Sofía Vergara seems Emmy bound for her performance as Griselda Blanco. Welcome to MsMojo, and today we’re discussing how actress Sofía Vergara got ready for her role as the titular Griselda Blanco in the 2024 Netflix series.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00 "Everything, everything was, it's fake. But the acting was real."
00:04 Welcome to Ms. Mojo, and today we're discussing how actress Sofia Vergara got ready for her role
00:11 as the titular Griselda Blanco in the 2024 Netflix series.
00:15 "I feel like they only changed your nose or something. I don't know what they did,
00:19 like they didn't, like they changed."
00:20 "Are you crazy?"
00:21 "No, I'm saying…"
00:22 From Gloria to Griselda
00:25 For over a decade, audiences grew to love Colombian actress Sofia Vergara as the fun
00:30 and fiery Gloria Delgado Pritchett on ABC's Modern Family.
00:34 "I want you to know this, where I come from, men cherish women. It goes wife,
00:39 mistress, dog, dog. Always at the bottom."
00:42 In 2020, the year the show came to an end, she joined America's Got Talent as a judge.
00:47 Over the years, the actress added entrepreneur to her resume, juggling several business ventures
00:52 in the fashion, furniture, and fragrance industries, among others. However, Vergara
00:57 had something of a passion project she'd been wanting to make about the famous and feared
01:01 drug queenpin Griselda Blanco. "You've been working on this for a while."
01:04 "Yeah, like for 15 years, but it was like a lot of things happening. It was like a very,
01:10 you know, controversial character."
01:13 Like a lot of people, especially fans of true crime,
01:16 Sofia Vergara learned more about Blanco from 2006's Cocaine Cowboys. And although she didn't
01:21 necessarily fully relate to the late queenpin, she recognized their similarities, notably that
01:27 they were both from Colombia and immigrated to the United States. Both women were also young mothers.
01:32 "The character is like insane. I mean, it was a woman that was raising four kids while she was
01:40 becoming, you know, a monster." Interestingly, Vergara named her son Manolo after a character
01:46 from Scarface. Blanco, meanwhile, got her fourth and only surviving son's name, Michael Corleone,
01:51 from a movie she was a huge fan of, The Godfather.
01:54 "Michael, is it true?"
01:56 "Don't ask me about my business, Kate."
02:00 Vergara knew this was a role she could take on. Next came convincing creatives and executives
02:06 that she was ready to make the leap from comedy to drama.
02:09 "I think in real life it's always funny. There are comedic moments, even when we're in pain,
02:15 even when we're in trouble, even when we're suffering. It's a comedy."
02:20 In 2015, she got in touch with Narcos & Narcos Mexico executive producer/showrunner Eric Newman,
02:27 along with series director Andres Baez, and they teamed up to bring Blanco to screen.
02:32 In addition to leading the series, Vergara also held the title of executive producer.
02:36 "What you need to know is that if you work for me, you're going to have a purpose and you're going to
02:43 have respect." Embodying the godmother. Sofia Vergara had already done extensive research,
02:50 but learning the facts was just the first step in her preparation to actually become Griselda Blanco.
