America Ferrera

America Georgine Ferrera (born April 18, 1984) is an American actress. She is the voice of Astrid Hofferson in the film How to Train Your Dragon. Ferrera also voices Astrid in the DreamWorks Dragons: The Series, and Dragons: Race to the Edge. She reprised her role as the voice of Astrid in How to Train Your Dragon 2 and its sequel How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World.

Biography[]

Ferrera is the youngest of six children who were born in Los Angeles, California, to parents who immigrated to the United States from Honduras in the mid-1970s. Ferrera's mother divorced her father and raised her and all of her 5 siblings by herself. She worked as a housecleaning staff director for a Hilton hotel, and always stressed the importance of higher education and learning to her children.

Ferrera was raised in the Woodland Hills section of Los Angeles, where she attended George Ellery Hale Middle School and El Camino Real High School. From the age of seven, when she landed a small role in a school production of Hamlet, Ferrera knew that she wanted to be a performer. She acted in school plays and community theatre in Los Angeles throughout her youth, though with little help from her mother, who insisted that she pursue other interests because she was concerned her daughter would encounter difficulties breaking into the industry. Ferrera was forced to take the bus to auditions, though eventually her mother saw her daughter’s dedication and began to drive her. Ferrera disliked her first name as a child and went by her middle name, "Georgine", until she began acting professionally.

Selected Filmography[]

Year	Title	Role(s)	Type of Media
2002	Real Women Have Curves	Ana Garcia	Feature film
2005	The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants	Carmen Lowell
2008	The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2	Carmen Lowell
2008	Tinker Bell	Fawn
2006–2010	Ugly Betty	Betty Suarez	Television series
2011–2013	The Good Wife	Natalie Flores
2015–2018	Superstore	Amelia "Amy" Dubanowski

DreamWorks Dragons Filmography[]

Year	Title	Role(s)	Type of Media
2010	How to Train Your Dragon	Astrid Hofferson	Feature film
2010	Legend of the Boneknapper Dragon		Short film
2011	Book of Dragons
2011	Gift of the Night Fury
2012–2013	Dragons: Riders of Berk		Television series
2013–2014	Dragons: Defenders of Berk		Television series
2014	How to Train Your Dragon 2		Feature film
2014	Dawn of the Dragon Racers		Short film
2015	Dragons: Race to the Edge		Television series
2016
2017
2018
2019	How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World		Feature film
	DreamWorks Dragons: Dawn of New Riders		Video game
	How to Train Your Dragon: Homecoming		Short film

Trivia[]

According to Douglas Sloan, Ferrera was happy to come aboard and voice Astrid in the television series and felt the same way about being the only one to play Astrid as Jay Baruchel felt about being the only to play Hiccup,^[1] feeling that it was important for Astrid's character that she remain consistent throughout the episodes and films.
Ferrera admitted in an interview that when she first started on How to Train Your Dragon, it was one of the first experiences she had ever had with voice acting, and she found it a lot more challenging than she was expecting, but brilliant fun.
At the premiere of How to Train Your Dragon 2 at the Cannes Film Festival in May of 2014, Ferrera was the victim of a journalist who had become notorious for pulling pranks on celebrities. He jumped out of the crowd and dived under the poufy skirt of her gown. Though shocked, she was not hurt and laughed the indecency off.
In January 2018, Ferrera announced she was expecting her first child, implying she was pregnant during much of her voice work on How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World.
- She gave birth to her first child, Sebastian, on May 29, 2018.
Ferrera wrote the foreword in The Art of How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World with Jay Baruchel. In this introduction, she expressed her delight at seeing Astrid: a strong, female character, who's opinions and views are respected. She explained that it meant "the world" to her.