America Ferrera talks about how her body was considered ‘groundbreaking’

America Ferrera has strong feelings about the way her “curvy” body was considered “groundbreaking” in Hollywood, calling the idea “crazy.”

In an interview with ELLE for the December/January 2023 issue of Women in Hollywood, the 39-year-old actress reflected on the praise she – and by extension, her body – received for supposedly setting a new standard for who and what a Hollywood star looks like could see. like it. Ferrera, the daughter of a single mother who emigrated to Los Angeles from Honduras, would go on to play a prominent role in The sisterhood of travel pants and then of course Ugly Betty in the title role, for which she became the first – and only – Latina to win a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series.

That series aired from 2006 to 2010, which wasn’t that long ago, but there was still a lot of room for progress when it came to what Latina actresses had to offer on the big and small screen.

“What’s so crazy is you go back and look, and I had a very average-sized body,” she tells the women’s lifestyle magazine. “And so the idea that people looked at me and said, ‘That’s curvy’ is crazy. Not that I care, but it’s crazy that we thought this was so groundbreaking.”

Ferrera, one of the nine remarkable women honored for their creative and cultural contributions to film, television, music and beyond, says it’s “so ridiculous” that “I was the Hollywood version of imperfect.”

“I don’t feel alone in that either,” she adds. “There are so many women who have been called brave just because they are people in bodies.”

In short, real women have curves, a sentiment she wholeheartedly shares and got emotional about in September 2021, when she visited the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures and came face to face with her 17-year-old self in the Real women have curves exhibition.

“These are obviously tears of happiness,” he said Barbie star explained at the time. “I’m just really overwhelmed by the fortune I’ve been given to be a part of so many beautiful, meaningful stories, and it still makes me think about how far we’ve come, but also how far we still have to go. ” and how important it is that we pave the way so that more of our stories can be told, more of our lives can be celebrated and we can see ourselves represented in our culture.”

ELLEThe December/January 2023 issue of Women in Hollywood hits newsstands December 19.