INTERVIEW: America Ferrera Says "Bye Bye Betty!"

We're in Beverly Hills where we've cornered popular actress America Ferrera to ask about the end of her fashion forward TV show and her new culture-clashy rom/com out this week Our Family Wedding in which she plays a Latina marrying an African American.

America just told us that she grew up not only in multi-cultural L.A. but in Woodland Hills where she went to a real melting pot of a public high school. Students were bused in from all over the area and, although the actress admits that she had some definite gurl-fights, none were due to race or culture.

The 25-year-old actress has a lot to say about the young women of her generation and the family pressures often put on teens. She is also revealing that Betty Suarez finally does get her famous braces removed before series end. America feels hat she "grew up with Betty", is "passionate" about the character and will join the fans in "missing her a lot" despite moving on to more movies and perhaps another TV show in future.

Talk about multi-cultural, America has a Cleopatra vibe going for our interview. She's wearing a gray, short-sleeved, empire-style dress by Shoshanna with an amazing round, Cleo-like collar embellished with hematite beading and some majorly high Catherine Malandrino heels. "I can't run in them", teases the star. "That would really hurt!" We're sitting down and promise to only chase her with words. Hummm, those are some kick butt shoes... Our size?  Maybe if she slips them off we can.... naw....

TeenHollywood: How did this work this new film Our Family Wedding into your schedule with "Ugly Betty"? It must have been grueling to do that and a movie. How did that work?

America: Yeah. Last summer I wrapped 'Ugly Betty' at two in the morning.  I was on a six A.M. flight to a wardrobe fitting for The Dry Land which is a film I executive produced and starred in. I was on that film for four weeks and then three days after I wrapped that, I was filming this movie. Then, as soon as I wrapped this, I was back for 'Betty' Season four.  So that's how that worked.

TeenHollywood: Yikes! What attracted you to the Our Family Wedding script? What made you want to play Lucia?

America: I was really attracted to this character and the conversations that I had with Rick (Famuyiwa), our director about making her a woman of her generation. I feel like we see wedding movies all the time and often the women are obsessed with this one day that means everything to them. For me, that's never been the case. I've just never been the type of person who sits there and wonders what my dress is going to be like and I have tons of friends to whom that isn't the most important thing either. I think women are a lot more complicated than obsessing over one day in their lives.

(For Lucia) it was more about, 'I'm fine with just getting married at City Hall with my family and then getting on with my life' with that confidence and strength and knowing what she wants. Yet, there's that sort of universal thing about you can be grown up and a woman and this sexual, smart, successful being and then when you get around family, you revert to being 15-years-old again (laughter). I think that's universal. I've watched 40 or 50-year-olds do the same thing.

Family structures are such strong things and it's so hard to re-define yourself within your family and say 'I'm a woman now. I'm an autonomous creature. I'm starting a life with someone you may not love or accept'. So, I was really interested in her journey toward finding the courage to be that woman that she was becoming and be it in that family structure. It's such a hard thing to do.

TeenHollywood: Lucia holds back a few secrets from her parents. Can you imagine yourself in a similar situation holding off telling your parents something crucial about your educational commitments or love life?

America: I personally was never very secretive about anything.  I was always sort of wide open (she laughs).

TeenHollywood: Being that secretive causes all kinds of trouble for her.

America: That's her weakness. I think that's the conflict that comes between her and (her man) Marcus. Like 'where is that woman that I know? That I'm in love with, that is strong and confident and knows what she wants?' All of a sudden nothing is more important than pleasing dad and being daddy's little girl and that happens. There are those relationships in your life where they rule over all and you just please that relationship and ignore everything else.

TeenHollywood: What is the most memorable wedding you've ever been to?

America: I would say, my friend got married in Puerto Rico. I like when friends decide to have destination weddings. I traveled twenty-six hours to get to this wedding. I was in Santorini shooting The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 and my friend was getting married and I traveled for twenty-six hours to get to this wedding and I basically made it through the ceremony and the dinner and passed out for the whole party. But it was a good dinner and a good ceremony and it was a beautiful place to pass out.

TeenHollywood: Sounds memorable all right. I know you grew up in Woodland Hills and it's about 80 percent Caucasian and 20 percent Hispanic. Have you ever had an issue, like in the movie with intolerance? If not, do you have an opinion about that?

America: I went to a public school (El Camino Real High School) where there were a lot of kids who were bussed in for all areas of Los Angeles so we actually had an incredibly diverse student body; every background, religion, race so I grew up with friends from every background.  I would walk into their homes whether they were Filipino or Black or Italian or Greek or Arabic and always think to myself how much it felt like my home.

Maybe it's a different language, maybe the food is different, maybe the music is different but the love of those things and the way that they're incorporated into their lives and their family just felt so similar so I always grew up not understanding racism at all and actually feel most uncomfortable in very homogenous groups because I don't really know how to relate to that.

