EMMY AWARDS

"Ugly Betty"

The wonderful crazy whirlwind

SILVIO HORTA is the creator of "Ugly Betty," easily one of the most buzzed-about new shows of last season, but you wouldn't know it from talking to him.

"It honestly didn't hit me until after the Golden Globes that people were really loving the show," he said. "You work so incredibly hard and live in this bubble. You see the numbers but it doesn't really impact your reality until something big happens. I felt like Sally Field at the Oscars. It was shocking to me."

But who wouldn't fall in love with this bouncy show about a hard-working ugly duckling who enters the world of fashion magazines and, one full season in, still hasn't had a swanlike transformation?

"She's a fashion disaster," said "Ugly Betty" star America Ferrera of her character, "but she has the heart and intelligence to really succeed in business. And instead of the people around her changing her, she changes them."

"There is something so simple about it," Horta said. "Betty is the core. You can't help but root for her and everything else is like a soufflé — this gay, wonderful world that's fun to write for."

Horta created this particular "Ugly Betty," but he did not create the concept. The show is a remake of the Colombian telenovela "Yo Soy Betty la Fea" (which Horta watched with his mother while growing up in Miami). NBC actually started developing an American version of the show five years ago — originally as a sitcom. Then ABC got hold of it, Salma Hayek got involved and it was re-imagined as an hourlong comedy-drama.

Horta has some concerns as "Ugly Betty" moves into its second season though. "It's scary," he said. "Season 2 is sort of make or break time of whether a show has legs." And for a show with so many twists and turns, "Ugly Betty" has the potential to be twisted out of its successful shape.

"It challenges us," said Horta. "How do you move the show forward and step this thing out in a way that doesn't feel like a different show but is still progressing the show?"

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