America Ferrera is planning a return to TV.

The End Of Watch actress - who shot to fame on TV show Ugly Betty - is reportedly planning to star in telenovela project Pedro & Maria, a contemporary adaptation of William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet.

"Pedro and Maria are two opposites cut from the same cloth caught in the trap of forbidden love. He is a second generation Dominican from the mean streets of Washington Heights. She is a Puerto Rican whose parents made millions as real estate developers. It's a clash of the haves and the have-nots, of Main St vs. Wall St, set against a volatile cultural backdrop that fiercely believes neither side should mix with the other," the series synopsis states.

Although America found fame as the titular character in Ugly Betty - earning an Emmy Award and Golden Globe Award for her performance - she has previously admitted she nearly quit acting to follow her academic dream until one of her professors gave her some helpful encouragement:

"I always wanted to go to college and get my education although I always wanted to be an actor. I never knew how those two things would work with each other and this was revealed to me in my first year of college here," said the star - who graduated from the University of Southern California earlier this week.

She sought advice from Professor David Andrus, who used America's 2002 movie Real Women Have Curves - in which she plays a high school graduate torn between supporting her family and pursuing a university degree - to explain to her she could do both. "What my professor really wanted me to understand was that my passion for acting and what I loved doing in the world had the power to be a tool. In that moment I realized that I didn't have to give up what I love. I could find a way to link it to other things that I cared about," she said.