A few years ago, during the quarantine phase of the COVID-19 pandemic, I was looking for something to watch.
I could rewatch the golden era of The Simpsons for the 200th time, dive back into the exploits of the Bluth family on Arrested Development or get lost in the meta humour of Community.
But then…a show I had never seen before caught my eye.
Superstore.
I grew up watching The Kids in the Hall so the fact it had Mark McKinley in it immediately sold me on the show because he was one of my favourite comedic actors.
It also featured Ben Feldman, who I enjoyed in Mad Men and Silicon Valley
Fun fact, he and I were born on the exact same day in 1980.
I think of him as my more successful doppelganger.
It had a lot going for it, so I decided to give Superstore how a chance and quickly became a fan of its sharp humour and biting satire of life in a big box store.
One of my favourite characters was Dina Fox, the no-nonsense assistant store manager at Cloud 9. She was hilarious and had a tough exterior that hid a sweet personality underneath.
I immediately became a fan of the actor behind the character as well.
I’m Craig Baird and this is Canadian History Ehx…Biography!
Today, I am talking to one of our country’s best comedic actors This is…Lauren Ash!
Lauren Ash’s journey began on Feb. 4, 1983, in Belleville, Ontario and from an early age she knew she wanted to be an actor.
She was in her first play in grade four playing Professor Owl in When the Hippos Crash the Dance.
And as they say a star was born.
But not just any star… a comedic one.
Her funny bone was first tickled at seven when she watched the movie, Clue.
The 1985 film initially received mixed reviews and did poorly at the box office but like other cult classics, it proved to be ahead of its time.
It stars Tim Curry, Madeline Kahn, Michael McKean and Christopher Lloyd, and famously featured three different endings which depended on which theatre you went to see it in.
But for Lauren it was all about Madeline Khan’s performance.
Madeline Gail Kahn was an American actress, comedian, and singer known for her comedic roles.
She was in many films directed by Peter Bogdanovich and Mel Brooks, including What’s Up, Doc? Young Frankenstein and her Academy Award–nominated roles in Paper Moon and Blazing Saddles.
She was a perennial scene-stealer and appeared in some of the funniest movies in Hollywood history.
And if Lauren was going to follow in her footsteps after she graduated Quinte Secondary School in Toronto, she would need to home in on her acting skills at George Brown College.
She received a full scholarship but left the school after four months because it wasn’t a good fit.
She says it was all about adjusting towards her true calling.
The Second City is the oldest improvisational theater troupe since its debut in 1959 in Chicago.
It has training programs and live theaters in Toronto and New York as well and has become one of the most influential institutions in the English-speaking world.
Comedians, award-winning actors, directors, and others in show business have all gotten their start at Second City Gilda Radner, Dan Aykroyd, Eugene Levy, Catherine O’Hara, Dave Thomas, Colin Mochrie and… Lauren Ash.
That’s because within a year of attending classes Lauren was hired to perform with the Second City Touring Company.
At 18 years old she was the youngest female performer ever hired by the touring company. The only person ever hired that was younger than her was… Mike Myers.
Lauren toured with the company for three years and then was chosen to perform on the prestigious Chicago Main Stage.
At the time, the only other Canadians who had earned that opportunity in the history of Second City Chicago were Lisa Brooke, Mike Myers and John Candy.
She cut her teeth on that stage by performing live sketch comedy and improv six nights a week.
One day, Lorne Michaels, the creator of Saturday Night Live, was in the audience.
Second City in Chicago and Toronto have always been a pipeline for talent to SNL, but unfortunately, Lauren was not one of them.
She said,
“He flew out the other women in the show and not me, and I didn’t get an audition.”
The rejection of not getting an audition led Lauren on a new path where she traveled between Toronto and Los Angeles to find work.
She typically appeared in shows like Video on Trial — a Canadian comedy series on MuchMusic that consisted of. a panel of musicians, comedians, and entertainment columnists critiquing five different music videos in a courtroom-esque manner.
The Wilkinsons — a hilarious ten-part fictional comedy series that followed the lives of Canadian Country music stars, The Wilkinsons and…
Runaway — an American drama that aired on The CW from September 25, 2006, to October 15, 2006, starring Donnie Wahlberg.
As she built her career, she won two Canadian Comedy Awards in 2006 and 2007 for Best Female Improviser and performed with comedy icons like Robin Williams.
In 2007, she appeared in her first film, in the role of Holly in the acclaimed film Lars and the Real Girl, starring fellow Canadian Ryan Gosling.
Two years later, she appeared in her biggest role to date in Howie Do It, a Candid Camera type of show hosted by comedian Howie Mandel.
Lauren played multiple roles to help pull off practical jokes for the show.
That same year, she became the voice of Sam Goldman on The Dating Guy — an animated series on Teletoon.
Her character was the neighbour and friend to the main character Mark Dexler, and the show won a Gemini Award in 2011 but was cancelled after 26 episodes.
During this time, she also appeared in six episodes of The Ron James Show, a Canadian show, on CBC starring comedian Ron James, which interspersed filmed and stage sketches with clips of James’ stand-up routine.
She appeared in the short-lived show Almost Heroes, another Canadian comedy series which centered on the lives of two brothers running their late father’s comic bookstore.
Lauren was Bernie, a childhood friend of the brothers with a crush on one of them.
The role earned Lauren her third Canadian Comedy Award as she continued to be in demand.
From 2010 to 2013, she was in 12 episodes of the prank show Scare Tactics. She also appeared in the period drama Bomb Girls; the supernatural series Lost Girl and the dark comedy Call Me Fritz starring Jason Priestley.
