Michael Urie, America Ferrera.Photo:Santiago Felipe/Getty; Warner Bos./Courtesy Everett
Santiago Felipe/Getty; Warner Bos./Courtesy Everett
Michael Urieis praisingAmerica Ferrera’s performance in the year’s biggest film.
As Urie, 43, spoke with PEOPLE recently about his starring role in theBroadway revival ofSpamalot, the actor recounted seeing Ferrera, 39, in herBarbierole as Gloria this summer.
“She is so good inBarbieand it was very cool to go," Urie says of Ferrera, whom he costarred with on ABC’sUgly Bettyfor the entirety of its four-season run from 2006 to 2010. “My partner and I went with his mom and our nephew in the suburbs of Michigan on opening weekend, andlots of people dressed up.
“It was so cool to see and she is just terrific in it, and it was cool to let her know afterwards, send her a picture of us and say, we went to see this with our nephew and everything,” he adds, noting that much ofUgly Betty’s cast “keep in touch.”
“Certainly anytime an anniversary comes around — I think we just had our [17th] year since the show premiered or something like that, which is wild,” Urie adds. “I keep in touch with [costar] Becki Newton all the time. We text almost every day.”
America Ferrera and Michael Urie in ‘Ugly Betty’.Patrick Harbron/ABC/courtesy Everett
Patrick Harbron/ABC/courtesy Everett
Ugly Bettyfollows Ferrera’s title character Betty Suarez as she earns a personal assistant job at a fictional New York City fashion magazine,Mode. Urie played Marc St. James, another personal assistant at the magazine.
More than a decade after ABC canceledUgly Bettyfollowing its fourth season, Urie tells PEOPLE that he feels the series has gained a second life after itbegan streaming on Netflixin August.
“It’s reaching this whole new generation of people,” he says. “I get to hear from people on the autograph line outsideSpamalotsay, ‘My mom just showed meUgly Bettybecause she grew up with it.’ "
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“On the one hand it’s like, wow, we’re getting old, and on the other hand, it’s just so nice that it still matters to people and that the show is enough ahead of its time that it’s still relevant and it’s not cringey,” Urie adds.
Michael Urie in Spamalot.Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman
Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman
Although the show has been off the air for years, Urie says he continues to find thatUgly Betty’smaterial is “still really fresh.”
“I’ll always be grateful to [costars] Vanessa Williams and Judith Light and Tony Plana for sort of being our mentors on that show because so many of us, we hadn’t done anything,” he says. Urie’s run on the series marked his first role as a series regular just a few years into his acting career.
Monty Python’s Spamalotis now playing on Broadway.
source: people.com
