America Ferrera Reflects on the Ugly Betty Costume She Hated to Wear the Most: ‘Look at How Sad I Am’

America Ferrera had to wear a lot of interesting outfits while starring as the lead in Ugly Betty, but there’s one that stands out to her as particularly terrible.

Ferrera, 41, appeared on the Sept. 11 episode of Late Night with Seth Meyers, and Meyers, 51, reminded her that Ugly Betty premiered almost 20 years ago, when Ferrera was just 21 years old. 

Ferrera said it’s “the craziest” to run into people who “weren’t born when we finished the show” who have turned into major fans. “And they’re like, ‘I just discovered Ugly Betty, and my mom and I watch it every night.’ It’s just so sweet that it still resonates,” she said, before adding, “I’m sure a lot of the jokes are probably quite dated. And like, we couldn’t do those jokes today.”

Meyers noted that to get into character as “ugly” Betty Suarez, she had to wear glasses and braces for every episode. Those things didn’t bother Ferrera, but there was one outfit that did: a hot dog costume.

“Look at how sad I am in that picture,” Ferrera said, gesturing to the photo Meyers was holding up.

“This is nothing compared to how sad you are in the next picture,” Meyers said, showing a photo of Ferrera in the hot dog costume lying on garbage bags.

“I think that was scripted,” Ferrera said as she laughed. “I did not just sit down.”

Meyers showed another photo of a production assistant feeding Ferrera a banana while she was still in costume. “The PA had to feed me the banana because I couldn’t get my hands around the hot dog,” the Oscar nominee explained. 

“I was in that hot dog suit for what felt like forever,” she said, though in actuality it was “five to eight days.” Every day on set, she’d get told, “Good morning, America. Are you ready for your hot dog suit?”

“It was like the worst,” she said, noting that filming the episode in summertime made it even more terrible.

But Ferrera’s misery was a little bit of a meta-moment, since in the season four episode, titled “The Wiener, The Bun, and The Boob,” Betty is assigned an article about the worst jobs in New York. Marc (Michael Urie) is her assistant for the episode, and he ends up wearing the hot dog bun. 

Meyers said, “Your character was miserable to be in it, and it probably was not too much of a leap as an actor to find that.” Ferrera agreed, “It was not a leap.”

The hot dog costume made a reappearance in Ugly Betty’s final season. Near the end of the series, Betty is finally freed from her braces (though her glasses, of course, remain). 

Speaking to PEOPLE back in 2006 when the show premiered, Ferrera said she felt “ugly” roles were “enticing.”

“It’s fun as an actress to go somewhere extreme. I’m okay if people don’t know who I am, but if you remember my character, that would be great,” she said, adding that she felt more comfortable being Betty than she did hitting the red carpet in glam. 

In 2023, she reflected on the possibility of reuniting the Ugly Betty cast. “I think there has been a deep desire there for a long time, because our Ugly Betty family is so close, and so we love each other so much,” she told Entertainment Tonight. “I think we’d all come back in a heartbeat. You know, I don’t know! It takes a lot of work to get a thing off the ground. Maybe we’ll figure it out.”

Her bond with her character remains deep. “Betty is my heart,” she said. “I would be thrilled [to play her again].”