She’s best known for playing the glamorous and vivacious Gloria Delgado-Pritchett in the hit TV sitcom Modern Family, but now, fans are seeing a completely different side to Sofia Vergara.
For her latest role, the 51-year-old actress transformed into the ‘Cocaine Godmother’ Griselda Blanco – a Colombian drug lord who created one of the most profitable cartels in history.
The six-part Netflix drama proves Sofia can tackle a serious and gritty part just as well as she can perform a comedic role, and she previously revealed that she spent two hours in the makeup chair every single day to transform into ‘The Boss’ during filming.
From sniffing cocaine and chain-smoking cigarettes, to puffing on a crack pipe and beating a guy with a baseball bat – Sofia went all in to tell the story of Griselda and her rise to power in Miami in the late 1970s.
Sofia Vergara portrays ‘Cocaine Godmother’ Griselda Blanco in the new Netflix series Griselda
The 51-year-old actress shows off her serious side playing the role of the Colombian drug lord
Sofia as Gloria Delgado-Pritchett in Modern Family alongside actor Rico Rodriguez, who played her onscreen son Manny Delgado
The actress previously admitted that she was out of her comfort zone in such a serious role, and sometimes spent two months practicing certain monologues for scenes in the show.
‘Believe it or not, I had to act for the first time in Spanish and I had to do a drama for the first time, which I was not comfortable [doing] because Modern Family… that’s all I know how to do,’ she said during an appearance on Good Morning America on January 16.
‘It’s been a pleasure and a torture at the same time to be a part of this project. I have been working on it for a long, long time, for like almost 15 years, so I’m very, very proud of it.’
It was clearly a lot of firsts for Sofia and it’s a first for fans seeing her like this too – as the actress explained: ‘It was a lot because I have never done anything like that, I didn’t even think I could cry in a scene, I’d never even tried.
‘I took like two months before to prep with someone to help me understand what really serious, dramatic acting was so it was a lot of preparation.’
Here DailyMail.com takes a look at some of the most shocking scenes from the Netflix series…
Sofia shows off her violent side when she beats a guy up in the street using a baseball bat as Griselda
Sofia does not hold back as Griselda and is seen beating a guy with a baseball bat in the very first episode
Sofia changed the way she walked, talked, and looked for the iconic role, and wore a wig as well as fake teeth and a prosthetic nose
In the very first episode of Griselda, viewers get a taste of what’s to come when they see Sofia beat a guy up in the street in broad daylight using a baseball bat.
The epic scene occurs about halfway through the first instalment when Sofia decides to get revenge on a man named Johnny who steals her cocaine from her during one of her first nights out in Miami.
Determined to get her drugs back, Griselda follows Johnny in her car the following day and spies him in a bar trying to sell her kilo of coke to a guy named Eddie.
When Johnny exits the bar and heads to the trunk of his car to get the drugs, Griselda confronts him with a baseball bat and whacks him straight in the legs – causing him to fall to the ground.
She continues to hit him a few times and demands that Johnny gets her a meeting with Eddie so that she can sell her drugs and make a profit.
‘Get me a f**king meeting!’ she yells before spitting on him and walking away with both her bag of cocaine and the baseball bat.
Sofia wields a gun when she shoots her onscreen husband dead in the first episode
Sofia is seen wielding a gun in several scenes of the show, including in the very first episode
During the first instalment, Griselda shoots her second husband, Alberto Bravo (played by Alberto Ammann), dead in a parking lot
The real Griselda was married three times and at least two of those husbands were believed to have been murdered by her.
In the Netflix series, her second husband, Alberto Bravo, is played by Narcos actor Alberto Ammann and viewers get to see Griselda murder him in cold blood after he tells her that she needs to have sex with his brother in order to pay off their debt.
In the explosive first episode, Griselda begrudgingly does the deed with Alberto’s older sibling and then goes to meet her husband at a local bar to let him know the debt has been cleared.
