job (a commercial for the local health care commission). Meanwhile, she also performed in community theater and high school productions.

Williams? first professional acting venture was a two-year contract role on "As the World Turns." She played Dani, a studious girl-next-door who eventually morphed into a "rebellious vixen?I lurked in a lot of dark corners." Williams was a sophomore in high school when she started the role, which she played for two years. "The job forced me to focus on my schoolwork which was funny because my character had a better social life than I did," says Williams. Most recently in Manhattan, she mastered the two lead roles as an understudy for Rachel Weisz and Gretchen Mol in Neil Labute?s "The Shape of Things."

Williams finds her new character, a hairdresser on a Miami TV talk show, to be very grounded. "This is the first time I?ve been there at the creation of a character I?ve played," she says. "Already I am surprised by her honesty. She?s not afraid to look people in the eye and say what she thinks. She?s innocent. But she?s also wise beyond her years. I think she is going to be a joy to play."

In her leisure time, Williams enjoys writing, doing yoga, running and hiking.