America Ferrera was born in Los Angeles, California was raised in the San Fernando Valley. America started acting at age eight in school plays and community theater. In 2002, America made her debut in Real Women Have Curves. For her performance as an overweight teen living in a LA barrio, constantly at odds with her mother and struggling to gain her independence and make a better life for herself, she earned the Jury Award for Best Actress at the Sundance Film Festival, an Independent Spirit Award nomination for Best Debut Performance, and a Young Artist Award nomination as Best Performance by a Leading Young Actress. Ferrera followed this with roles in both television and film.

America Ferrera received a 2005 Movieline Breakthrough Award. Later that year, she appeared in the off-Broadway play Dog Sees God: Confessions of a Teenage Blockhead, directed by Trip Cullman. In 2006, she landed the lead role in Ugly Betty, an adaptation of the Colombian hit telenovela Betty La Fea, in which she portrays a girl that her peers find extremely unattractive, thus the series title. As Betty Suarez, Ferrera wears fake braces on her teeth, bushy eyebrows and a disheveled wig, and make-up and clothing intended to downplay her own good looks.

According to Ugly Betty’s Roddy Stayton, “She’s a gorgeous girl with an incredible style sensibility in her personal life. What we do is Bettify her in the morning. It’s in contrast to the rest of the show, where everybody else is glammed up”, adding that it was Ferrera herself who coined the term “Bettification” to describe the process. America currently attends the University of Southern California, where she’s double-majoring in both Theater and International Relations. Sounds like she’s on the right track.