SPOTLIGHT: The Midas Touch
— -- In less than six years, America Ferrera, daughter to Honduran parents, has passed from absolute anonymity to one of the most recognized faces in current television. Ferrera is one of the protagonists in "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants", the sequel to the 2005 film that brought her to light a little before being transformed now and forever into Betty Suarez. The series "Ugly Betty", produced by Salma Hayek, is a success in the United States and is broadcast all over the world.
Undoubtedly gifted with a special sensibility that helps her pick projects, America also had a small role in "The Same Moon", the Mexican-American co-production starring Kate del Castillo. This year the film surpassed all the box office records in the United States for Spanish language movie.
America, born 24 years ago and raised by her divorced mother in the San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles, is the youngest of six children. At the age of eight she began to act in community theaters and 10 years later surprised the world with her extraordinary work in "Real Women Have Curves", by Colombian director Patricia Cardoso, for which she won an award at the Sundance Film Festival. And although it took some time to convert that good debut into a solid career, three years later Ferrera premiered two feature films on the same day, "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants" and "Lords of Dogtown." That same year she completed a third film, "How the Garcia Girls Spent Their Summer", which premiered in May, thanks in part to the enormous popularity America gained with her television series.
Ferrera, the long-time girlfriend of short films director Ryan Williams, does not have plans to be married for now. Neither is she pressed to finish her university career in International Relations at the University of Southern California, where she only has a semester left. She is scheduled to move to New York, where the next season of Ugly Betty will be filmed. As for her film career, America is the voice of a character in the animated film, "How to Train Your Dragon", which will premiere next year. She is also waiting on the production of "An Invisible Sign of My Own", the début in the fiction of the Cuban director Marilyn Agrelo. In this exclusive interview, America tells us the secret of her success.
SRD: You star in a television series, do movies, study, have a boyfriend and even have participated in politics. How do you do so many things at the same time?
America: I work a lot, but I love what I do and I feel that a good part of my energy to continue ahead comes from the passion that I feel for my work. Many times the only thing that I want to do is watch television. But then I remember that this is a very special moment in my life and who knows how much time I am going to have these opportunities?
