Why We're Wild About Sofia Vergara

"I’m sorry I’m late, it’s that I just woke up!" laughs Sofia Vergara, at eleven-thirty on a Sunday morning in Los Angeles. "We worked until very late last night," says the 39-year-old in the rolling Colombian accent we’ve come to love from her character, Gloria, on Modern Family. About the late thing? We’ll forgive her, because this is one busy woman. Not only was she working on a shoot for CoverGirl (she is their new spokesperson), but she also just launched her Sofia Vergara for Kmart fashion line for women of all sizes. And she’s in not one but two new movies (Happy Feet Two and New Year’s Eve), while filming her Emmy-winning ABC show. Today, the seriously funny actress—who is mom to her own "Manny," 20-year-old son, Manolo—talks about everything from dreading workouts to the plastic surgery she’s so glad she decided not to get.

Q: The tagline of your fashion line is "Work what you got." How can we work what we’ve got?
A: Everybody has something. Somebody has a good pair of legs, even though her midsection is a little chunky. So then you can wear tights with miniskirts or you wear tight leggings. And if you have nice cleavage, wear things that enhance that.

Q: Was there a time you didn’tlove how you looked?
A: Oh, of course! Not everybody’s confident their whole life. For a long time, I thought that my boobs were too big and I was, like, 14 years old, and I already had these huge boobs. I was very skinny also. And now that I’m almost 40—we always have our insecurities as women. We’re never happy!

Q: Can you remember the day you started realizing, "Wait a minute, I think I’ve got it going on!"
A: In Latin America we do learn to be more comfortable with our bodies. Women are not shy to be in a bathing suit, in a G-string. But I also did a TV commercial for Pepsi when I was 17 on the beach in a bathing suit. And after that, everybody was like, "Oh my god, that body." And you know, you start to feel a little bit more confident if you have people thinking that you’re so fabulous! [Laughs]

Q: I guess it helps to have a cheerleading squad.
Of course, of course! When I moved to America, I was more voluptuous, and I felt a little different. And one time, years ago, I remember my publicist [at the time] told me, "I think you should just reduce your boobs because nobody’s going to take you seriously here." My mother almost had a heart attack. She was like, "God is going to punish you! You can’t cut your boobs!" I don’t regret not doing it, because now it’s become a big part of Gloria.

Q: What made you realize, "I’m going to keep my body the way it is"?
A: My mother screaming at me that God was gonna punish me—what else do you want! [Laughing]

Q: Oh, right, that would do it! Are you anti–plastic surgery in general?
A: I’m not against it at all. But I think that you should go into it more thinking that you want to look beautiful than trying to look young. Because I don’t really think that plastic surgery can make you look young. It can make you look prettier, but if you go with the mentality of being young, I think that’s where accidents can happen.