Aya Rachel Cash is an American actress. She is best known for starring as Gretchen Cutler in the FX/

FXX FXX is an American basic cable channel owned by the Walt Disney Television unit of The Walt Disney Company through FX Networks, LLC. It is the partner channel of FX, with its programming focusing on original and acquired comedy series and fe ...

dark comedy Black comedy, also known as dark comedy, morbid humor, or gallows humor, is a style of comedy that makes light of subject matter that is generally considered taboo, particularly subjects that are normally considered serious or painful to discus ...

series ''

You're the Worst ''You're the Worst'' is an American comedy-drama television series created by Stephen Falk. Originally broadcast by FX, the series moved to its sister channel FXX beginning with the second season. The series follows Jimmy ( Chris Geere), a sel ...

'' (2014–2019), as Stormfront in the

Amazon Prime Video Amazon Prime Video, also known simply as Prime Video, is an American Video on demand#Subscription models, subscription video on-demand Over-the-top media service, over-the-top Streaming media, streaming and Renting, rental service of Amazon (c ...

superhero drama series ''

The Boys Boys are young male humans. Boys or The Boys may also refer to: Film and television Films * ''The Boys'' (1962 British film), a courtroom drama by Sidney J. Furie * ''The Boys'' (1962 Finnish film), a war drama by Mikko Niskanen * ''Boys'' ( ...

'' (2020–2022), and most recently as Cheryl Peterson in the

Fox Foxes are small to medium-sized, omnivorous mammals belonging to several genera of the family Canidae. They have a flattened skull, upright, triangular ears, a pointed, slightly upturned snout, and a long bushy tail (or ''brush''). Twelve sp ...

sitcom A sitcom, a portmanteau of situation comedy, or situational comedy, is a genre of comedy centered on a fixed set of characters who mostly carry over from episode to episode. Sitcoms can be contrasted with sketch comedy, where a troupe may use ne ...

Welcome to Flatch ''Welcome to Flatch'' is an American mockumentary sitcom that premiered on Fox on March 17, 2022. It is based on the British series '' This Country'', which was created and written by Daisy May Cooper and her brother Charlie Cooper who also pla ...

''. She was nominated for the

Critics' Choice Television Award for Best Actress in a Comedy Series The Critics' Choice Television Award for Best Actress in a Comedy Series is one of the award categories presented annually by the Critics' Choice Television Awards (BTJA) to recognize the work done by television actresses. It was introduced in 20 ...

and the

TCA Award for Individual Achievement in Comedy The TCA Award for Individual Achievement in Comedy is an award given by the Television Critics Association. Winners and nominees Multiple wins ;2 wins *Louis C.K. (consecutive) *Jane Kaczmarek (consecutive) *David Hyde Pierce (consecutive) *Jon ...

for ''You're the Worst''. Cash also appeared in numerous films, including ''

The Oranges The Oranges are a group of four municipalities in Essex County, New Jersey, all of which have the word ''Orange'' in their name. The four municipalities are Orange, East Orange, South Orange and West Orange. All of these communities were name ...

'' (2011), ''

Sleepwalk with Me ''Sleepwalk with Me'' is a 2012 American independent comedy film co-written by, directed by, and starring Mike Birbiglia. It also stars Lauren Ambrose, James Rebhorn, Carol Kane, and Cristin Milioti. Before making the film, Birbiglia had already t ...

'' (2012), '' Begin Again'' (2013), '' The Wolf of Wall Street'' (2013), ''

Mary Goes Round ''Mary Goes Round'' is a 2017 Canadian drama film directed by Molly McGlynn. It was screened in the Discovery section at the 2017 Toronto International Film Festival. The film centres on Mary, a substance abuse counsellor who loses her job afte ...

'' (2017), ''

Game Over, Man! ''Game Over, Man!'' is a 2018 American action comedy film directed by Kyle Newacheck, written by Anders Holm, and starring Holm, Adam DeVine, and Blake Anderson, all of whom previously collaborated on the sitcom ''Workaholics''. It follows three ...

