America Ferrera Hits Sundance - long Yahoo

Hey guys, it's Michelle Marie coming to you from the Fred Segal Fun Lounge.

We're here with Young Hollywood and Vitamin Water.

We are here with America Ferrera.

Now your movie the Dry Land, you know that movie and your role in the movie, very different from Ugly Betty.

So tell me more about your role.

The film is about a a soldier who returns from the war and I play his young wife.

He comes back to his kind of small town life in Texas and it's just about, you know, his reintegration and and our relationship and you know, how to reconnect and be a husband and wife again after an experience like that.

And you know what?

It's one of those roles that I'm sure it probably hit home because of the the topic and all of that.

What did you do to actually research and what kind of things did you really do to help yourself?

Our director Ryan Williams sought out the support of the US Army, which was wonderful because it gave us resources like they put me in contact with women whose husbands had returned with post traumatic stress disorder and I I got to interview them and really get involved and then the young men who play soldiers in the movie, even though there aren't any like scenes in Iraq or in the war, they trained with the National Guard and so we had, you know, a lot of those kind of resources available to us.

You know, another thing too about this movie I know is that you have a lot of really great star studded Young Hollywood people that are actually with you.

What did you love about working with all of them?

Well, you know, everyone was so committed to the film and committed to telling this story and and like Wilmer Valderrama, Jason Ritter, we have Melissa Leo, Academy Award nominated actress and you know, we made it for nothing.

And and it's just, you know, it's what Sundance is about those small independent films that you get by on, you know, asking for a lot of favors and scrounging the money and and and you know, people who are just committed to telling a story and we had an amazing time working together.

Right.

How are you gonna actually get them to watch this movie because I know they're so used to seeing you in the other role.

I think uh it's definitely different than what uh people are used to seeing me in every week as Betty.

Um so that's new and exciting but um but also it's a really important story and and it's one that's so relevant to our generation and it's going to become more relevant as as our soldiers men and women start coming back home.

Now for the viewers out there that don't know about Sundance, if you were to sum it up, what would you say it's like out here?

I mean it's pretty crazy.

You bring all of LA to here.

Well, yeah, I mean it's sort of it's hard to explain in a sentence but it's sort of two kind of completely different worlds colliding in Park City, which is a third completely different world but especially this year what people have been talking about so much is is bringing it back to what it's really about, which is which is these films, these independent filmmakers who are making it happen with nothing, you know, going out there with a half a million dollars, quarter of a million dollars, getting good actors, discovering new talent and telling stories that, you know, aren't going to be seen in a theater near you, you know but but that are still worth telling and still worth watching.

And then you get fun swag here at Fred Segal.

I mean it's one of the best lounges.

How did you like your experience here?

You know, it's fun it's always really I awkward and I never quite um understand how to walk away with something that I didn't pay for.

But um I guess it's a part of it.

If you were to make maybe like a vitamin water of your flavor because there's a few that are we actually drank like revive to get ready.

What would you put in your Vitamin Water if you were to choose one to to keep you going here at Sundance?

Uh, I like bananas and I like oranges.

So fruity flavor.

So a fruity flavor probably.

If you were to name your own drink, what would you name it?

I have no idea.

If I were you, I would name it the America.

All right, I'll go with that.

That's a good one.

Hi, I'm America Ferrera and I'm here at Sundance premiering my new film, the Dry Land, and I'm at the Fred Segal Fun Lounge.