America Ferrera is having a great year. Her powerful speech in Barbie earned its place in cinematic history as a major cultural moment and she was just nominated for her first Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. I’m a huge fan of America, so I’m thrilled that she’s getting the recognition she deserves. (I know I say this often but if you’re looking for a new sitcom to binge, go watch Superstore!)
Last week, America appeared on Late Night with Seth Meyers to talk about the movie, her Oscar nomination, and her different experiences at Oscar events. At one point, she shared that she met Martin Scorsese at an Oscar event and was starstruck saying hi to him, prompting Seth to ask her if that happens often. America responded by telling a story about the time she met Leonardo DiCaprio and cried.
Appearing on Late Night with Seth Meyers on Friday, the 39-year-old Barbie star explained that being starstruck will “sneak up on you” at industry events, before she detailed one celebrity encounter in particular that left her “weeping.”
As she explained, it usually happens when she meets someone she had a “childhood connection” to, such as when she met DiCaprio, now 49, at the 2007 Screen Actors Guild Awards, where she won an award for her performance in Ugly Betty.
“I watched Titanic in the movie theaters seven times. [I was] 13, 14 [years old], prime time to be in love with Leonardo DiCaprio, right? OK, so first time I went to the SAG Awards, and I had won for Ugly Betty, I had been onstage and the whole thing,” she recalled. “I was feeling kind of like, ‘I belong here, this is cool.’ ”
At the awards show, she ended up saying “hello” to DiCaprio. “And I promptly departed [from] him, went around the corner and just started weeping,” Ferrera said.
“And my husband, then-boyfriend, was with me and he was like, ‘I am so embarrassed right now.’ ”
Ferrera’s spouse, Ryan Piers Williams, whom she wed in 2011, then encouraged Ferrera to “stop crying.”
“I hope Leonardo DiCaprio never sees this,” Ferrera told Meyers, who joked that he “probably won’t.”
That is SO funny. I’ve been trying to think of which celebrity I’d be so starstruck that I’d cry if I met them and I don’t know! Honestly, I think it would be Judy Blume. There are celebrities that I’ve admired or would love to meet, but Judy’s books meant so much to me when I was growing up that I could see myself becoming emotional if I ever met her. I would also love to sit in on a Fiona Apple recording session and see how her genius works. Oh, and Gillian Anderson would definitely inspire a lot of feels. I wouldn’t have cried meeting Leo, though. I was more of a Devon Sawa girl growing up. Those five minutes he’s on screen during Casper…
You can watch America’s entire segment with Seth below. They tell more funny stories, including Seth joking about which famous person he met that made him cry (at least, I think he was joking!) and which Full House star she was thrilled to have met. She also talks about meeting Tom Hanks and trying to hold it together as he said nice things to her. It’s a fun interview and she comes across as a really nice, down-to-earth person.
photos credit: Xavier Collin / Image Press Agency / Avalon, Jeffrey Mayer / Avalon and Getty