America Ferrera

In July 2002, Ferrera appeared in her first television movie, Gotta Kick It Up! for The Disney Channel. While at a theatre program at Northwestern University that same year,[14] she made her feature movie debut in Real Women Have Curves. Ferrera followed this with roles in television (Touched by an Angel).[15] She also appeared in the movie Plainsong, based on the novel by Kent Haruf, which also featured Aidan Quinn and Rachel Griffiths. 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 the 2005 film How the Garcia Girls Spent Their Summer, she starred as Bianca, a 17-year-old third-generation Mexican-American who is disgusted with the boys in her neighborhood but finds romance with a boy from a neighboring town. In 2006, she appeared in the short film 3:52, which won the Audience Award at the San Diego Women Film Festival. Later that year, she featured in the movie Steel City, which received nominations at the Film Independent Spirit Awards and the Sundance Film Festival.[17] In December 2005, she appeared in the Off-Broadway play Dog Sees God: Confessions of a Teenage Blockhead, directed by Trip Cullman.

Ferrera at the 2010 Voice Awards

In 2006, 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 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 cosmetics and clothing intended to downplay her own looks, in contrast to most of the "glammed up" characters; Ferrera herself invented the term "Bettification" to describe the process of creating her onscreen persona.[18] In 2007, Ferrera won numerous accolades winning the "triple crown" for her performance in the series; she won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress – Television Series Musical or Comedy, the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Comedy Series, and the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series, becoming the first Latina woman to win the Outstanding Lead Actress Award.[19][20][21]

In the wake of her Golden Globe win, Ferrera was congratulated by Hilda L. Solis in the United States House of Representatives and was commended for "helping to break down stereotypes and provide a role model for young Latinas".[22] Time included Ferrera in their 2007 list of the 100 most influential people in the world.[23] Also in 2007, Ferrera won Imagen Foundation's Creative Achievement Award.[24] 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. Among other film work, she supplied the voice of Astrid in the hit animated film How to Train Your Dragon (2010). She also appeared in The Dry Land which premiered at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival[25] and ran at the Dallas International Film Festival where it won the top prize in the Filmmaker Award for Best Narrative Feature.[26]

Ferrera made her London stage debut on November 7, 2011, playing Roxie Hart in the musical Chicago in London's West End.[27] In 2012, 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.[28] The series introduces women and girls living in very difficult circumstances and struggling to challenge them. The Half the Sky PBS TV series is produced by Show of Force along with Fugitive Films. 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.[29]

On May 17, 2013, ABC announced that Ferrera was cast in a limited-run telenovela titled Pedro & Maria, a modern-day take on Romeo and Juliet set in Washington, D.C. The series had been in development at MTV since 2010 with Ferrera serving as a director on the project, which would have interactive participation online content from viewers.[30] ABC later decided not to move forward with the series. On March 16, 2015, 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. In addition to her main role, Ferrera has co-production duties as well.[31] After NBC had initially announced a sixth season of the series, the network revealed on February 28, 2020, that Ferrera would be departing the series at the end of the fifth season citing new projects and spending time with family.[32] Due to the COVID-19 pandemic shutting down Superstore's fifth season with one episode left to film, her departure was delayed into season 6 in order to give her character's arc a proper closure.[33][34] On March 10, 2021, NBC announced that Ferrera would return for the show's one-hour series finale.[35]

In February 2019, it was announced that Ferrera would be credited as an executive producer and director for the Netflix comedy-drama series Gentefied.[36][37] The series premiered on February 21, 2020.[38]

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. Sánchez. Adapted by Linda Yvette Chávez, the film will be a co-production with Netflix, Anonymous Content, Aevitas Creative Management and MACRO.[39]

In October 2017, Ferrera began her participation in the #MeToo campaign, publicly revealing that she was sexually harassed when she was 9 years old. She did not reveal any details about the harassment or the person who harassed her.[57] In January 2018, Ferrera was a founding member of the Time's Up legal defense fund.[58]