Sofia Vergara opens up about personal, tragic connection to Griselda

Griselda is hands down one of the best crime dramas streaming on Netflix. It was released on the streaming platform back in January 2024 and was an instant hit. It stars Emmy and Golden Globe nominee Sofia Vergara as one of the most notorious Colombian drug lords, Griselda Blanco, aka the Cocaine Godmother.

Over six episodes, viewers watch Griselda's journey from beginning to end as she rises from obscurity to become an infamous Colombian drug trader, creating one of the most profitable cartels in history. Starring alongside Vergara were Alberto Guerra, Vanessa Ferlito, Christian Tappan, Martin Rodriguez, Juliana Aidén Martinez, Alberto Ammann, and many others.

Vergara had not only starred in the series but also served as an executive producer. Griselda had been somewhat of a passion project of hers for a very long time. In a new interview with Variety, Vergara spoke about what led her to want to create a series about Griselda's life, and sadly, it had something to do with the tragic death of a close relative of hers.

In 1996, when Vergara was 24 years old, she suffered the loss of her older brother Rafael Vergara, who was brutally murdered by a Colombian cartel in a kidnapping gone wrong. Seeing as though Griselda was a Colombian drug lord and ran a Colombian cartel, Vergara's personal connection to Griselda's life story came from her brother's death at the hands of a Colombian cartel. While not necessarily a good connection, it's one of the reasons why she wanted to get the crime drama series made.

Then, in 2006, she watched Cocaine Cowboys, a documentary film focusing on the drug trade in Miami during the late 1970s and 1980s that also featured Griselda. She just couldn't wrap her mind around the fact that a woman with four kids would eventually become one of the most powerful figures in the Miami cocaine trade during the '70s and '80s. After watching the film, she just knew she had to play Griselda in a movie/series.

Of course, that series ended up being Netflix's Griselda, but it took quite some time to make it. The reason being that the real Griselda Blanco was still alive, and Vergara deemed it too dangerous to make a series about her at the time. Then, in 2012, Griselda died, and that's when Vergara really started putting her focus on creating a show about her life. She just had to find a good team to help her put it together. That team ended up being the same team behind Netflix's crime drama series Narcos.

For her outstanding portrayal of drug queenpin Griselda Blanco in Griselda, Vergara received a 2024 Emmy nomination for Lead Actress in a Limited Series, making history as the first Latina to receive a nomination in this category. We'll find out if she wins the award when the 76th Emmy Awards takes place on Sept. 15.