One of Worst’s seminal moments involves Jimmy and Gretchen’s biggest fight when he discovers she presents a well-coiffed, WASP version of herself to her parents. He interrupts their country club lunch with a valiant, “leading rom-com male” speech about how the Cutler’s don’t know the real, amazing version of their own daughter. Gretchen, against rom-com type, breaks up with him for the intrusion. It’s just one of many typical rom-com tropes that Worst gleefully, cynically subverts, and with a feminist bend. “We took what seemed like a romantic laudable thing that Jimmy did and that’s the last thing she wants and it makes her break up with him. It’s this nice feminist moment where not only does she not need the man to come protect her, she breaks up with him for it.” ​(Falk also told me the YTW writers' room had a board dedicated to making sure they did arcs that a certain new broadcast rom-com would never be allowed to, a show that has since been canceled.)

And like all great casting stories, the network almost passed her over. Cash auditioned for the part alongside Chris Geere, but while that reading landed Geere the part, Falk had to fight for the actress whom he knew was more than capable of bringing Gretchen to life. Interestingly enough, it wasn’t reading Gretchen’s big moment tearing into Jimmy in the pilot that ultimately brought everyone else around, but rather their final scene on the phone when the love connection really begins. (Of course, on this show it involves a niche porn gag.) “In her audition she was doing the piece where Jimmy and Gretchen are on the phone with each other. Something [in the call makes Gretchen] smile in a way she’d never let anyone see. So Aya’s there, playing the reality of being on the phone with him, just as vulnerable as 13-year-old girl getting a valentine.” In a testament to the reputation of classiness and artistic enabling the network execs at FX have built for themselves, president John Landgraf later admitted his oversight.

Cash comes from a family of artists and creatives (and athletes: her grandmother, Pauline Betz Addie, won Wimbledon in 1946), which makes her own career inevitable. And with a mother who was deemed “the Baudelaire of San Francisco” and a dad who once did naked theater in the ‘60s, the content of their daughter’s biggest hit isn’t too much for her parents. It’s the success that surprised them. “They're all just shocked, I think, 'cause I come from an artistic family where art was the first thing and money was the second thing—nobody expected me to make any money. I didn't have a family who was like, oh, you know, gotta have a fallback plan. They're like no, you'll be poor the rest of your life, and that's fine, 'cause they didn't make money for most of their lives." So naturally, with that attitude instilled in her, Cash considers herself fortunate to be on such a winning streak. "I've been insanely lucky to be able to work. Believe me, I know 10 girls who could play Gretchen probably better than me, but they don't have an agent or they don't have access or they're slightly the wrong age at this point. It’s just luck at a certain point. And they remind me,” Cash says with a laugh.