'' (2018), and ''

Scare Me ''Scare Me'' is an 2020 American comedy horror film written, directed, and produced by Josh Ruben. It stars Aya Cash, Ruben, Rebecca Drysdale and Chris Redd. It had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival on January 24, 2020. It was re ...

'' (2020).

Early life

Cash was born in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

, California, to poet and novelist

Kim Addonizio Kim Addonizio (July 31, 1954) is an American poet and novelist. Life Addonizio was born in Washington, D.C., United States. She is the daughter of tennis champion Pauline Betz and sports writer Bob Addie (born Addonizio). She briefly attended ...

and Buddhist teacher Eugene Cash. On her mother's side, she is the granddaughter of tennis champion

Pauline Betz Pauline may refer to: Religion *An adjective referring to St Paul the Apostle or a follower of his doctrines *An adjective referring to St Paul of Thebes, also called St Paul the First Hermit *An adjective referring to the Paulines, various relig ...

and sports writer

Bob Addie Robert Addie (born Robert Richard Addonizio, February 6, 1910 – January 18, 1982) was an American sportswriter who covered baseball for ''The Washington Post'' and ''Washington Times-Herald''. Addie was known for his red socks, dark glasses, and ...

. Her father's family is Jewish, while her mother is Catholic. Cash has described herself as Jewish, and explained that their surname "was originally something like 'CH-irsch'." Cash is an alumna of the

San Francisco School of the Arts The Ruth Asawa San Francisco School of the Arts, is a public alternative high school in San Francisco, California, United States. It was established in 1982 and is part of the San Francisco Unified School District. History For many years, Ru ...

. She graduated from the

University of Minnesota The University of Minnesota, formally the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, (UMN Twin Cities, the U of M, or Minnesota) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Tw ...

in 2004 with a

Bachelor of Fine Arts A Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) is a standard undergraduate degree for students for pursuing a professional education in the visual, fine or performing arts. It is also called Bachelor of Visual Arts (BVA) in some cases. Background The Bachelor ...

in Acting, in partnership with the

Guthrie Theater The Guthrie Theater, founded in 1963, is a center for theater performance, production, education, and professional training in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The concept of the theater was born in 1959 in a series of discussions between Sir Tyrone Gut ...

Actor Training Program. She then moved to New York City, where she began her acting career. For years, she struggled financially and worked as a full-time waitress to make ends meet.

Career

Television

Cash's television appearances include ''

Brotherhood Brotherhood or The Brotherhood may refer to: Family, relationships, and organizations * Fraternity (philosophy) or brotherhood, an ethical relationship between people, which is based on love and solidarity * Fraternity or brotherhood, a mal ...

'', ''

Law & Order ''Law & Order'' is an American police procedural and legal drama television series created by Dick Wolf and produced by Wolf Entertainment, launching the '' Law & Order'' franchise. ''Law & Order'' aired its entire run on NBC, premiering on ...

'', '' Law & Order: Special Victims Unit'', '' Law and Order: Criminal Intent'', ''

Mercy Mercy (Middle English, from Anglo-French ''merci'', from Medieval Latin ''merced-'', ''merces'', from Latin, "price paid, wages", from ''merc-'', ''merxi'' "merchandise") is benevolence, forgiveness, and kindness in a variety of ethical, relig ...

'', and '' The Newsroom''. Cash was also a series regular in the 2011 Fox comedy ''

Traffic Light Traffic lights, traffic signals, or stoplights – known also as robots in South Africa are signalling devices positioned at intersection (road), road intersections, pedestrian crossings, and other locations in order to control flows of traf ...

