It was only a matter of time. And timing.
Sofia Vergara shot to fame playing Gloria, the smarter-than-she-seems arm candy to Ed O’Neill’s Jay in the massively successful (and award-winning) sitcom Modern Family, which aired on ABC from 2009 to 2020, but struggled to carve out a serious acting career and has mainly parlayed her fame to a career as a host on shows such as America’s Got Talent and Germany’s Next Top Model. Being from Colombia, English is Vergara’s second language and her strong accent and stunning beauty made it hard for any casting director to take her seriously for roles. 
Although it might have initially worked against her, it is to Vergara’s credit that she managed to establish herself fully in Hollywood, downplaying her Colombian roots. If there’s one thing Colombian actors have in common with German ones, it’s that you can’t avoid playing at least one stereotype role in your career. Surprisingly, Vergara had managed to avoid playing a Colombian drug dealer (or the wife/girlfriend of one) all this time, despite how good Hollywood is at typecasting.
Well, whether Vergara finally got sick of limiting herself to cheesy reality competition shows or she finally found a project that allowed her to embrace her heritage without lowering herself to being a cliché, it was worth the wait, as Vergara absolutely slays as notorious Colombian drug lord Griselda Blanco in Netflix’s 6-part series, Griselda.
Based on a true story about one of the most legendary figures in the underworld cocaine trade in the ‘80s and ‘90s, Griselda is a short but intense depiction of the drug trade that we’re all too familiar with, thanks to movies like Scarface and shows like Narcos, but this new spin makes even something this familiar worth watching. We all know that women can do anything men can do, but who knew that there ever was a woman who was just as brutal, vicious, ambitious, narcissistic, sociopathic, successful, and violent as her fellow men in the cartel. She went by the nickname The Godmother, and even named her son Michael Corleone, an homage to Al Pacino’s character in The Godfather films.
Griselda is a fascinating story of a woman who decides to take control of her life and becomes intoxicated with power and revenge. There are moments you root for her, and there are moments you see her as the monster she is. And the beauty in Vergara’s performance, which deserves to be nominated for an Emmy, is that she plays every bit of the nuance and blurred lines between sympathetic and evil.
Vergara is a great actor, but, sadly, it takes prosthetic makeup to make the audience take her seriously. Because Vergara is so beautiful, the producers of Griselda (of which she is one) had to change her face to make her look more ordinary. [Well, it did work for Charlize Theron, Nicole Kidman, and Halle Berry.] I’ll admit, the makeup is amazing, and it does help you get involved more in the story by toning down Vergara’s otherworldliness, but I give even more credit to Vergara’s legitimate talent.
As for the story and the series, again, it’s all very familiar—lots of violence, drug use, nightclubs, and polyester knits—but it’s still a great watch of a unique and fascinating story. If you love dramas about drug kingpins and bad guys doing bad things to other bad guys, check out Griselda. It is mostly in Spanish (with English subtitles), but all that reading is so worth it to see Sofia Vergara this badass.