Embracing the ‘Ugly’

Silvio Horta is the 33-year-old creator and executive producer of ABC’s “Ugly Betty” -- which starts its post-strike run on Thursday.

Do you know when you’re writing crap?

Yeah. Right now, my process? I surrender to the fact that what I first put on paper will be crap. So at least I have crap to work with. Then hopefully it’s not crap anymore. Initially it’s OK, I’m just going to put it down -- put something down. And then from there, it will hopefully get better, and when something’s in good shape, I’ll let other people see it.

And whatever did you do during the strike? All we heard was that you were “redecorating.”

Well, I moved into a new place last year, so it was kind of bare and empty. So I started to actually furnish it. So I was picketing, and then I did some traveling around Christmas time. I went to Cuba for a week at one point -- and I knew the strike was coming to an end, and when we started working, there’d be no downtime for the foreseeable future -- so I cashed in my miles and went to London and Paris. And there I broke my foot. . . . Having that time to do nothing but sit down and think and reflect, I started to just gain a lot of perspective on the show and what we’d done and what we’d done well and what we hadn’t done well. I came back with renewed energy, a renewed clarity on what the show was and what I wanted to do with it.

Do you have that encapsulated in a 40-word version?

The heart is really what it comes down to. The show’s always been good and funny, but I started to feel in the beginning of the second season we got away from Betty and her point of view. It came down to basics -- and going back to what made the show a success and touched people. It was Betty.

Do you miss sci-fi -- the genre, not the channel? [Horta was an executive producer of “The Chronicle” on Sci Fi Channel.]

I definitely don’t miss the channel. Though there’s been about 30 regime changes since I was there. But the genre? To an extent. I’d like to do other things in that genre, but I’m happy where I am and doing what I’m doing.

Why is everyone afraid of [ABC Entertainment President] Stephen McPherson?

Um. I don’t know if everyone’s afraid. You know, um. No comment?

How gay is this show?

As far as content, or the staff, or?

I was thinking content -- but what about the staff?

Surprisingly heterosexual. A lot of straight white males that are actually fantastic at writing the show. And a lot of females. And a nice assortment, a couple of gays. It’s eclectic. How gay is the show? I think its having a strong kind of delicious villain as Wilhelmina is incredibly appealing to gay men. I loved Joan Collins growing up, and my mom thought I had a crush on Alexis -- she didn’t realize I wanted to be Alexis.

What about the season ahead of us? Where’s this going?

So the first episode back is going to be Betty’s birthday. And she is imagining a fantasy of the most amazing birthday of her life. It’s going to be her one and only birthday with Henry. And it’s not going to be exactly what she expected. . . .

And the episode after that, Wilhemina’s sister Renee, played by Gabrielle Union, has become involved with Daniel and things are going to start getting a little crazy. Literally. And Betty will find herself involved in this, and it’s, it’s going to get a little scary. We’ll learn some secrets about Renee. It’s going to inform what Betty’s going through on that episode. And Betty’s going to find herself at Justin’s junior high school dance, and she’s going to have to get a chance to do things that she never got a chance to do in junior high.

And we’re going to have this finale where there’s a big Elle versus Mode softball game for charity that Betty’s going to be drawn into playing even though she has horrible memories of dodge ball in junior high. But she’s going to get sucked into it, and it’s going to come at a time when she’s going to have to make a big choice in her life. And Daniel’s gonna have a couple surprises -- Wilhelmina’s going to come back to Mode. It’s jampacked! Really juicy.

It’s plot machination central. You must have index-card-filled storyboards.

Yeah, they’re very packed. But part of it too is kind of wanting to tell less stories but weightier stories. We were telling so many stories that it became just difficult to get deep inside of one. So we’re going to try to simplify it a bit.

How single are you? Is there not a lot of time for dating in this . . .

There’s not a lot of time, and I’ve -- there’s someone in my life who doesn’t live in town. It’s sort of new. So we’ll see!