Actress America Ferrera gets to play down her natural beauty as the star of ABC’s new series "Ugly Betty."  This new show is a takeoff on a hugely popular Spanish-language telenovella about a braces-wearing young lady trying to make a living in the looks-obsessed world of high fashion. (Have we heard about that before? Yep! I did it for years in the Conde Nast Publications building!)

According to the interviews with Executive Producer, actress Salma Hayek, "It’s been six years in the making to get this series up and rolling and we all waited with baited anticipation." And Ferrera shares, "Betty’s character’s heart and brains inspire her."

America Ferrera as Ugly Betty / ABC-TV on Thursdays / American Broadcasting Corporation 2006 ©

What’s this series about?  “Ugly" Betty Suarez is a plump, ‘no personal style’ girl from Queens who finds herself working at a fashion magazine. She's hired by the mogul magazine publisher at Mode Magazine (That title sounds familiar, Hmmm!)  who wants Betty to be his son Daniel's assistant as he takes over the reins of the magazine. Why Betty? Because she’s plain and he assumes his son won’t want to get her into bed.  But, Betty is sweet, hardworking and has a lot of good ideas. Daniel may have been repulsed at first by her looks and size but is (smartly enough!!) won over by her efficiency and skills. Neither of them really knows the ins and outs of the fashion world, but the two of them are a formidable team against the label-wearing sharks who will do anything to see them fail.  (Especially when one is surrounded by superficial and shark-like editors and models who need cookies and a good meal!)

It’s exciting to think that with this new TV series we can all be inspired! America Ferrera didn't realize how big the issue of female body image was until she put her own, curvy Latina body right in the middle of Hollywoodland. 

While Watching a Channel Thirteen special interview from the series: “Conversation with Ilan Stevans” during the summer, I was thrilled to hear America share that she had learned firsthand what it's like to be an actress not sporting the perfect size 2 frame.  It was sad and not surprising to hear her share that "I didn't even know I was fat until I started acting." Ferrera recently mentioned in another TV interview, "I didn't know how fat and ugly I was until I started going to auditions. But I truly don't feel that way inside about myself -- and I come from a family of six kids with a mother that worked very hard."

Ferrara has been acting in the theatre world, including school plays and community theatre, since she was seven. She auditioned and auditioned for a long while for all the “Latina girl” roles for TV commercials and print ads. She found they were really, "Stock characters that she was being pegged into as a female with a Latina ethnicity.” 

America has been a model to millions of young women dealing with the very same image issues. She shares that she’s not a model.  (Her ‘role model’ is the “Dora the Explorer” character from the cartoon series on Nickelodeon!) But she has become a true role model for us all.  A crash course in her career came when she hit the acting scene in 2002 in the highly acclaimed film "Real Women Have Curves" and then the very successful novel turned movie “The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants.”

Besides Ferrera, "Ugly Betty" also stars Vanessa Williams, Eric Mabius, Ana Ortiz and Becki Newton. Tune into ABC-TV on Thursdays and let AmaZe know what you think! We think it’s a step in the right direction!