'', which ran for one season. From 2014 to 2019, she starred in the

FX Network FX is an American pay television channel owned by FX Networks, LLC, a subsidiary of the Disney General Entertainment Content unit of The Walt Disney Company. It is based at the Fox Studios lot in Century City, California. FX originally launc ...

series ''

'' as Gretchen Cutler. She received critical acclaim for her performance, with the website

The A.V. Club ''The A.V. Club'' is an American online newspaper and entertainment website featuring reviews, interviews, and other articles that examine films, music, television, books, games, and other elements of pop-culture media. ''The A.V. Club'' was cre ...

calling her acting in the second season "the best TV performance of 2015". In 2019, she was cast as Stormfront in the second season of the

Prime Video Amazon Prime Video, also known simply as Prime Video, is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming and rental service of Amazon offered as a standalone service or as part of Amazon's Prime subscription. The service prim ...

superhero dark comedy-drama series ''

''. The second season premiered in September 2020. In 2020, Cash was cast as local newspaper reporter Cheryl Peterson in a pilot for a Fox sitcom titled ''This Country''. The title was later changed to ''

'', which premiered in 2022.

Film

Cash's film credits include ''

'', ''

Winter of Frozen Dreams ''Winter of Frozen Dreams'' is a 2009 independent American crime drama film directed by Eric Mandelbaum, and starring Thora Birch, Keith Carradine, and Brendan Sexton III. The film follows the story of Barbara Hoffman, a Wisconsin biochemistry stu ...

'', ''Off Jackson Avenue'', '' Begin Again'', ''The Bits In Between'', ''Game Over, Man!'', and ''The Happy House''. She had a small role as Janet,

Jordan Belfort Jordan Ross Belfort (; born July 9, 1962) is an American entrepreneur, speaker, author, former stockbroker, and financial criminal. In 1999, he pleaded guilty to fraud and related crimes in connection with stock-market manipulation and running ...

's assistant in '' The Wolf of Wall Street''.

Theatre

Additionally, Cash has appeared on

Off-Broadway An off-Broadway theatre is any professional theatre venue in New York City with a seating capacity between 100 and 499, inclusive. These theatres are smaller than Broadway theatres, but larger than off-off-Broadway theatres, which seat fewer tha ...

. In 2014, she starred in the world premiere of

Zoe Kazan Zoe Swicord Kazan (; born September 9, 1983) is an American actress, playwright, and screenwriter. She made her acting debut in the film ''Swordswallowers and Thin Men'' (2003) and later appeared in films such as '' The Savages'' (2007), ''Revol ...

's play ''Trudy And Max In Love''.

Personal life

Cash met writer and producer Josh Alexander when she was his waitress. They dated for seven years before marrying in 2012. They reside together in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. Cash both identifies as Jewish and was raised Jewish, but no longer practices the religion, stating, "my mother is

Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

, my father is Jewish, but I was raised

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

in a very not strict temple ..then I chose, after my Bat Mitzvah, not to continue." Although she also mentioned that she has participated in

Jewish holidays Jewish holidays, also known as Jewish festivals or ''Yamim Tovim'' ( he, ימים טובים, , Good Days, or singular , in transliterated Hebrew []), are holidays observed in Judaism and by JewsThis article focuses on practices of mainstre ...

over the years, but not in many of them in recent years. Cash said that she has a hawk tattooed on her back because she was told that Aya means "hawk" in

Hebrew Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...

. However, when she visited

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

she was told that "Aya" () is an archaic word for "hawk", though it is, in fact, the

Modern Hebrew Modern Hebrew ( he, עברית חדשה, ''ʿivrít ḥadašá ', , '' lit.'' "Modern Hebrew" or "New Hebrew"), also known as Israeli Hebrew or Israeli, and generally referred to by speakers simply as Hebrew ( ), is the standard form of the He ...

word for " honey buzzard", a different bird of prey. Cash is a celebrity ambassador for

INARA Arwa Damon (born September 19, 1977) is an American journalist who is a senior international correspondent for CNN International, CNN, based in Istanbul. From 2003, she covered the Middle East as a freelance journalist, before joining CNN in 20 ...

, an NGO that helps war-wounded refugee children from Syria get medical help.

Filmography

Film

Television

Theatre

Awards and nominations

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Cash, Aya Living people Actresses from San Francisco American film actresses American television actresses Jewish American actresses University of Minnesota College of Liberal Arts alumni 21st-century American actresses 21st-century American Jews Year of birth missing (living people)