5 things we learned at the 'Ugly Betty' cast reunion

AUSTIN, Texas — It was a Suarez family reunion but also so much more. 

Nearly 10 years after ABC's Ugly Betty debuted, 10 key cast members — including America Ferrera, Vanessa Williams, Rebecca Romijn and Eric Mabius — and creator Silvio Horta came together once again for the ATX Television Festival, where they recalled memories, may have planted the seeds for a Hulu reunion movie and revealed some things you may have never known about the show. 

Here are some things we learned:

Michael Urie was 'snuck' into the regular cast

For years, Michael Urie, who played sharp-tongued executive assistant Marc, operated under the belief that his role on the show was supposed to be a one-and-done role, with the plan being to give Mode boss Wilhelmina a new assistant every week. But Horta revealed that wasn't exactly the case. 

As he explained it, because of budgetary constraints, the network only allowed so many regular positions, so the "way to sneak people into" the cast was to bill them as a guest star until the show was picked up. This came as news to Urie, who joked, "I've been telling that story wrong for 10 years."

Horta told Urie: "Once you came on, there was never going to be another assistant." 

Mark Indelicato felt a special connection to his young gay character

Mark Indelicato was 11 years old when he took on the role of Justin Suarez, Betty's young, flamboyant nephew who during the show's run had an arc about coming out as gay. 

At the time, Indelicato revealed, he too was trying to navigate his own sexual orientation, so the storyline hit him on a personal level. 

"We were going through this process at the same time," he said. "What you see on screen was so so personal and so real to me... I don't think that I had the understanding to realize the impact that the story would have on other young people or on people who wished that they had a character like that on when they were going through that process." 

Ferrera praised her former co-star's handling of both the material and the questions that were turned toward him as a young actor on the show. 

"Truly, truly, truly, [Indelicato] handled that role ... with such grace and you can never look back and know for yourself what you represented at that time," she told him, "but you did magical work with what you were given." 

The fashion was as fun to put together as you'd expect

Iconic costume designer Pat Fields may not have been on stage, but the cast spent a chunk of time paying ode to the woman who gave the characters their signature looks.

She even contributed in a very major way to Betty's iconic look, Ferrera revealed. 

During the original costume fitting, Ferrera recalled she and Fields were having trouble finding an outfit and choosing Betty's glasses. With their options endless but the perfect pair still unfound, Fields reached to the glasses on her own face and put them on Ferrera. 

"I put them on my face, those were Betty's glasses," Ferrera said. "Personally, I feel like my character came alive because of what Pat contributed to the whole show."

'Ugly Betty' wasn't the original title

Would you have watched a show called Betty the Ugly? Well, Horta certainly didn't want you to. But that was almost the moniker given to the show.

The first written mentions about the show prior to its premiere even referred to the show by Betty the Ugly, which was the network's preferred name. 

But Horta stuck strong.  

"I just kept putting Ugly Betty on every script because we refused to call it that," he said. 

Obviously, he won that battle.

The cast wants to do a reunion movie

One year after Gilmore Girls reunited on the ATX stage and scored itself a Netflix reboot shortly after, Ugly Betty hopes to have its own on-screen reunion. 

Ferrera even encouraged the audience to use #HuluBringBackUglyBetty to voice their desire for the project, which she envisions as a two-hour movie. 

"If we were to do something, everybody on this stage would have to be involved," Horta said. 

That, of course, probably wouldn't be too hard, considering it took a mere 20 minutes for the cast to commit to the ATX reunion back in March, according to Ferrera.