World Artist: America Ferrera

America Georgina Ferrera (born April 18, 1984) is an American actress, best known for playing the lead role in the television comedy series Ugly Betty. Her portrayal garnered critical acclaim, and she won the Golden Globe Award for "Best Actress in a Comedy Series", the Screen Actors Guild Award for "Best Female Actor in a Comedy Series", and the Emmy Award for "Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series". She has also starred in Real Women Have Curves, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, its sequel Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2, and The Dry Land, and had a small role in the skateboard biopic Lords of Dogtown (2005). In addition, she was the voice of Astrid the Viking in the Dreamworks animated picture How to Train Your Dragon. Ferrera, the youngest of six children, was born in Los Angeles, California, to parents who immigrated to the United States from Honduras in the mid-1970s. Her mother worked as the director of the housecleaning staff for a hotel, and raised Ferrera and her siblings, always stressing the importance of higher education.

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. From the time she was seven years old, when she landed a small role in a school production of Hamlet and then at age 10, the role as the Artful Dodger in Oliver!, Ferrera knew that she wanted to be a performer. She acted in school plays and community theater in Los Angeles throughout her youth, though with little help from her mother, who insisted that she pursue other interests because she was concerned her daughter would not be treated fairly. Ferrera was forced to take the bus to auditions, though eventually her mother saw her daughter’s dedication and began to drive her. Ferrera disliked her first name as a child and went by her middle name, "Georgina", until she began acting professionally.In July 2002, Ferrera made her first TV movie, Gotta Kick It Up! for The Disney Channel. That same year, she made her feature film debut in the indie sleeper hit Real Women Have Curves. Ferrera followed this with roles in both television (Touched by an Angel) and film (The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants and Lords of Dogtown). Ferrera received a 2005 Movieline Breakthrough Award.[citation needed] In December 2005, she appeared in the off-Broadway play Dog Sees God: Confessions of a Teenage Blockhead, directed by Trip Cullman.

She landed the lead role of Betty in Ugly Betty in 2006. Ugly Betty is an adaptation of the Colombian hit telenovela Yo soy Betty, la fea, in which Ferrera portrays a girl whom her peers find extremely unattractive, thus the series title. As Betty Suarez, Ferrera wears braces, has bushy eyebrows and a disheveled wig, and make-up and clothing intended to downplay her own looks, in contrast to most of the "glammed up" characters; Ferrera herself coined the term “Bettification” to describe the process of creating her onscreen persona. The first run of Ugly Betty was completed with the series finale on ABC-TV on Wednesday, April 14, 2010.For her role in Ugly Betty, Ferrera won the 2007 Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actress in a Television Series - Comedy or Musical. As a result of the award, she was congratulated by the U.S. House of Representatives as being a role model for young Hispanics. On 28 January 2007, Ferrera won the Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Female Actor in a Comedy Series. She also starred in and was the executive producer for the poignant short film Muertas. In 2007, Time chose Ferrera as one of the top artists and entertainers in their "Time 100: The Most Influential People In The World" issue. In July 2007, Ferrera won Imagen Foundation's Creative Achievement Award.