In 2014 she appeared in Spun Out, a Canadian sitcom starring Dave Foley from Kids in The Hall fame.
For her appearance as Julie Anderson, Lauren won for Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series at the Canadian Screen Awards.
Lauren said later quote
“There was one night where I was scrolling through the channels, and I was like ‘I’m on five shows at the same time in Canada and no one knows who I am.”
But people would know her soon after. She was about to get the role of a lifetime.
2015 was a watershed year for Lauren.
Not only did she win her fourth Canadian Comedy Award for her role in the Canadian romantic comedy Dirty Singles…. That fall she burst onto our TVs as Dina Fox on Superstore.
From the moment she read the script, Lauren knew that Dina was the perfect character for her.
As I mentioned earlier Superstore was an American sitcom that aired on NBC starring America Ferrera and Ben Feldman alongside Lauren as a group of employees working at Cloud 9, a fictional big-box chain store in St. Louis, Missouri.
Lauren was quickly considered the breakout star as she stole almost every scene as Dina — the intense and no-nonsense assistant store manager and Lauren balanced Dina’s no-nonsense attitude at work, with her kindness and loyalty to friends.
A lot of that came down to Lauren’s charm and comedic chops,
She based part of the character one on a character she had created during her time with Second City.
Playing Dina was a full circle moment for Lauren in other ways as well because her first job was at the now defunct Canadian big box store Zellers.
“It’s weird that my first job was in a store like this and 15 years later, I’m playing a character on American television who works there.”
As part of being on Superstore she got the opportunity to star alongside Canadian comedy royalty… again.
Mark McKinney first graced our tv screens as a member of The Kids in the Hall. If you have ever heard someone, say, “I’m crushing your head!”, you can thank McKinney for that.
After Kids in the Hall, he spent two seasons as a cast member on Saturday Night before creating the acclaimed Canadian series Slings & Arrows.
He has appeared in countless guest spots on many shows including Corner Gas, and most recently parodying Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney on This Hour Has 22 Minutes.
On Superstore, he was the lovable manager of the Cloud 9 store, Glenn Sturgis.
And Lauren couldn’t have been happier.
The Kids in the Hall had been appointment viewing for Lauren and her mother as a kid although she admits she was a bit young for some of the humour on the show.
She says that as soon as she heard McKinney was cast in Superstore, she called her mother to share the news.
After the scene, Mark told her that she had just taught a course on improv.
It was the highest compliment Lauren could have ever received.
Superstore premiered on November 30, 2015, and it was a modest hit.
During this time, she also appeared in several other shows including as the voice of Scorpia on She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, American Dad and Lip Sync Battle.
Meanwhile Superstore aired until March 25, 2021, and shortly before it ended Lauren was nominated as Best Supporting Actress in a Broadcast Network or Cable Series by the Hollywood Critics Association TV Awards.
However, the show found a new life on Netflix during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic and quickly became one of the most popular shows on the streaming platform.
Thanks to that exposure Lauren became a very recognizable face.
Suddenly…she was someone Canadians knew.
“I really didn’t anticipate not being able to go to the Eaton Centre without having some kind of situation happening.”
After Superstore ended Lauren went on to star alongside Gina Rodriguez and Hannah Simone in Not Dead Yet, an American sitcom based on Confessions of a Forty-Something F**k Up by Alexandra Potter.
In its Lauren plays Lexi Rhodes the boss and the editor-in-chief at the SoCal Independent. She’s the nemesis of Gina Rodriguez’s character Nell Serrano, a journalist recovering from her life falling apart.
The show premiered on February 8, 2023, but unfortunately after two seasons and 23 episodes it was canceled in May 2024.
What few fans knew though is that during this time Lauren was working on a passion project, and she was about to go all in on this dream.
Amid her growing success Lauren was quietly thinking of pursuing a new path that was very important to her: music.
Lauren had received her first guitar at13 years old and used it to write her first songs.
As a teen she had dreams of being a rock star and even forced her high school assemblies to listen to her songs.
She says she never put the guitar down.
As her 40th birthday approached she said music called to her again
So, she hired a local Los Angeles band, made merchandise, even did a cover shoot in the style of Rolling Stone Magazine for posters.
All that was left to do was perform a concert.
She said,
“I invited all my family and friends and basically forced them to watch me play musician for the night and it was the greatest night of my life. Without exaggeration, I never felt that alive.”
While she had performed in front of crowds before she says playing for them was different.
As it turned out, one of the band members was also a music producer and their collaboration led to the release of her first single in 2023, Now I Know.
That was followed by the singles, Umbrella and Sad This Christmas.
Her music career began to pick up steam as she performed on The Kelly Clarkson Show, at the iconic Viper Room and Whisky a Go in Los Angeles, as well as the Phoenix Concert Theatre in Toronto.
In September 2025, she released her first album Call Me When You Get This which she says she wrote during a difficult time in her life.
The music video of the song features cameos from her superstore castmates including Ben Feldman, Mark McKinney and Coldon Dunn.
The song Whiplash from the same album was nominated for Best Rock/Pop Song at the Hollywood Independent Music Awards and EARMILK magazine said the album was a battle cry and diary that felt like the opening of what was to come from a great emerging artist.
In 2026, Lauren will be touring Canada to promote the album, and I’ll include a link in my show notes for her website where you’ll find dates and ticket info.
But if you think she’s leaving the small screen behind you would be mistaken.
In September 2025, she began hosting Halloween Bakeshop on the Flavour Network.
The show brings together eight bakers to compete in challenges as they create Halloween themed baked goods.
Lauren says it was the perfect opportunity to be back home after being in Los Angeles for 13 years.
You can watch Halloween Bakeshop on Flavour Network and SLACKTV.
