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"  We root for America Ferrera for obvious reasons: She&amp;#039;s become famous playing Ugly Betty&amp;#039;s Betty Suarez, a plucky, whip-smart career woman whose earnestness can break your heart in half. Smacked around weekly by a caricatured world of high glamour and midgrade sadism, she makes it look fun. Few actresses come off as relatable as the L.A.-born Ferrera, 25, who knocked on doors for Hillary Clinton&amp;#039;s campaign last year. Though we&amp;#039;ll miss Betty&amp;#039;s wide-eyed zeal as the show goes on hiatus, Ferrera is transferring her alter ego&amp;#039;s enthusiasm to producing and starring in the feature film American Tragic, directed by her long-term boyfriend, Ryan Piers Williams. If you see her as we do\u2014a poised, A-list front-runner with depth to drown in\u2014then what you see is exactly what you get. Here, Ferrera helps us make our case. The people who have the money have all the power.  That&amp;#039;s why you applaud so much when a little movie like Slumdog Millionaire gets made, that in the middle of such big movies with big stars and budgets there&amp;#039;s room for some sort of human truth. Steven Spielberg gave a wonderful speech at the Golden Globes\u2014he essentially said that we&amp;#039;re all in it for inspiration. And you hope the people with the money are listening when you hear that from someone like him.  One of my favorite movies is Stand By Me. I remember thinking, God, how can this movie about people and events that have nothing to do with me make me feel so connected? I&amp;#039;m not out to change the landscape of film. I&amp;#039;m not a businessperson, and I&amp;#039;m not good with money. What I have to offer is the desire to see rich and beautiful human connections come to life.  It&amp;#039;s important to surround yourself with people who are smarter than you. Like Lupe Ontiveros, who played my mom in Real Women Have Curves. She wrote in a card once\u2014the gist of it was to be the tree that always stands tall but sways with the wind, versus resisting life and change. Sometimes I think, This isn&amp;#039;t the way I ever pictured my life, and you have to just go with it so you don&amp;#039;t get bowled over. I wouldn&amp;#039;t put up wit h a tenth of the things that Betty does. But there are people who do, people I know personally. In certain industries, when you&amp;#039;re at the bottom, you&amp;#039;re expected to take whatever people throw at you, figuratively and literally\u2014I&amp;#039;ve heard stories! That&amp;#039;s the question of the show: How much of yourself are you willing to compromise to achieve a position you&amp;#039;ve always thought you wanted? I used to be afraid to walk down a red carpet, because people with magnifying lenses are looking for imperfections. So being a part of Clinton&amp;#039;s campaign made me feel like, Wow, I&amp;#039;ve got it easy. My worst-case scenario? I trip. That doesn&amp;#039;t cause a war, doesn&amp;#039;t mean people won&amp;#039;t eat. I have immense awe for how she puts herself out into the world. When I was 17, this script I loved called for a blond girl with blue eyes.  The director said, &amp;quot;I think you&amp;#039;re great, but this isn&amp;#039;t the right thing.&amp;quot; So I decided, half joking and half not, to bleach my hair blond\u2014I don&amp;#039;t know if you&amp;#039;ve ever tried, but it turns red\u2014and put white powder on my face. And I put myself on tape and sent it to him. He called me, laughing, like, Thank you for this, but you still don&amp;#039;t have the part. I was devastated because it was the first time I felt I wasn&amp;#039;t given a chance to fail on my own. I didn&amp;#039;t know how to accept that there&amp;#039;d be things in this world that I wasn&amp;#039;t right for on the basis of who I am. Who I am has yielded some incredible opportunities too.... But I destroyed my hair for nothing. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.elle.com/culture/movies-tv/reviews/a9822/america-ferrera-316061/?src=global_footer>