In Lifetime's Mary J. Blige Presents: Be Happy, healing unfolds quietly, shaped by patience, presence, and perspective, and by a daughter who understands that love sometimes means keeping space while someone else finds herself again.
That daughter, Kayla, is played by Zing Ashford, who breaks down her character's journey for BOSSIP ahead of the film's February 7 premiere.
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Kayla is pregnant, emotionally intuitive, and deeply attuned to her mother, Val's, transition into an empty-nest chapter. While Val, played on Tisha Campbell, struggling to rediscover who she is outside of the mother tongue, Kayla becomes the film's quiet stabilizer, offering gentleness without judgment and guidance without scrutiny.
“She had this level of empathy that I think I could learn from in my own life,” Ashford told BOSSIP's Lauryn Bass about her character. “She was very kind and very careful with her mother, very understanding and gave her a safe space to discover herself, to rediscover herself.”
That emotional attention is not accidental. In a story centered on black women navigating love, identity, and transition through various life stages, Kayla functions as the connective tissue between past and future, daughterhood and motherhood, holding space while bearing life itself.
“Her softness, kindness and vulnerability really attracted me,” added Ashford.
Getting pregnant without being a mother
Although Kayla's pregnancy is central to the film's emotional arc, Ashford herself has never been pregnant. Preparing for the role required intent, research and insight into the real world.
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“I don't have any kids of my own. I definitely had to call my sister because I've never been pregnant or anything,” Ashford shared. “My sister had just given birth to her first baby boy.”
Those conversations shaped how she portrayed Kayla's physical and emotional reality.
“She was just like, 'You're tired all the time,'” Ashford recalled. “'You literally fight by just getting to the next breath.' So think about it. Think about that difficulty.”
That exhaustion, she said, became a grounding force in how she carried herself on screen, reminding her that pregnancy is not just a visual condition, but a constant physical negotiation.
A daughter preparing for motherhood while hosting her own mother
One of Be Happy's The most resonant dynamic is the parallel transition between Kayla preparing to become a mother and Val learning how to exist outside of that role.
“It was this really wonderful chemistry between us,” Ashford explained. “She experienced her children leaving, and I experienced what it will be like to have children in the first place.”
Rather than framing motherhood as an end, the film treats it as a continuum, where one woman's becoming gives way to another's rediscovery.
“We were both able to understand what those transitions look like intersectionally,” Ashford said. “I thought that was a really wonderful aspect of how our characters related to each other.”
Work on set with the film crew
That dynamic was enhanced by Ashford's on-set relationship with Tisha Campbell, who plays Val.
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“She's not into the whole fan girl thing,” Ashford said. “The first day we were on set, she just sticks her head in my room like, 'Hey girl, we're going to have so much fun.'
Campbell's approach created emotional security from the start.
“She would greet me like I was her daughter,” Ashford said. “She made sure I felt safe and that we were equal.”
Ashford also spoke highly of Cameron J. Ross, who wrote the film and also stars in it.
“He wanted to give us the freedom to explore what the character's life could be outside of what he initially imagined,” she told me. “He trusted us to interpret it in the way that suits our bodies.”
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That kind of trust is rare, especially in a project with big names. But Zing said it made the performances more natural. Those similarities translated directly to their on-screen chemistry.
“So when it was time to play on screen, it was just very natural and it flowed,” she added.
As the role begins to reflect your real life
As filming progressed, Ashford began to recognize unsettling similarities between Kayla's journey and her own relationship with her mother.
“I wasn't quite able to give my own mother the empathy and understanding until I got this part,” she admitted.
The parallels became impossible to ignore.
“Everything about what's going on here is so similar to what's going on in my life right now,” she said. “I felt convicted to give her more understanding and empathy in the way I communicated with her.”
That realization shifted something fundamental.
“I walked away from this role, changed,” Ashford said. “I'm so grateful that art can inform life in that way.”
Who Zing Ashford is over Be happy
Long before Be happyAshford knew performance was her calling. As a child, she memorized lines from Disney Channel shows. As a teenager, she balanced that passion with academic excellence, graduating high school as valedictorian.
“Being the valedictorian when I graduated high school, at that point I had put all my focus on academics to make my family proud,” she said.
That discipline led her to Howard University, where she trained formally in theater before moving to New York and beginning her professional career.
“I went to Howard University for theater, and then things snowballed,” she said.
Today, Ashford is intentional about the stories she chooses.
“I'm more drawn to stories,” she said. “Stories that mean so much, that are so many, that educate as well as entertain. Being able to combine two of the things that I love most, which is music, and stories that center around Black family and love and empowerment. I just feel super proud that these are the kinds of stories that I'm drawn to and drawn back to.”
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She also hopes to return to her first love.
“I would love to be in a project where I can see people singing,” Ashford said. “That was my first love.”
For Ashford, participating in a project executive produced by Mary J. Blige carried weight beyond credit.
“She's the queen,” Ashford said. “Even if you're not necessarily a Mary J. Blige fan, you've been influenced by her music in some way.”
The full circle moment still feels surreal.
“I grew up singing her songs,” she said. “This is a gift of a lifetime for me, and I will always, always cherish it.”
At her core, she hopes the film encourages viewers, especially black women, to give themselves grace.
“When we love each other and we give each other understanding and space, beautiful things happen,” Ashford said.
Mary J. Blige Presents: Be Happy premieres February 7 on Lifetime.
