Griselda – Sofia Vergara talks about the transformation into Griselda Blanco

Griselda is inspired by the life of the savvy and ambitious Griselda Blanco, who created one of the most profitable cartels in history. In 1970s-80s Miami, Blanco’s lethal blend of unsuspected savagery and charm helped her expertly navigate between business and family, leading her to become widely known as “the Godmother.”

Starring and executive produced by Sofia Vergara, the dramatic limited series GRISELDA is created by NARCOS and NARCOS: MEXICO showrunner Eric Newman, who comes to the title alongside NARCOS director Andrés Baiz, who directs all six episodes. The series is co-created by Doug Miro, Ingrid Escajeda & Carlo Bernard and Executive Produced by Newman, Miro, Escajeda, Bernard, along with Vergara and Luis Balaguer with Latin World Entertainment.

Executive Producer and Star, Sofía Vergara said “I had an incredible hair and makeup design team that did an amazing job creating this character who was in the world of Miami in the ‘70s and ‘80s. Getting the look correct was very important to me because I needed to disappear. I wanted no one to think of me or my last role as Gloria Pritchett. I wanted to get inside Griselda’s head and really understand her mentality, where she was coming from.”

Director Andrés Baiz said “Sofía and I decided we needed to find a physical look that made Sofía look different from Sofía Vergara, but without trying to imitate the real Griselda Blanco. So any difference that would give Sofía confidence was what became important – in the eyebrows, the nose, hair. She wanted to feel like a different person, but not to the point in which the prosthetics or make-up took over her performance. It had to be subtle. This transformation is achieved also through behaviour: the way she walks, the way she moves, the way she stares or laughs. Sofía had never smoked in her life, Griselda smokes all the time.”

In addition to Vergara, the series stars Alberto Guerra, Christian Tappan, Martín Rodríguez, Juliana Aidén Martinez, Vanessa Ferlito and, making her on-screen debut, Carolina Giraldo (a.k.a Karol G).

Debuting 25 January on Netflix.