Crashing the Party
This is my first blog. I know that I should probably be embarrassed, only blogging for the first time at the age of 32, but I'm not. I'm an old-fashioned type of guy and I believe in waiting to blog until you're ready. So what have I been waiting for? Betty. Like Henry, the quirky accountant I portray on
Ugly Betty, I guess I just needed the right heartbreakingly sweet, smart, funny, four-eyed, metal-mouthed beauty to bring me out of my shell. That said, if I'm not very good at it, please be patient. It is my first time.
I wasn't supposed to be on this show. I wasn't available to audition for the pilot episode because I was starring in another show at the time. But I'd known about the project from the beginning. Before he'd written a page, I remember Silvio (Horta) describing the project to me, over lunch on the Paramount lot. We'd worked together before and had kept in touch. The conversation went something like this
Chris: "What are you working on?"
Silvio: "Blah blah blah blah,
Ugly Betty, blah blah blah Salma Hayek."
Chris: "Wait. What? Salma Hayek's a producer?"
Silvio: "Yeah."
Chris: "What's she like? When did you meet her? What did she say? And don't leave anything out."
Like I said, it went something like that. Then I continued on with my doomed show and he went off to write and produce one of the funniest, most heartwarming and endearing shows on television.
Thankfully, for me, that wasn't the end of this story.
I first met Betty on my computer, in my car, watching the pilot, outside the studio, before my meeting with America. I'd gotten a call from Silvio, the night before, asking if I'd be interested in playing an accountant. Watching the pilot, in my car, though, I didn't much care what I'd be playing. I just wanted to hang out with Betty.
America was in her Betty wardrobe when we met. She took out her braces (I was wondering if they were real, but they're made like Invisalign clear plastic retainers), introductions were made, we read an early version of the sushi restaurant scene, from "The Lyin', the Watch and the Wardrobe," and a few days later, with the help of some glasses, a handsome sweater vest and my high school hairdo, Henry walked upright (extraordinarily upright) into Betty's life. Lucky bastard.
Of course, Betty isn't real. Without the wig, the glasses, the braces and enthusiastic wardrobe she's just a, well, a rather extraordinary human being actually. By now you've seen the speeches and the interviews so you have an idea what I'm talking about. America Ferrera is as advertised.
I remember, before the show had premiered, while shooting my first episode I would often talk to her about "Your show," and how "you guys are going to be a hit!" America would say, "Our show," including me, and "you're a part of us now." I didn't know, at the time, that it would, in fact, work out that way, but I appreciated it.
The rest of the cast is amazing too, but I hesitate to say it because it sounds like such cliché bull****. Can I say that on TVGuide.com? (If the word "bull****" in the last sentence is removed, or edited, we now know that I cannot say it on TVGuide.com.) It's true, though. And they all give 110 percent. We're like a family.
Thank you Silvio, thank you America, thank you Jim P., Libby, Marco, Ben, Salma, Pepe, Jim H., Teri, Alice, Sheila, Oliver, Tracy, Jon, Gabrielle, Harry, Henry, Jack, Cameron, Dailyn, Veronica, Sarah, Eric, Vanessa, Alan, Ana, Tony, Ashley, Becki, Mark, Michael, Kevin, Rebecca and everyone else on
Ugly Betty for letting me crash the party.
Sorry about that. You'd think I'd won something.
All right, there's a new episode this week, guest starring Patti LuPone as Marc's mother, and it's fantastic! Henry's not around much, since Betty (rightfully) kind of broke up with him last week, but America and Michael are crazy funny together and the big dinner at the Suarez house will make you pee your pants. So check it out, tell your friends and be ugly.
