"Ugly Betty" airs Thursday nights at 8 PM EST on ABC!

Almost everybody has a little unrealized actor in themselves, but I found out recently that realizing that actor down deep inside doesn’t make me an actor! This week, on Thursday, February 12 at 8 PM, you can catch me in an episode of ABC’s “Ugly Betty,” titled “The Courtship of Betty’s Father.”

I have four lines in this episode. I don’t want you to miss them. I am seen answering America Ferrera’s questions about another character, the tempestuous and devious rich woman, Claire Meade. (She is portrayed by the excellent Judith Light who was the star of “Who’s the Boss?”)

Click here for photos of the cast of "Ugly Betty."     

On the day of filming, I went out to Long Island City to join the “Ugly Betty” gang. They are a good happy group, enjoying the unusual thrill of filming their sitcom in New York. Some of them, of course, are missing husbands, wives, lovers, children and pets back in Los Angeles. But on the whole, they are cheerful and friendly and very, very young.

I sat in my dressing room trying to memorize my lines for what seemed like forever. Finally, the costume people came to inspect me and pronounced what I was already wearing as “just right.” That cheered me up. But the memorizing was hell. I just couldn’t get my four sentences exactly right. (I was reminded that an actor once told me it is much easier to memorize unusual writing like Shakespeare’s than to memorize the banality of everyday speaking.) I kept at it. Judith Light came to visit me. Bernadette Peters, who was playing a visiting role, came to visit me. Finally, after hours alone, I thought I had the four sentences I was to speak just right. The director then said to me, as I went on the actual set: “Oh, just say whatever you want. Improvise. Give us the gist of it.” The memorization went right out of my head.

I did enjoy a brief personal chat with the divine and sweet America Ferrera who is, in real life, very much as she appears in the sitcom – smart and helpful and tenderhearted.

I asked America if it was hell to have an unusual name when growing up.

“Yes, it was. I didn’t like being so unusual. So my family always called me Georgie and other people did, too. But then I realized that being named America is a great thrill and a real privilege. So now that the public knows me as America, I have gotten used to it and I am very proud of my name!”

I gave my lines to America on camera in a dark room where she purported to be interviewing me, the columnist Liz Smith, for a tribute to Claire. This was a strange feeling — just me and America. On the other hand, there were about 100 technicians, people flipping powder puffs, slap boards, giving corrections, flicking things off one’s lapel and whispering in the dark behind the camera.

I think acting must be the hardest job in the world. I love the “Ugly Betty” guys for doing it for us.

Click here on this text to read my New York Post column.