| Close encounter with Ugly Betty’s America |
She seems so sweet, doesn’t she? So open-hearted, so fresh-faced, so butter- wouldn’t-melt?
Anyone who has seen US comedy soap Ugly Betty on TV2 will know what I’m talking about. You look at actress America Ferrera, who plays Betty, and you think: that girl’s not acting! She is that person. As soon as the camera zooms in on those earnest little eyes, you know that this woman has a kind heart. She couldn’t possibly be one of those horrible tantrum-throwing Hollywood bitches, could she?
Let’s hope not, because her good manners and professionalism are about to be sorely tested. America Ferrera – ascending TV star, Latina role model, Golden Globe winner – is about to find herself at the centre of a swirling vortex of stench.
Let me explain. I’m in Hollywood, California, backstage on the eye- popping orange and white set where Ugly Betty is made. And I am not alone. Also interviewing Ferrera today are three guys from Auckland radio network More FM. Now, how can I put this? These guys stink. I mean, really pong, to the extent that it almost defoliates your nostril hair.
It transpires they spent last night in a Beverly Hills restaurant named The Stinking Rose, eating garlic bread, garlic mash, garlic shrimps, garlic steak and, alarmingly, garlic ice cream. They amble onto the Ugly Betty set cloaked in a cloud of garlic stench so thick, you can almost see it.
Fortunately, Californians are known for their almost pathological levels of politeness. Between shots, various actors and production staff wander backstage and are introduced to the More FM contingent. You see a faint twitch of their facial muscles as the vicious aroma registers, but there’s no "Jesus! What’s that terrible smell?" They just chat away through slightly clenched teeth, then move on.
Eventually a publicist brings a wee poppet over to meet me. She looks about 12 years old, with long dark hair, perfect skin and bright little eyes. The tiny girl extends a tiny hand. She smiles and says "Hi, I’m America". After stifling a childish urge to reply "Hi, I’m New Zealand", I take a closer look at her. Is someone playing a prank? Of course, she wears thick lumpy clothes, platform shoes, a wig, bushy eyebrows, fake dental braces and so on in Ugly Betty, but underneath it all, you imagine Ferrera is far bigger than this. And she was certainly much chubbier in her 2002 movie Real Women Have Curves.
It’s as if someone has failed to read the Delicate: Cold Wash Only label on America Ferrera and jammed her into a hot wash instead, shrinking her to a fraction of her former size.
But this is her, all right, and she’s every bit as sweet and earnest as I’d imagined. And she’s straight in there, promoting the show, analysing its success, magnifying its social value, speaking in sentences that are longer than she is.
"From the time (executive producer) Salma Hayek came and pitched this character to me, I had a feeling in the pit of my stomach that this was going to be a story that really resounded with people and might even help change what faces and bodies on television looked like," she says quietly.
"It felt like American audiences were ready for something new, rather than just a whole lot more pretty stick figures telling the same old stories."
Ferrera resembles one of those solemn, intense kids current affairs TV shows sometimes drag out of the fourth form to get a "youth perspective" on drunk driving or global warming. She speaks with a slight frown on her face, and seldom smiles.
"My character of Betty Suarez will be familiar to anybody who’s ever felt out of place. The show’s not about being ugly; it’s about being different, and standing up for who you really are in a world that encourages you to lose your core values and just fit in. It’s hard to be yourself when there’s intense pressure to conform. I think we all struggle with that on a day-to-day basis. I know I did when I was growing up."
The daughter of Honduran immigrants, Ferrera grew up in the Woodland Hills area of Los Angeles, the same neighbourhood that spawned actors Kim Basinger, Alec Baldwin, and Lisa Kudrow from Friends. It’s a predominantly white middle-class enclave, which Ferrera reckons has helped her with the role of Betty because she "already knew how it felt to be an outsider".
The youngest of six siblings, Ferrera’s childhood was not especially happy. Friction between her parents encouraged her to retreat into her imagination; she once told a reporter she’d "spend hours in my room, blocking out my parents’ screams by acting out plays in my head". Her parents divorced when she was seven and her mother then raised the kids alone while working as a manager of housekeeping staff at a hotel.
Ferrera’s mother did not consider acting a valid career choice for her daughter, and refused to drive her to auditions, but Ferrera was determined. She took the bus. In 2002 she landed her first major role as an ambitious writer in Real Women Have Curves, and has since played a range of film and TV roles, most notably a skateboarding groupie in Lords of Dogtown and a shy but volatile young woman in The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants (both 2005).
