The cast of Ugly Betty celebrated tonight’s return with the first of four new episodes (ABC, 8 p.m. ET) and their early season 4 pickup with a panel discussion at New York City’s Paley Center for Media Wednesday night. EW’s own Jessica Shaw moderated the chat, which featured guests Vanessa Williams, Ana Ortiz, Mark Indelicato, Becki Newton, Tony Plana, and executive producer Silvio Horta among others. Here’s what we learned during the panel, followed by what I uncovered before it, speaking to members of the cast in the lobby (i.e. Vanessa Williams is counting the days until the return of RuPaul’s Drag Race.)
• Horta said Season 4 will feature the removal of Betty’s braces (!), the long-awaited musical episode (!!), and Justin starting at a performing arts high school (!!!).
• Upcoming guest stars in season 3′s final four episodes include Rachel Dratch (playing twins), Billie Jean King (with whom Wilhelmina plays tennis), Antonio Sabato Jr. (playing himself in a "hot fantasy sequence"), Tommy Hilfiger, and, of course, as previously reported, Adele. Christopher Gorham will return for one episode as Henry — and he’ll have a girlfriend. Christine Baranski will reprise her role as Matt’s mother. She and Wilhelmina get drunk and end up singing "The Man That Got Away." (That drew excited gasps from the crowd.) Ralph Macchio returns as Archie and wants to get Hilda involved in his campaign. ("I think she sees herself as sort of the Latina Michelle Obama," Ortiz told me.) Williams’ dream guest star would be Bette Midler. Newton’s? Paul Reubens.
• Other spoilers: There will be two wedding proposals — but only one wedding (at the planetarium). Baby William will be kidnapped. Amanda isn’t worried about her job — but she should be. Wilhelmina and Claire will reignite their feud. Mode will get a new boss…
• Trivia you may have known, but forgotten: Michael Urie (Marc) was only supposed to be a guest star, for one episode. Theoriginal plan was to have Wilhelmina fire a new assistant every week. After trying out a hundred pair of glasses, producers asked the show’scostume designer, Patricia Field, if they could give the pair she waswearing a go — they became Betty’s. Production designer Mark Worthington designed Mode‘s killer lobby based on one line in Horta’s pilot script referring to it as "iPod-esque." Some of the death stares Wilhelmina gives are borrowed from Williams’ mother. Plana (Ignacio) would love to put out a line of aprons and a cookbook. His title: Ugly Recipes for Beautiful Food. Horta will never put Betty and Daniel together. In his pilot script, he had a moment where they looked at each other in a way that would have left that door open, but the chemistry between the actors made them feel more like family.
After the jump, lobby conversation.
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