Interview with "Ugly Betty'"s Silvio Horta

Silvio Horta with cast of Ugly Betty (Photo credit: Film Magic/Matthew Imaging)

When Silvio Horta, the future executive producer of ABC’s Ugly Betty, was a high school student in Miami, he used to earn extra cash helping out his fellow students with some of their homework assignments. “There was a creative writing class,” Horta told AfterElton.com in an exclusive interview conducted during the Television Critics Association Summer Tour. “And people … would give me ten bucks to write one of their stories.”

Thus began the career of a man who would go on to help create a show that not only became a cultural touchstone, but is also one of the most gay-friendly to ever air on network television. 

As was the case with Justin Suarez, the Ugly Betty character he would so memorably create, the teenaged Horta most definitely wasn’t into sports. “I was more artistic,” said Horta. “Though I watched a lot of television, I loved to write. It’s what I was always good at in school.”

Even though the young Horta enjoyed writing and wrote well enough to get paid for it, he didn’t initially aspire to write because as a boy he didn’t realize it was actually possible to make a living at it. Fortunately, that was something he would figure out in time.

Horta describes his childhood as modest. His parents, immigrants from Cuba, divorced when he was six and his mother still only speaks Spanish. She worked at a grocery store while his father played guitar at a restaurant to support Horta and his sister

Horta first came out to himself at age eighteen. “At that point I started to tell people. By the time I told my family, my mom was prepared for it. I had the typical conversation with her and she was supportive and about a week later she freaked out and had another reaction … but she accepted it and we’re fine.”

After high school, Horta initially wanted to be a director and went to NYU film school to study the craft. After graduation, he took a day job to pay the bills and set about writing during his free time. When he decided to leave New York for Los Angeles in 1996, he wasn’t giving up much more than a “crappy job” spritzing perfume, a futon and a halogen light. He figured it wasn’t much of a risk to head to Hollywood to make it as writer.

Jared Leto in Urban Legend

The move turned out to be a smart one. Horta’s first big break came when he sold his screenplay Urban Legend to Hollywood. The horror film featured Jared Leto and was a modest surprise hit pulling in nearly $40 million at the U.S box office and $20 million more overseas. After writing the sequel, Horta made the jump to television writing for the SciFi Channel series The Chronicle (also known as News from the Edge). Less than two years later the now defunct UPN gave Horta his own show, the science fiction themed Jake 2.0.

While Jake 2.0 only lasted 16 episodes, it captured the attention of ABC who decided Horta was just the man to bring the adaptation of the Colombian hit Yo Soy Betty, La Fea to American viewers.

The U.S. version, titled Ugly Betty, made an immediate splash quickly becoming the most watched new series of the fall 2006 season. A slew of awards followed including Emmy, Golden Globes, and Directors Guild of America awards, each cementing Horta’s reputation as a writer and producer. But Horta wasn’t just any writer/producer – he was also a representative of the gay and Latino communities both of which took special note of his inclusive series – so much so that both the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) and the American Latino Media Awards (ALMA) showered Horta and the show with honors.

Horta posing with his ALMA and GLAAD awards
Photo credit: Getty Images

Gay viewers were taken not only by the show’s very gay sensibility, but by the character of Marc St. James played by Michael Urie as well as pre-teen Justin Suarez (Mark Indelicato) who reminded many gay men of their much younger selves.