Ashmore was born in Richmond, British Columbia,[1] the son of Linda (née Davis), a homemaker, and Rick Ashmore,[2] a manufacturing engineer. He was raised in St. Albert, Alberta and Brampton, Ontario, where he attended Earnscliffe Senior Public School and Turner Fenton Secondary School. His identical twin brother, Aaron Ashmore, is also an actor. Aaron and Shawn have played twins in several movies, but have also pursued roles independently. Aaron is slightly taller than Shawn and, according to Aaron, Shawn often gets cast as the nice guy while Aaron is cast as the bully.[3] They have a "GMA" tattoo on their wrists that stands for "Good Man Ashmore"; their grandfather had a similar tattoo.[4]
Ashmore starred as Cadet Major Brad Rigby in Cadet Kelly,[7] a Disney Channel original film which aired in 2002 and he guest-starred as Eric Summers in two episodes of Smallville, a series on which his brother was later cast in the role of Jimmy Olsen.[8] Ashmore had starring roles on Animorphs as Jake and In a Heartbeat as Tyler Connell.[9][10]
In 2005, Ashmore starred in a CTV TV movie about Terry Fox's historic run across Canada, which aired in September of that year.[13][14] In 2008, he starred as one of the leads in the 2008 horror film The Ruins.[15] Ashmore was cast in Adam Green's 2010 dramatic thriller Frozen as Joe Lynch.[16]
In April 2016, Shawn appeared in Quantum Break, a singleplayer third-person shooter video game developed by Remedy Entertainment and published by Microsoft Studios, that features high budget live action TV show-like cut scenes where Shawn plays the main character, Jack Joyce.[23][24] He also did the motion capture and voice acting for the character.[25][26]
From October 2016 to January 2017, he played the role of Sam Spencer on the U.S. legal drama Conviction.[27][28] The series was filmed in Toronto.[29]
In 2020, Ashmore recurred in the second season of the Amazon Prime Video superhero series The Boys as Lamplighter, a former member of the superhero group the Seven.
Personal life
On July 27, 2012, Ashmore married film executive Dana Renee Wasdin, whom he met while filming Frozen.[30] The couple has one son, born in 2017.[31][32]
Filmography
Film
Television
Video games
References
^ a b"Shawn Ashmore". TV Guide. Retrieved September 23, 2009.
^"Richard Ashmore Obituary (1949 - 2021) - St. Catharines, ON - St. Catharines Standard". www.legacy.com.
^Bull, Ron. "The Famous Aaron Ashmore Closes in on Stardom". The Toronto Star.
^"Tattoos". Aaron-Ashmore.com. Retrieved August 29, 2006.
^Wong, Curtis M. (December 9, 2015). "X-Men Star Shawn Ashmore Wants To Play Iceman As Gay". HuffPost. Retrieved September 2, 2019.
^"Iceman, alias mutante de Bobby Drake en "X-Men", se da su primer beso gay". Universo Gay (in Spanish). Retrieved September 2, 2019.
^Lakshmin, Deepa. "Why Do You Still Love Disney Channel Movies? Cadet Kelly's Shawn Ashmore Explains". MTV News. Archived from the original on April 27, 2016. Retrieved September 2, 2019.
^"Shawn Ashmore (Seasons 1 and 3) from 30 Smallville Stars and Guest Stars You Might Have Forgotten About". E! Online. Retrieved September 2, 2019.
^Barbosa, José (April 21, 2016). "Video: the last Animorphs mystery solved by star Shawn Ashmore". The Spinoff. Retrieved September 2, 2019.
^"In a Heartbeat Gives Disney a Lifeline to Older Teens". Los Angeles Times. August 26, 2000. Retrieved September 2, 2019.
^"Legend of Earthsea | TV Guide". TVGuide.com. Retrieved September 2, 2019.
^Lowry, Brian (December 12, 2004). "Legend of Earthsea". Variety. Retrieved September 2, 2019.
^"An emotional, wrenching run". Retrieved September 2, 2019.
^"Relive Terry Fox's Dream with CTV Original Movie TERRY, Premiering Sunday, September 11". www.bce.ca. Retrieved September 2, 2019.
^"Exclusive: Shawn Ashmore Visits The Ruins". ComingSoon.net. March 30, 2008. Retrieved September 2, 2019.
^Catsoulis, Jaannette (February 4, 2010). "A Nightmare on a Ski Lift". New York Times. Retrieved April 11, 2018.
^"On A Gray Day, One Last Post-Apocalyptic Stand". NPR.org. Retrieved September 2, 2019.
^"AFM 2011: Entertainment One Seizes Post-Apocalyptic Thriller The Day". The Hollywood Reporter. November 2, 2011. Retrieved September 2, 2019.
^Jim, Big (January 9, 2013). "Shawn Ashmore of The Following on FOX Once Played His Twin Brother Playing His Twin Brother [Celebrity Interview]". 983 The KEY. Retrieved September 2, 2019.
^"The Following Postmortem: Shawn Ashmore on the Aftermath of a Big Team Change". The Hollywood Reporter. February 4, 2013. Retrieved September 2, 2019.
^"Canadian Shawn Ashmore talks his role in X-Men: Days of Future Past". www.citynews1130.com. Retrieved September 2, 2019.
^"X-Men: Days of Future Past Star Shawn Ashmore: 'I've Been Waiting to See Bobby Drake Do His Thing' (Video)". TheWrap. May 13, 2014. Retrieved September 2, 2019.
^"Quantum Break: Shawn Ashmore talks time travel, virtual reality and Andy Serkis". Empire. April 4, 2016. Retrieved September 2, 2019.
^Loveridge, Sam (April 5, 2016). "Shawn Ashmore talks making Quantum Break and gay Iceman". Digital Spy. Retrieved September 2, 2019.
^Quantum Break's Shawn Ashmore on the Future of Performance Capture - IGN, April 26, 2016, retrieved September 2, 2019
^Schulz, Chris (April 12, 2016). "Why Quantum Break star Shawn Ashmore can't play his own game". The New Zealand Herald. ISSN 1170-0777. Retrieved September 2, 2019.
^"Shawn Ashmore". vox.de (in German). July 12, 2018. Retrieved September 2, 2019.