America Ferrera has had quite the thrilling award season, thanks to her standout performance in Barbie (which earned the actor her first-ever Academy Award nomination). But she hasn’t been attending the big events alone. Throughout all the red carpets and ceremonies, Ferrera has had one person by her side: her husband, Ryan Piers Williams.
The couple met while working on a short film together, several years before they tied the knot in New York City—and long before Williams, who is an actor himself (as well as a producer, director, and screenwriter), made a hilarious cameo in Barbie as Ferrera’s onscreen husband.
So, who exactly is Ryan Piers Williams? Ahead, we break down everything we know about the Hollywood creative.
He also works in movies.
While Ferrera has been a staple on our screens for quite some time now, her hubby is also no stranger to Hollywood.
According to IMDb, Williams has appeared in a number of films, including Blues, Tomorrow Comes Today, X/Y, and 1985. He also made the aforementioned cameo in Barbie, playing the husband of Ferrera’s character Gloria and father of Gloria’s daughter, Sasha.
Williams is also a writer, director, and producer, and served as all three on his 2007 short film Muertas and the drama X/Y. He also wrote and directed The Dry Land, and produced Kilimanjaro.
He has collaborated with America on multiple projects.
Besides Barbie, Williams and Ferrera have worked together on a number of occasions—and in fact, first met in 2005 when Williams was casting Muertas, his first film. At the time, Ferrera was finishing up her undergraduate degree at the University of Southern California, and she nabbed the role of Rebecca in the short. (Ferrera ended up dropping out of USC to pursue her acting career, but she completed her bachelor’s later, in 2013.)
While working on Muertas, the pair began dating, and would collaborate again in 2010 on The Dry Land, and in 2014 on X/Y.
He always wanted to be a filmmaker.
Williams’s demonstrated a passion for film at a young age. He studied the medium at the University of Texas at Austin before transferring to the University of Southern California after two and a half years. But his interest goes back even further.
In an interview with USC’s Cinematic Arts department, Williams said, “I’ve wanted to be a director since I was 13. When I was in middle and high school, I was in theater and video production classes. Every day I would write, shoot, and edit news stories for our school, as well as act in plays. I had a great love for journalism and for storytelling. Instead of choosing one over the other, I [decided] that filmmaking would be the best of both worlds.”
Oh, and he’s a low-key artist.
In addition to his many other skills onscreen and off, Williams also has a talent for painting. In fact, the filmmaker often shares his work—which is usually very colorful and abstract—on Instagram.
He and America married in 2011.
After over half a decade together, Williams and Ferrera tied the knot in 2011, in an intimate ceremony in Chappaqua, New York. The nuptials were held at the home of Ferrera’s Ugly Betty costar Vanessa Williams. For the event, Ferrera wore a dress from Amsale’s Christos label, along with Fred Leighton earrings.
A few of the celebrity guests included Williams, Rebecca Romijn (and husband Jerry O’Connell), and Blake Lively, Ferrera’s longtime friend and costar in 2005’s The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. According to the Knot, there was even a celebrity officiant: Judith Light. (Romijn and Light were also both on Ugly Betty with Ferrera.)
They have two kids.
After a few years of wedded bliss, Ferrera and Williams welcomed their first child in May 2018, a son named Sebastian. Ferrera announced the news in a since-deleted Instagram post that read: “When 2 becomes 3 … Welcome Sebastian Piers Williams – aka Baz! Mom, Dad and Baby are happy, healthy and totally in love!”
And in 2020, she and Williams welcomed a daughter, Lucia. Ferrera shared an equally excited post this time around, writing, “LUCIA MARISOL WILLIAMS arrived on May 4th to give me my Mother’s Day hugs and kisses herself. Mama, Dada & Big Brother are over the moon to welcome her bright light to our family.”
Joel is the editorial and social media assistant for HarpersBAZAAR.com, where he covers all things celebrity news. When he steps away from the keyboard, you can likely find him singing off-key at concerts, scavenging thrift stores for loud wardrobe staples, or perusing bookstores for the next great gay romance novel.