02:55 "There's very, very little in the sense of pictures or videos, so I was able to create
03:03 something that suited me for the character." Physicality is always essential when it comes
03:09 to stepping into a character, especially one so different from the actor, and Blanco was relatively
03:14 unknown in the mainstream. Since she was so low-key, there were few visual references for
03:19 Vergara to study. But she wanted to be as authentic as possible and committed to crafting a different
03:24 body language for the character. "I wanted not to walk like me or Gloria, not to stand like that,
03:30 not to use my hands in any way that was sexy and very Latin." She even came up with mannerisms and
03:38 tics for Blanco, like how she fiddles with her ring when she's anxious. But one choice left
03:42 Vergara with a back injury during production. "I created this body position that after three
03:47 months got me in trouble. I had to get injected in my lower back from walking in this bad position,
03:55 and then I had to do it for three more months." Becoming Blanco also meant the actress needed to
04:01 emulate her behavior, which included smoking cigarettes, something Vergara didn't previously
04:06 know how to do. Obviously, we're talking about fake substances here, but even just learning how
04:10 to hold a cigarette was important. "When I was getting ready to play this character, and we
04:15 will see that he told me all these things, and you know, it was amazing because I was 51 years old,
04:20 and I didn't even know how to, you know, how to light a cigarette." Throughout the series,
04:24 she's rarely without one in her hand or mouth, which isn't surprising given the time periods in
04:29 which the story unfolds. Transforming Sofia Sofia Vergara is well known for her stunning looks,
04:35 which were frequently mentioned in Modern Family, but she didn't want people to see her or her past
04:40 work when watching Griselda, and needed to inhabit her new character. So when it came to playing
04:45 Blanco, she needed a total physical transformation that went beyond hair and makeup. "We decided was
04:50 that she had to be different than Sofia, but we shouldn't imitate Griselda Blanco." The masterful
04:56 team behind the scenes, headed by Angela Nogaro and Dennis Parker, altered her look using multiple
05:02 prosthetics on her nose and eyebrows. Particular attention went to Vergara's distinct brows,
05:07 which were covered with more silicone prosthetics. Makeup artist Todd McIntosh then gave her thinner
05:13 faux ones to reflect the beauty trends of the late 1970s. "I had plastic from here to here,
05:20 because we needed to cover my eyebrows are very thick, and I wanted me to disappear,
05:24 and I think that was one of my features that is very strong." Vergara's teeth also needed to look
05:29 less perfect and more like those of a heavy smoker. She was fitted with a top plate of fake
05:34 ones that appeared discolored, and since having a bottom plate affected her speech, her lower teeth
05:38 were yellowed to match. "Que tenemos que hacer? Darle una probadita." In the show, Vergara played
05:46 Blanco through many years, capturing everything from her early days making a name for herself in
05:51 the '70s, to her serving jail time in the '80s. McIntosh made sure to reflect the character's
05:56 growth and/or descent with darker shades of lipstick and eye makeup. As the miniseries
06:01 ends with her imprisoned when older, a prosthetic was added to the actress's neck to match the age
06:06 she was playing. "Who did this? We're not sure. We imagine that they were waiting until your time
06:14 here was almost done." Vergara also wore different wigs throughout the series. Making sure she looked
06:19 like a stylish but average woman of the time, hairstylist Kelly Kline removed some of the glamour
06:24 and volume. Before we continue, be sure to subscribe to our channel and ring the bell to
06:32 get notified about our latest videos. You have the option to be notified for occasional videos
06:38 or all of them. If you're on your phone, make sure you go into your settings and switch on
06:43 notifications. When it came to wardrobe, Vergara found another way to change her physical appearance
06:49 was by compressing her natural body shape using special figure-hugging undergarments like Spanx.
06:54 She and the rest of the cast were also decked out in vintage duds by costume designer Sarah
06:58 Evelyn Bram and Safawa Bright-Asare. "Some of these clothes are just absolutely incredible.
07:04 The grittiness and yet colorfulness of Miami. I cannot stress enough how incredible the job
07:10 that our department heads have done just bringing that to life." To complete the application of
07:15 prosthetics, makeup, hair, and wardrobe, Vergara reportedly sat through a roughly three-hour-long
07:20 process, not to mention the lengthy time it took to remove it all. It was all worth it in the end,
07:25 though, because she completely disappeared into the role. "It's no longer the actor. No one ever
07:31 saw her on set as Sofia by the time she left her makeup trailer. She was Griselda." What did you
07:36 think of Sofia Vergara's transformation? Let us know in the comments below. "It has a specific
07:42 feel, a specific identity. It has an integrity." Do you agree with our picks? Check out this other
07:48 recent clip from Ms. Mojo. And be sure to subscribe and ring the bell to be notified about our latest
07:54 videos.
08:01 [BLANK_AUDIO]