But the project that has made her rich, famous and dog-tired is Ugly Betty, the American remake of a typical "poor girl in a rich world" Colombian telenovela about a frumpy Latino who lands a job at a high-end fashion mag. It’s a huge hit stateside – each episode pulls in more than 16 million viewers – but I have to admit, I didn’t warm to Ugly Betty at first: the characters all seemed like camp caricatures, the plot lines were ridiculous and much of the comedy fell flat as a tortilla.
"You’ve got to give the show time, I think," she says. "Initially some of the other characters aren’t very likeable, but as the show goes on you see reasons for why they are the way they are. And if you work in this industry, some of our plot lines aren’t as far- fetched as they seem. A lot of people in the film and television industry treat their assistants even worse than in this show! People can be horrible in Hollywood, really."
Hollywood has been kind to Ferrera, however. She won this year’s Golden Globe for best actress in a comedy or musical (Ugly Betty also won best comedy) and earlier was named as one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world, citing her as a positive role model for young women.
"I was thrilled by that, actually. I get a lot of letters from young girls who really appreciate having a TV role model who makes them feel that they have something to offer. So many of the female images we’re fed don’t match what anybody looks like in real life, and Hollywood has a lot to answer for there.
"It’s ironic, because if you hang around with many actors you discover that most of them don’t look that great either. It takes hours of make-up to make these people look the way they do. So it makes me feel good when young girls write in that Betty makes them feel beautiful, or their mothers write to say that Betty has really helped their daughters feel good."
Her brow crinkles into an even deeper frown. "It’s tough being a young girl. I remember that myself. I felt very out of place growing up. I knew that succeeding in this industry would be very difficult, because there’s a huge pressure in Hollywood to conform to that stereotypical notion of what beauty is. It’s hard to get people to see your talent if you don’t fit the tall, lean, traditionally beautiful mould."
In her teens Ferrera feared she wasn’t attractive enough to ever become a star. She’d sit in front of her mirror and cry because she thought she was too short and too fat. She is short for an actress, around 155cm, but over the past year it seems her weight has been steadily declining in inverse proportion to her fame.
Many of America’s trashier gossip mags have slammed her for this, implying that all her previous talk about promoting realistic body images for women was disingenuous because as soon as she could afford a personal trainer she started dumping the kilos just like every other young starlet.
"People love to obsess about their weight, or other people’s," she sighs. "But there are more important things in life. I hope that Ugly Betty reinforces for girls that they have a lot to offer the world other than how they look. They can be talented and smart, and a good person, no matter what the world thinks about how they look. It’s what’s on the inside that matters most."
Yes, I know, that last line is the kind of glib platitude you might find in a Hallmark card, but Ferrera strikes me as entirely sincere.
"I am. Absolutely. I can’t do anything if I don’t believe in it, and I really believe in this show. You know what I do outside work these days? Nothing. This show has swallowed my life. I work all the time, either on set or doing interviews like this, or dodging photographers outside my house."
She shares this house with Texan boyfriend Ryan Piers Williams, an aspiring director who currently works for Steven Soderbergh. The happy couple dote on a frisky fur-ball named Buddy.
"He’s a golden retriever, and he’s like our baby. I take him for walks when I can. I listen to music, too, but I wouldn’t know who the up-and-coming underground people are; I just listen to whatever’s on the radio. And I dream about making more movies. My ultimate fun movie would be directed by Steven Spielberg, starring me and Tom Hanks. God, I sound so nerdy, don’t I?"
Not really, no. She sounds young, sweet, ambitious, hard-working. At 23, Ferrera comes across as a seasoned professional, so it’s no surprise when she politely reminds me that I need to wrap things up so she can talk to the "New Zealand radio guys" who are just outside, filling the Mode Magazine reception area with toxic vapours.
How will Ferrera cope with the eye- stinging clouds of garlic pong? I have no idea. As soon as our interview is over I’m escorted to the exit and emerge, blinking like a bat, into the brutal Californian sunshine. A few minutes later I’m hurtling through Burbank in a cab, chuckling to myself as I imagine Ferrera back at the studio doing what needs to be done: answering thoughtfully and smiling sweetly, even as she holds her breath.
America Ferrara was so sad about filming the finale of the first season of Ugly Betty, she burst into tears. 
