Sofia Vergara Is Nearly Unrecognizable As A Drug Queenpin For New Series
Sofia Vergara looks almost fully transformed in the newest images from her upcoming series. She's playing a drug queenpin in the show
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Sofia Vergara is hoping to prove that she’s way more than just a pretty face in the new Netflix limited series about the life of real-life drug queen-pin Griselda Blanco. The streaming giant released the first image of Sofia Vergara in her costume and makeup for the show Griselda and it’s hard to see any glimpse of the Modern Family actress behind the veil of this dark yet somehow inspirational figure. The image sees her in full hair and makeup, possibly some prosthetics to help her complete the look, as she gives someone off-camera a fiery stare while puffing on a cigarette.
In addition to starring as the title character, the Columbian-born Sofia Vergara is executive producing Griselda alongside Eric Newman, best known for overseeing the Netflix shows Narcos and Narcos: Mexico. As a result, he’ll likely feel very at home telling the story of one of the most notorious figures in the modern drug trade.
Sofia Vergara will tell the story of Blanco, who is largely considered a pioneer not just for women in the drug trade, but for the trade itself. Thanks to her illicit business savvy mixed with her ruthless nature, she is known by many nicknames such as the Cocaine Godmother, La Madrina, and the Black Widow. Not only did she establish a drug empire that flooded Columbia, New York, California, and Miami with cocaine throughout the 1980s and early 2000s, but she is credited with inventing the motorcycle drive-by method of assassination. That’s why many felt it was, although grim, poetically fitting that the method was used to murder her when she was 69. Check out the first look:
As if the end of her life isn’t enough of a bookend worthy of a Netflix original series, Sofia Vergara will have a lot of interesting story points to tell when it comes to portraying the ins and outs of Griselda Blanco’s life. One of the more famous stories that surround the legend of Blanco includes the infamous shootout with one of her husbands. She was widowed three times and it’s rumored that she was the one that led to her husbands’ respective demises. In one instance, The Guardian reports that she confronted her husband and his business partner in 1975 in the parking lot of a nightclub for allegedly stealing millions of dollars in profits from the cartel they built together.
As the story goes, Blanco, then 32, pulled out a pistol in the midst of the heated argument. Her husband’s business associated responded by whipping out an uzi submachine gun. When the hail of bullets finally ceased, Blanco had a minor gunshot wound to her stomach. Meanwhile, her husband, his business partner, and their six bodyguards all lay dead. One only wonders what Sofia Vergara will do with the dramatic adaptation of the real-life figure. But with stories like that to pull from, it’s going to be hard to make it uninteresting.
That infamous shootout was only the beginning of her reign of terror. After that, the outlet reports she moved from Columbia to Miami where her murder count rose to somewhere between 40 and 200 people. There’s a very interesting, albeit bloody, life that was led by Blanco and it’s exciting to see someone like Sofia Vergara taking it on as a passion project. Even if it takes her outside of her immensely beautiful actress comfort zone.
However, Sofia Vergara will have some competition when it comes to telling the Griselda Blanco story. It was announced in 2020 that Jennifer Lopez was also working on a biopic about the infamous drug queenpin. However, it seems Sofia Vergara’s project is significantly further along.
