Tatyana Ali Tells All About ‘Fresh Prince of Bel-Air’ & Where She Is Now

From her early days on Sesame Street and The Cosby Show to her years playing Ashley Banks on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Tatyana Ali has grown up with the world watching.

Before joining the cast of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air in 1990, Tatyana was performing in front of a studio audience thanks to her work on The Cosby Show. “I was definitely comfortable performing in front of an audience, but comedy was a new thing for me. On The Cosby Show, my character was a friend of Rudy’s character, so I didn’t get a lot of jokes necessarily. Most of my roles had been drama, so I really had to learn comedy on Fresh Prince,” she told ReMIND Magazine. “But it was a great place to learn because Alfonso Ribeiro had done so many sitcoms leading up to it, and Will was also learning. It was a steep learning curve, but I was kind of in a classroom.”