Sofía Vergara reigns in ‘Griselda,’ leaving ‘Modern Family’ character behind

Sofía Vergara reigns in ‘Griselda,’ leaving ‘Modern Family’ character behind. The star produces and stars in the miniseries about Griselda Blanco, the person most feared by Pablo Escobar.

By Megan Sauer

We talked to her about cigarettes, prosthetics and her relationship with ‘Modern Family.’

One of the most anticipated series of the year arrives in the Netflix catalog.

As the headliner (pun intended), Sofía Vergara steps into the shoes of Griselda Blanco, one of the most feared drug traffickers in Latin America before the arrival of Pablo Escobar, in what is her first time acting entirely in Spanish.

The Colombian actress, almost unrecognizable in her characterization of what is known as “The Black Widow” of the Medellín cartel, offers a feminine twist to the universe of drug trafficking.

Griselda Blanco, with whom she shares the fact of being a Colombian immigrant and single mother who came to the US to build an empire, is the starting point on which Andi Baiz and Eric Newman (‘Narcos’ tandem) build the action.

In addition to being the protagonist, Sofia Vergara produces the fiction based on the true story of “the godmother of cocaine”, just at the moment in which she introduces her illicit business in Miami.

“The only person I was afraid of was a woman named Griselda Blanco,” said Pablo Escobar about the character of Sofía Vergara, who leaves behind the comedy ‘Modern Family’ to negotiate, fight and even kill.

The cast is completed by Karol G (“dear friend” of the interpreter, whom she admired before meeting), Ernesto Alterio and Alberto Ammann. It was not an easy road.

“Sometimes I felt that she was not prepared because she had never done a drama, not even in Spanish, and even less so as the protagonist,” Vergara confessed in her interview.

“But that was also what attracted me to the project, that I was going to be able to see if I was capable of doing it and have that different experience.”

The characterization, which helped the protagonist with the identity of her character, results in an unrecognizable Vergara. “They finished putting on my makeup, putting on my hair, my nose and everything, and when she looked at me, she wasn’t happy.

I knew that I couldn’t exactly look like Griselda Blanco, because she and I didn’t look alike. What I wanted was for Gloria to disappear. Pritchett, my character on ‘Modern Family’.

Until, in one of the tests, I looked in the mirror and said, ‘There he is.'” In each scene, the actress holds, cigar in hand, the gaze of a woman determined to change her destiny.

“I was very afraid that, at 50 years old, I had never smoked and I had to start from scratch because I did it in almost every scene.

In the United States you are not allowed to have real cigarettes on the set, so they were herbal. But They are worse, because they give a horrible headache,” he laughs.

The change of record, breaking with the 11 years of comedy in ‘Modern Family’, was quite a challenge for the actress. When it’s something dramatic, your body doesn’t know that you’re not living those experiences.

That you’re not killing, that you’re not “They are killing you, you are not fighting and screaming… I was going home in a very bad mood because you take all those sensations inside your body.” What we did not expect to find was the murderous impetus of Vergara, who wields her bat with a force capable of frightening Escobar himself.

We worked a lot on the fight scenes with the director, Andi Baiz,” she says. “I’m not afraid of directors directing me, in fact, I ask them because, really, I’m learning.”