'Modern Family's Sofia Vergara Undergoes Huge Transformation for Role as Drug Queenpin in New Netflix Show

By Daniel S. Levine

Modern Family star Sofia Vergara underwent a major transformation to play the real-life drug queenpin Griselda Blanco for a new Netflix limited series. The streamer released the first photo of Vergara in costume and full makeup on Wednesday and announced the rest of the supporting cast. Simply titled Griselda, the series will run just six episodes.

Blanco was a Colombian drug trafficker in the Medellin Cartel and played a major role in the Miami-based cocaine trade during the 1980s through the early 2000s. She has been linked to up to 200 murders and was nicknamed "The Black Widow." Her fortune is believed to have reached into the billions. She was shot and killed in September 2012 at age 69. She was one of the the subjects of the 2006 documentary Cocaine Cowboys. Catherine Zeta-Jones previously played Blanco in Lifetime's 2018 movie Cocaine Godmother: The Griselda Blanco Story. Jennifer Lopez was also attached to a project at HBO.

Vergara's series has been a passion project for the actor. She was developing it for eight years with executive producer Luis Balaguer at Latin World Entertainment before Griselda moved to Netflix, reports Entertainment Weekly. Andres Baiz directed every episode, with Ingrid Escajeda and Doug Miro as showrunners. Baiz and Miro previously worked together on Netflix's Narcos.

The supporting cast also includes Narcos veterans Alberto Guerra, Alberto Ammann, and Gabriel Sloyer. Other members of the cast include Vanessa Ferlito, Christoan Tappan, Paulina Davila, Juliana Aiden Martinez, Martin Rodriguez, and Jose Zuniga. Netflix has not announced a release date for the series yet.

Vergara starred in all 11 seasons of ABC's Modern Family as Gloria Delgado-Pritchett. The role earned her four consecutive Primetime Emmy nominations for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series between 2010 and 2013. She also won four Screen Actors Guild Awards as a member of the show's cast. Vergara also serves as a judge on NBC's America's Got Talent. 

The Lopez project, titled The Godmother, has been in the works for years now. News of the project first surfaced back in 2016. At one point, Lopez considered directing it herself, but she picked Reed Morano (The Handmaid's Tale, Meadowland) to direct instead. William Monahan (The Departed) was set to work on the script, which was originally written by Terence Winter (The Wolf of Wall Street) and Regina Corrado (Deadwood).

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