TeenHollywood: So you didn't have any confrontations with girls of other races?

America: I had confrontations with all sorts of girls (we laugh) and it had very little to do with race. I think there is a cultural clash in this film but I think the more important clash, the deeper clash, is the generational one. There is this (older) generation that taught their kids to be color blind and yet have not really embodied that and then the generation that truly is. I'm not gonna say that everyone in my generation is (color blind). That's just not true but the way that the people I know and the people my age move in and out of cultural experiences and are in multi-racial relationships, that sort of racism is not a part of our language.

Maybe that's because I grew up in one of the coasts and not in the middle of the country. It's so foreign to me that idea of such exclusivity. But it exists here in L.A.  You have minority groups living side-by-side; Korea town, downtown L.A., Little Armenia, East L.A., Compton, whatever and you have all these minorities sort of sectioning off and yet they're having such similar experiences and there is so little engagement between them. I think that's an incredibly interesting phenomenon that needs to be studied.

TeenHollywood: There is even discrimination in the film industry between Latino cultures. Casting directors will cast a Mexican playing somebody from another Latino country.

America: I think with the business based in L.A., Mexican is the predominant Latin culture that people are familiar with so that's what they write about and that's what they make movies about. I've played Puerto Rican, I've played Mexican. There's enough discrimination between colors of skin, it would be a horror if there were world discriminations within the Latin American culture.

TeenHollywood: Did you give any input to the filmmakers about the Latin culture you grew up in?

America: I certainly had Latin experiences in my household but I didn't know about goats being slain at weddings.  I was like 'is that really real?' And it is and I didn't know that. So, I'm not the expert for that. I went to fifty Bar Mitzvahs (laughter). I'm an expert at Bar Mitzvahs.

TeenHollywood: Didn't you do some voice work for a film coming up?

America: I did. For the last couple of years I've been doing the DreamWorks movie How to Train Your Dragon which is a beautiful animated film.

TeenHollywood: Do you like or dislike the process of recording a voice for an animated film? How hard is it to take away most of your actorly tools and just use your voice?

America: It's hard. It's definitely a learning curve. I did a voice for the movie Tinkerbell for Disney and that was sort of breaking the ice but it's hard.  It's just a different way of performing. You think you are doing something and you're like 'Oh!, I was so emoting in that moment'.  Then they play it back and it's 'oh God! No I wasn't!' (we laugh). Your gestures and your face and nothing translates other than your voice so it's learning to use a different muscle. And watching it, it's of course, your voice. It's like hearing a message that you left years ago. You're like 'ahhhh, that sounds so terrible'. But, everyone else sounded amazing; Craig Ferguson, he was so funny in it and Jay Baruchel who is the lead character and Gerard Butler, they're so good in it.

TeenHollywood: Whose voice are you?

America: I play Astrid who is the kick-ass teen Viking. She's blonde and has blue eyes and she's very tall and has a killer body (laughter). She's a kick-ass dragon slayer so that was really fun.

TeenHollywood: Now that you are getting ready to finish up with 'Betty' will you take advantage of working in more films? Any more series?

America: Right now I'm having trouble seeing my life past March 26th because this has been a part of my life for the duration of my adult life. I only know myself as an adult in this job and I'm so grateful and thankful for the opportunity.

I love the show. I love the cast.  I love my character and I'm just grateful that I'm gonna have a chance to see her through her journey and that we can wrap it up in a way that is satisfying versus it being 'oh well, that was your last episode and you don't get to finish this up'. It's bittersweet. It was amazing. I'm so grateful it was in my life and there is, hopefully, so much more to be done and it will always be just amazing memories for me. It's sad.

TeenHollywood: Is Betty going to make a good exit then?

America: I'm very happy with what we're gonna be doing for her. We've wrapped all but the last few episodes.

TeenHollywood: How did 'Ugly Betty' change your life?

America: In so many ways. I grew up on that show. You know so much happens and changes between the ages of twenty-one and twenty-six years old. I'm sure I still have more growing up to do but (working on the show) I learned about myself and what I want out of my career and what I want out of my life.

TeenHollywood: There had to be some tough times too.

America: Well, I could come to work every day, even on the most exhausted days where I didn't think that I had any more to give and when you start from a very pure place of love, it's automatic. Your body just does it for you. All of a sudden I'm like 'I'm so tired I can't talk' and then ten minutes later, I'm arguing passionately about why I think it should be done this way because this is who Betty is.  You start from a place of true passion and then it just sort of does the work for you.  I made decisions based on truly believing in the character and the story. It really made the last four years of my life very wonderful.

TeenHollywood: Any chance "Betty" will be a movie?

America: I have no idea. I don't know.