Ashley Jensen (Actor)

Ashley Jensen arrives at the 33rd Annual People's Choice Awards, onJan 9, 07 in LA. (Photo: Frazer Harrison / Getty Images)

The fair-haired and voluptuous classically trained Scotch actress Ashley Jensen is best known to mainstream American viewers for her portrayal of "Mode" in-house seamstress Christina McKinney (one of the title character's colleagues) on the hour-long Hollywood telenovela adaptation Ugly Betty. Yet, actually, as a U.K. import, Jensen chalked up a formidable number of roles in her native Great Britain prior to her West Coast arrival. Most of these constituted television roles on such British series as The Bill, Roughnecks, and City Central. Most notable to American audiences was her co-starring role on the hit Ricky Gervais series Extras (2005-2007), which was imported to HBO shortly after airing in the U.K. On that series, Jensen played Maggie Jacobs, the best friend and fellow extra to Gervais' Andy Millman; her character's habit of putting her foot in her mouth, usually at the expense of Millman, led to many uncomfortably comic moments on the series. Cinematically, Jensen's portrayal of Miss Tringham in Mike Leigh's Gilbert & Sullivan biopic Topsy-Turvy (1999) and her evocation of Lindsey in Michael Winterbottom's Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story also netted favorable reviews for the rising star. In 2006, Jensen was cast in Ugly Betty, which quickly became a hit and one of her most high-profile roles to that date. In early 2007, Jensen made headlines in the U.K. when she married actor Terence Beesley, at age 37. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide