Ashly Burch

Ashly Burch (born June 19, 1990) is an American actress, voice actress,  singer and writer. She is known for her roles as Aloy in Horizon Zero Dawn, Tiny Tina in Borderlands 2, the web series Hey Ash, Whatcha Playin'?, Chloe Price in Life Is Strange, Mayuri Shiina from Steins;Gate and Sasha Braus from Attack on Titan.

Burch was a writer on Cartoon Network's Adventure Time and her work in Life Is Strange and Horizon Zero Dawn won her the 2015 and 2017 Golden Joystick Awards for Best Performance. She was also the host of Geek & Sundry's Unplugged series.

Early life
Burch grew up in Phoenix, Arizona and has an older brother named Anthony. Both she and her brother are of mixed ancestry, with their father being white and their mother being an immigrant of Thai and East Indian ethnicity. She credits her career path as a voice actress to playing Metal Gear Solid at age 12. Upon seeing voice actor David Hayter's name alongside that of the main characters, she googled his name and made the realization that there were actual people who voiced the characters, as she realized that was what she wanted to do as a career. She graduated from Occidental College in Los Angeles in 2012.

Career
After starting Hey Ash, Whatcha Playin'?, Burch got her first voice acting role when her brother, Anthony Burch, was hired as a writer for Borderlands 2 and he suggested she try out for Tiny Tina. For Life Is Strange, she was cast in the role of Chloe Price, after having also auditioned for the roles of Max Caulfield, Victoria Chase and Kate Marsh.

Personal life
Burch dated Must Come Down co-star David Fetzer until his death by accidental overdose in 2012. She discussed this event as well as her own personal mental health issues during her appearance on Paul Gilmartin's The Mental Illness Hour podcast and on Brian W. Foster's show Between the Sheets on Critical Role's Youtube channel. She suffers from chronic anxiety and credits her love of video games to playing Harvest Moon as a child as it was the only thing able to calm her down. She has spoken several times about her anxiety and the positive impact video games had on it.