See Sofía Vergara as queenpin “Griselda” in sneak-peek photos of new Netflix series
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Sofía Vergara is ready for her next chapter.
The Colombian actress stars in Netflix's Griselda, a new six-episode limited series from the team behind Narcos. EW can exclusively reveal that the series will premiere in January 2024. Though Vergara made a name for herself with comedies like Modern Family and Hot Pursuit, she's diving headfirst into drama as Griselda Blanco, the infamous drug lord who rose through the ranks of Miami's criminal underworld in the 1970s and '80s. She also serves as executive producer on the series, which she has been developing for almost 10 years.
Vergara first approached Narcos creator Eric Newman with a desire to play Blanco while still in the midst of Modern Family, which ended in 2020. "She had collected tons of images and stories and people who knew [Griselda Blanco]," Newman, creator and executive producer of the series, tells EW. "And she had really gone deep on someone who felt the pressure that she felt. I think that she really understood what it was like. She's got a son and she came to this country as a young mother with not much of a plan."
Director Andrés Baiz recognized Vergara's drive to show off her dramatic chops. "This was a chance to reinvent herself and step out of her comfort zone, which was very brave of her," the Narcos director tells EW. "She knew she had to dive in completely into this role and feel insecure and afraid, but she knew that all she had was her work, that she had to push herself to the limit."
Elizabeth Morris/Netflix Sofía Vergara in 'Griselda'
Baiz met with Vergara at her house multiple times a week to flesh out her character. "She wanted a Griselda that didn't feel like Sofía Vergara," he says. "So for example, she had to learn how to smoke. Sofía had never smoked in her life… We came up with a bunch of questions. What are Griselda's dreams? What does she think about at night? What drives her? What car does she drive? What cigarettes does she smoke? What is her favorite food? Where does she want to go on vacation again? How does she move? Does she like to dance or not?"
Once Vergara introduced the idea, Newman realized that Blanco is an even more complicated figure than the subjects of the Narcos series. "Based on [Vergara's] commitment and passion for it, I felt like it was something that went beyond Narcos, that while it was an evolutionary cousin of sorts… this felt like a great transition away from these characters like Gallardo and Escobar who are complicated, certainly, but don't have the same level of complexity that Griselda has," Newman says. "Because if we've learned anything about the narcotics world, what it takes for a woman to reach the level that she reached… it's difficult to fathom what it would take in that culture to reach the top."
Baiz says that the creative team had to be intentional about differentiating Griselda from their previous projects. "The stylistic landmarks of Narcos are not in Griselda," he says. "Griselda has its own identity ... its own style." Newman points out that there are thematic similarities between the two shows, however. "There is a rise and fall structure to these stories, and we like to think that they sort of mirror the effects of drugs in the beginning," he says. "This is going to be great, and we're riding high, and there's this sort of euphoria that then starts to churn about halfway through when you realize you've gone too far and now you're going to start paying for it."
Newman sees the series as a creative experiment to test how far audiences' sympathies will go — and thinks Vergara's inherent charisma helps push those limits. "What Sofía brings to the role is, you just like her," Newman says. "You're like, 'I like this person and I hope good things happen to her.' And then she's doing really bad things… terrible things, to the point where you are wondering if you really want her to get away with this anymore. And so that, for us, was something that you can only achieve in a six-hour format, [because] if you saw her do the thing she does in a movie, she'd lose you right away."
Ultimately, the creators hope the series will complicate the narrative around Blanco's reputation and legacy. "There is that adage that is used all the time in our world that 'a badass man is a boss, but somehow a badass woman is a bitch,'" Newman says. "This was someone who I believe has suffered in the telling of the Griselda Blanco story historically, [because the story] has been 'She's an ugly, a merciless, cruel, cruel [person], and no one is."
"This show is very much about a woman in a man's world — in a toxic man's world," Baiz says. "You're always with her and rooting for her in this world that is trying to push her down and aside."
Take a look at our exclusive sneak-peek images from Netflix's Griselda below.
Courtesy of Netflix Sofía Vergara in 'Griselda'
Courtesy of Netflix Sofía Vergara in 'Griselda'
Courtesy of Netflix Sofía Vergara in 'Griselda'
Courtesy of Netflix Sofía Vergara in 'Griselda'
Elizabeth Morris/Netflix Sofía Vergara in 'Griselda'
Elizabeth Morris/Netflix Sofía Vergara in 'Griselda'
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