Interview with "Ugly Betty'"s Silvio Horta

How did Horta feel being included amongst their august numbers? “It’s strange,” he said. “It’s bizarre. I can’t believe I’m here. I feel very lucky to be invited. I never equate what I do in the same league as many of them. But I guess I’m one of them. I don’t know.”

Greg Berlanti, Shonda Rhimes, Silvio Horta, Damon Lindelof, Carlton Cuse and Marc Cherry
Photo credit: Getty Images/Frederick M. Brown

Working in an industry that is relatively white and straight, does Horta feel any pressure to represent either the gay or Latino communities? “I don’t feel any pressure," said Horta. "I feel more pressure to deliver a really good story from week to week. I don’t feel the pressure to carry this ‘we are the ringbearers’ or ‘we are carrying the torch for the gay community’ or ‘we are carrying the torch for the Latino community’. God, I wouldn’t even come out of my bedroom – I’d be hiding if I felt that. I want to carry the torch for the show and the best thing for the show.”

And Horta doesn’t think in those terms while writing his characters either. He explained “I don’t go into the writing room and start breaking stories and think ‘what are we going to say to our gay audience’ or ‘what are we going to say to our Latino audience’. I think whenever we approach something that way it ends up being a little contrived and feels like we are making a statement or sending a message and it feels very forced. When we approach it a little more realistically and just have it come from the characters honestly, I think it ends up speaking to these groups and it represents something.”

As for a personal life, the hours involved in producing a show are long and intense making it difficult to have time for a private life. “You have to literally carve it out,” said Horta when asked how he finds free time. “My first year doing this, people would constantly ask me ‘Aren’t you happy? You must be thrilled. You’ve got a hit show. You must be having the time of your life.’ Well, no, I’m not. It’s all consuming. I was so exhausted by the time I got home on Friday night, I was just paralyzed. I didn’t want to go out. I didn’t want to socialize and I had so much work to do. That was it. That was my life. Now things have gotten easier. We have found our groove in many ways and we have a great support team and staff.”

In fact, though he doesn’t divulge any details, Horta is dating someone. “I’ve been seeing someone. It’s fairly new.” When asked if he would ever get married, Horta paused for a long moment, then said, “Potentially.”

What might come after Ugly Betty? Is there a dream project Horta would like to do one day? “I get too tired to think that far out. I started off doing features. I’d love to go back to that world in some way. Television is sort of so all consuming. It’s really difficult. But I would love to do some more in the feature world and just do more in TV and I – there’s a lot of ideas that I have and a lot of things I want to do and yet the biggest limitation is time. In order to pull it off correctly, I need to devote myself exclusively to it. There are certain people like, I’m always so impressed with Greg Berlanti who just – he has three shows on the air and he’s found a way to make it work and it’s great. It’s hard enough do to one and to do three is, it’s like a feat and I am impressed with him by what he does so much. I hope to do more.”