America Ferrera made her feature film debut in 2002 with the comedy-drama Real Women Have Curves, earning praise for her performance.
36 Facts About America Ferrera
2.
America Ferrera has won an Emmy Award, a Golden Globe Award, and a Screen Actors Guild Award among others.
3.
America Ferrera undertook television roles including the eponymous role on the ABC comedy-drama Ugly Betty.
4.
America Ferrera was praised for playing the protagonist of the series, Betty Suarez, and won several Best Actress Awards in 2007 at the Golden Globe Awards, the Screen Actors Guild Awards, and the Primetime Emmy Awards, the first for a Latina woman in the category.
5.
America Ferrera provided the voice of Astrid Hofferson in the How to Train Your Dragon franchise, including the three films and the television series Dreamworks Dragons.
6.
America Ferrera co-produced and starred as Amy Sosa in the NBC workplace comedy series Superstore.
7.
America Ferrera, the youngest of six children, was born in Los Angeles, California.
8.
America Ferrera's mother worked as the director of the housekeeping staff for one of the Hilton Hotels, and stressed the importance of higher education.
9.
America Ferrera was estranged from her father when he died there in 2010.
10.
America Ferrera was raised in the Woodland Hills section of Los Angeles, where she attended Calabash Street Elementary School, George Ellery Hale Middle School and El Camino Real High School.
11.
America Ferrera entered the University of Southern California on a presidential scholarship, double-majoring in theatre and international relations.
12.
America Ferrera dropped out to focus on her acting career, but completed her bachelor's degree in May 2013.
13.
America Ferrera followed this with roles in television.
14.
America Ferrera appeared in the movie Plainsong, based on the novel by Kent Haruf, which featured Aidan Quinn and Rachel Griffiths.
15.
America Ferrera played a pregnant teenager, Victoria Roubideaux, who has been kicked out of her mother's house; she is taken in by two kindly brothers who live alone on a farm.
16.
In 2006, America Ferrera landed the lead role of Betty Suarez in ABC's new comedy-drama Ugly Betty, an adaptation of the successful Colombian telenovela Yo soy Betty, la fea, in which America Ferrera portrays a girl whom her peers find extremely unattractive, thus the series title.
17.
Also in 2007, America Ferrera won the Imagen Foundation's Creative Achievement Award.
18.
America Ferrera starred as Carmen in the 2005 film The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, and reprised the role in 2008's The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2.
19.
America Ferrera appeared in The Dry Land which premiered at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival and ran at the Dallas International Film Festival where it won the top prize in the Filmmaker Award for Best Narrative Feature.
20.
America Ferrera made her London stage debut on November 7,2011, playing Roxie Hart in the musical Chicago in London's West End.
21.
In 2012, America Ferrera was featured in the four-hour documentary Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide, which premiered on PBS October 1 and 2,2012.
22.
America Ferrera starred alongside David Cross and Julia Stiles in the dark comedy It's a Disaster, which premiered at the 2012 Los Angeles Film Festival and had a limited commercial release on April 12,2013.
23.
On March 16,2015, America Ferrera was added to the cast of the upcoming NBC sitcom Superstore, portraying Amy, a 10-year veteran floor supervisor at a superstore named Cloud 9.
24.
In February 2019, it was announced that America Ferrera would be credited as an executive producer and director for the Netflix comedy-drama series Gentefied.
25.
In February 2021, it was announced that Ferrera would make her feature length directorial debut with I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter, based on the young adult novel of the same name by Erika L Sanchez.
26.
America Ferrera first met actor, director, and writer Ryan Piers Williams when he cast her in a student film at USC.
27.
America Ferrera announced on her Instagram page on May 29,2018, that she had given birth that month to a boy, Sebastian.
28.
On May 4,2020, America Ferrera gave birth to a girl, Lucia.
29.
On June 27,2020, America Ferrera announced that she and Williams had been together for a total of 15 years.
30.
America Ferrera attended both the 2012 Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina, and the 2016 Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia.
31.
America Ferrera has been active, through her involvement with the organization Voto Latino and by appearing on various news programs, in getting Latinos in the United States to vote.
32.
America Ferrera was the opening speaker for the Women's March on Washington on January 21,2017.
33.
America Ferrera spoke at the Families Belong Together protest on June 30,2018.
34.
America Ferrera did not reveal any details about the harassment or the person who harassed her.
35.
In January 2018, America Ferrera was a founding member of the Time's Up legal defense fund.
36.
In July 2020, America Ferrera was announced as an investor in a primarily female group that was awarded a Los Angeles-based franchise in the National Women's Soccer League.