| Ugly Betty star America Ferrera seeks more than fame |
LOS ANGELES — America Ferrera hesitates at the door of the studio commissary, peering inside. The cafe is invitingly cool, but dark. She retreats instead to a patio table in the bright afternoon sunshine.
Of course. Why should a young actress basking in the glow of freshman TV hit "Ugly Betty” settle for the shadows? This is her moment, and Ferrera, who turned 23 last month, is making the most of it.
"What’s happened with the show is everything that we hoped for,” she said. "It’s insane. I can’t explain it. I don’t know what kind of special stars or elements have to align for something to get everything it deserves.”
The same could be said for the talented Ferrera. Since her eye-catching film debut in "Real Women Have Curves” in 2002, she’s moved swiftly to award-winning TV star, novice movie producer and, as fans tells her, a role model for girls and Hispanics.
Add in her spot on Time magazine’s list of the world’s 100 most influential people (she was one of fewer than two-dozen artists and entertainers to make the cut), and her rise is more impressive.
It’s also reassuring in this era of instant and empty fame, as is Ferrera’s reaction to it.
In a recent interview, she thoughtfully discussed where she is, how she got there and where she wants to go from here. Her destination: far — and reached by following her own path. Not so different, it turns out, than fictional Betty Suarez.
"I am incredibly, incredibly fortunate about the opportunities I’ve had. But at the same time, I’ve had plenty of opportunities to screw it up, too,” she said. "Sometimes the most powerful thing you can say is ‘No’ … and not feel the need to do everything. It’s about doing what rings true to me.”
"Real Women Have Curves,” in which she played a Mexican-American teenager balancing family tradition with her dreams of education, helped set the standard.
"Early in my career, I was really spoiled with a beautiful project. I got such a good start that I thought, ‘Why would I ever take a step back?’ Why would I take on something that wasn’t meaningful — to me, if nobody else — and powerful and groundbreaking?”
She found such a project in ABC’s "Ugly Betty.” Based on a Colombian telenovela that has been successfully adapted worldwide, the comedy-drama centers on a dowdy young Latina with a blazing spirit who intends to make her mark on the world.
Whatever her personal future holds, her professional one seems boundless after winning Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild awards for "Ugly Betty.”
Ferrera is keeping her hand in movies as well as TV, returning in the sequel to "Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants,” due out next year, and starring in "Hacia la Oscuridad” ("Towards Darkness”), a film about Colombian kidnappings that showed at the Tribeca Film Festival.
Ferrera also was an executive producer for the drama, directed and written by Antonio Negret. It’s based on a short film Negret made with Ferrera while at the University of Southern California, where Ferrera studied international relations (she’s one semester shy of the bachelor’s degree she intends to get.)
| " | She found such a project in ABC's "Ugly Betty.” Based on a Colombian telenovela that has been successfully adapted worldwide, the comedy-drama centers on a dowdy young Latina with a blazing spirit who intends to make her mark on the world. |
