America Ferrera Quotes

The most important thing you wear is your personality.

I was an open, smiley and gregarious child. I could make friends in 30 seconds wherever I went.

I struggled with being a Latino growing up in Los Angeles. I felt very American. I still do. I went to 35 bar mitzvahs before I went to a single quinceanera. I could talk all day about my culture and what it means to me.

I think Hispanic women are beautiful with their curves. I'm not sure who feels that way in Hollywood. I was never told to lose 50 pounds. If they think that they just don't bother with you. You just don't get the role and you never know why. That's still better than physically harming yourself and becoming unhealthy just to star in a movie.

To me, the tragedy about this whole image-obsessed society is that young girls get so caught up in just achieving that they forget to realize that they have so much more to offer the world.

As a child, I didn't know what I didn't have. I'm thankful for the challenges early on in my life because now I have a perspective on the world and kind of know what's important.

It's so reassuring to have a woman heroine who triumphs with more than just what she has on the outside who has more to offer the world than just a pretty picture.

It would be impossible to be a woman in Western culture and not have your own issues about your image and what you look like.

When you finish a series like 'Ugly Betty,' there are so many voices around you telling you what you should be doing next and what would be good for your future, sometimes you can't hear yourself. I've gotten pretty good at tuning everyone else out. Now it's just me; what pleases me creatively.

I'm okay if people don't know who I am, but if you remember my character that would be great.

I am trying to be guided by my passion.

Am I Latin? Am I American? What the hell am I? I love my culture and I'm very proud of my culture

I know that having the perfect body doesn't fix all your problems, or make you love yourself more. To me, it's all about being comfortable in your own skin.

I hope to be acting until I'm playing the role of Grandma, and I'd like to branch out in film - producing, directing, all of it. I'll sleep when no one wants to hire me!

Having the perfect body doesn't fix all your problems, or make you love yourself more. To me, it's all about being comfortable in your own skin.

There are so many wonderful shows that come out through the year. What makes some stick is an unknown factor, you know? It's gotta be the right show at the right time. Really, you've got to have magic elements line up. But I felt that this was going to be something that was really going to ring true to people.

My parents were both Spanish-speakers and they used to speak to me and my siblings in Spanish and we'd answer them in English.

Sometimes I worry more about losing weight than gaining weight, because this is how people know and accept me.

I realized how Latina I was, and then also, at the same time, how not Latina enough I was, because I’m born and raised in Los Angeles. I speak Spanish, but I don’t speak perfect Spanish, not like a native speaker

I just want to be in my sweats, walk my dog, watch TV and eat pizza.

You'd never catch me dancing on tables in public. I have no desire to be known for my personal life.

Once I started drinking more water, my skin, hair and nails all flourished.

Relationships take time and energy, and your job kind of sucks that all out of you. It takes an extra effort to stay present in a relationship when you are working so many hours.

I'm not going to miss wearing the braces very much.

How much time have I wasted on diets and what I look like? People are saying 'We love you and love what you do' and you're sitting there thinking 'I'm not skinny enough or pretty enough.' It's taken a lot of work to get over that.

I think the body image thing, everybody can identify with that. In our culture there's just so much pressure and so much attention placed on the way we look. You just turn on the TV or flip open a magazine and there's people who don't look like any of us. I think this movie is like, finally, a celebration of reality and of our imperfections. We're not all a size 2 and we're not all a size 0, and you know what? That's OK, because some of us like to eat!

I really hate the duties of being a celebrity, like getting dressed up for the red carpet.

Relationships take time and energy, and your job kind of sucks that all out of you. It takes an extra effort to stay present in a relationship when you are working kind of hours.

I'm not ashamed to say that I cried at an animation movie

What’s hard about being on the other side of the world is that sometimes the problem feels so big that changing one life doesn’t feel like enough. But it is.

My siblings are my best friends.

Finding the one is not just a feeling, it's an educated guess. I feel like I chose someone to share my life with who is my friend.

I was young not too long ago, and I know the last thing you want is someone preaching to you.

I don't think running for office is anything I'm prepared for or could even prepare myself for.

The hardest part of this year has been learning to enjoy it. It's almost like a full-time job reminding myself to live in the moment and not look for more, more, more...I see now that people who make movies, this world of creative geniuses that I grew up idolizing, are just normal people who wanted to do something and made it happen. Everything that's happened to me in the last year has only made me feel more like a normal person, more human, but in the most beautiful way.

What's kind of wonderful about being the voice in an animated film is you're a small part of an enormous production. And in a way, you get to remain a little bit objective.

Nowadays I'd describe myself as earnest, terribly earnest. I'm the person who wants everybody in the room to feel important and happy.

Latino actors and actresses have had to struggle for decades, but when I came around with Real Women Have Curves, attitudes were starting to change. We screened the film all over the world - in Jewish communities, black communities, Greek communities, German communities - and people across the board said, "That's my family."

Sometimes I worry more about losing weight than gaining weight, because this is how people know and accept me. I do feel like if I wanted to get in better shape, there might be a backlash of, Why isn't she comfortable with herself anymore? So I try to figure out what my own goals are.

Personally, I hate waiking the red carpet. You are expected to conform to every single expectation. People will say, "Try as hard as you can not to sweat on the red carpet." Meanwhile you are super nervous, and there are tons of camera flashes, and people are screaming your name. It's not fun - not for me, at least!

I'll sleep when no one wants to hire me!

What's so kind of beautiful about the whole thing was that everything that made me not right for all of those hundreds of commercial auditions that I went on and no one ever wanted me for is what made me perfectly right for 'Real Women Have Curves'.

You'll never see me at the launch of the new PlayStation or some club. For me, the fun stuff is being able to get my mom tickets to 'Dancing With the Stars' - she loves Mario Lopez.

I mean, I grew up in the Valley. All my friends were white Jewish kids. So the Latino kids thought I was this white girl.

I'm the first one in line to go watch "Spider-Man," but there's definitely something in me that makes me want to go to a movie and see something that makes me feel good about life.

I was just so lucky with 'Real Women Have Curves.' At that point, I would have done an insurance commercial. I would have done anything.

Salma and I had run into each other once or twice at film festivals because I was doing the press for Real Women Have Curves at the same time she was doing the press for Frida. She had seen Real Women Have Curves, and when the idea of Ugly Betty came up, she thought of me. Her enthusiasm about the project was so infectious-she spoke of it with such expectation. Everyone that was involved was really excited about the project. I really wanted to be a part of it.

As early as second grade I remember feeling really different and isolated. I had the hugest crush on a boy, and my best friend had a crush on him, too. One day he said to me, 'I like your best friend more because she's paler and she has freckles.' And it was right then that I began to feel like, Oh wow, I'm different.

The first time I landed in New York and got a cab to my hotel, I was completely struck by it: a feeling of life and chaos, 24 hours around the clock, just like in London. And whatever your problem is, it's insignificant. You're just a small part of something very big.

Kids not only understand [a dark story] but appreciate it … Because in the real world there's fear, and dark things happen no matter how young you are. People lose parents, people lose friends … There's darkness in the world. So I think when kids are talked to in that way, they appreciate it. They're not being given some candy-coated, 'Oh, this is a world where there are no stakes.' I think that actually insults their intelligence.