Ashley Rickards

As the lead in Awkward, Rickards' profile began to rise and she was also given the opportunity to direct an episode. In 2012, she had a minor role in the moderately successful comedy Struck by Lightning and another coming-of-age film Sassy Pants. In 2014 Rickards moved into the horror genre with a lead role in At the Devil's Door and as a teenage daughter in A Haunted House 2. In 2015, she filmed the fifth and final season of Awkward. In August 2016 it was announced that Rickards would play Rosalind "Rosa" Dillon/The Top in the CW series The Flash.

In 2011, Rickards helped to launch the Project Futures Somaly Mam Foundation, which works to prevent and end human trafficking and sexual slavery in Southeast Asia. In March 2015, she published a book A Real Guide to Getting It Together Once and For All.

Rickards spent much of 2009 attending auditions while a proposed lead role in the film Dirty Girl fell through. In 2010, she appeared opposite Jimmy Smits in an episode of the legal drama Outlaw while she also auditioned for the lead role in the MTV series Awkward. Initially rejected, her manager Adam Griffin sent the producers a tape Rickards had made for Fly Away "to show how she can do anything". The actress landed both roles and filmed the pilot for the MTV series prior to Fly Away, a feature where she played a girl with severe autism.

Ashley Nicole Rickards (born May 4, 1992) is an American actress, known for her role as Jenna Hamilton in the MTV comedy-drama series Awkward, and as Samantha "Sam" Walker, a troubled young girl in The CW's teen drama series One Tree Hill. She also starred in the 2011 independent drama film Fly Away as Mandy, a severely autistic girl.