The couple end up having a heated argument which results in Griselda telling Alberto that she’s leaving him before storming outside into the parking lot.
When Alberto insults her and her three children, and tells Griselda that she won’t get very far, she pulls a gun out on him and shoots him dead – but also ends up injured herself.
The impromptu murder is what causes Griselda and her brood to flee Colombia as she soon realizes that if she sticks around, she’ll end up dead when Alberto’s brother finds out about what she did.
Speaking exclusively to DailyMail.com, Ammann opened up what it was like shooting the dramatic scenes with Sofia and described her as being ‘very professional’.
‘We talked a lot, and we laughed,’ Ammann revealed. ‘Actually, the scene in the car I said to her, “Sofia this guy is terrible”, and she told me – we were speaking in Spanish – and she told me, “yes you are a sh*t!” We laughed a lot and we talked about the profession.’
Sofia gets down and dirty with her co-star Alberto Guerra for a raunchy yet tastefully-filmed sex scene
Sofia goes topless in one racy sex scene with actor Alberto Guerra during episode three
In several scenes, her character of Griselda is seen wearing sexy nightwear in the bedroom
Modern Family is known for being a PG-rated show, so Sofia certainly wasn’t used to stripping off and filming intimate scenes in her role as Gloria.
However, in Griselda she didn’t mind doing so and participates in one particular raunchy sex scene with professional hitman Darío Sepúlveda – played by Alberto Guerra.
Darío went on to be Griselda’s third husband – who was also murdered by her (via a hitman) – and in the third episode of the show, viewers see them romantically linked for the very first time as Griselda starts to gain notoriety.
The blink and you’ll miss it scene is filmed from behind and gives viewers the tiniest hint of Sofia’s breasts as she goes topless for the scene.
There’s several other scenes that show Griselda and Darío passionately kissing, but the only other hint of sex comes during episode five when Marta Ochoa – played by Julieth Restrepo – informs Griselda that she has invited a female companion to a party in order to have fun with her.
It’s been previously reported that the real Griselda had a love of sex, and was known for holding regular bisexual orgies and drug-fueled parties.
Commenting on her portrayal of Griselda, Sofia told Good Morning America: ‘It’s been a pleasure and a torture at the same time to be part of this project.’
Sofia strips off and gives Netflix viewers an eyeful in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it bath scene
The brunette actress was not afraid to show some skin and decided to go topless for a bath scene in Griselda
The bath scene was just one of two occasions that Sofia decided to strip off for the series
As well as getting down and dirty in the brief sex scene, Sofia also strips off for a shot in Griselda – whist taking a bath in her luxurious Miami home.
About 40 minutes into episode four, viewers see Griselda attempting to relax amidst a day of more murder and misery.
Cleverly shot using the bath water to protect Sofia’s modesty and avoid a full frontal situation, the scene is very brief but fans still get to see another side of the Modern Family actress.
It comes after Sofia claimed she had to hide her eye-popping curves when playing the terrifying drug lord.
During an appearance on The Graham Norton Show in the UK, Sofia claimed she wore unflattering underwear in order to ensure her usual physique wasn’t necessarily on show.
‘The hardest thing was that I had to wear a wig, fake teeth, fake nose, and have a plastic forehead. I also had to wear uncomfortable bras that pushed me down to make me look less Latin,’ she told the TV host.
She then added: ‘It was a complicated character for me, but it was my first film in Spanish, which was so liberating.’
Sofia smokes crack and sniffs cocaine as Griselda after admitting she’d never tried a cigarette before at the age of 51
In one scene, Sofia’s scary character is seen getting high smoking a crack pipe
Sofia, pictured here with her onscreen husband played by Alberto Guerra, had to learn how to smoke for the role of Griselda Blanco
Not only did Sofia learn how to smoke cigarettes for the role, she has also admitted that she had to practice how to snort a line of cocaine.
Part of the smoking scenes involved Griselda puffing on a crack pipe during episode five when she threw a huge lavish birthday party for her husband, Darío, at her Miami mansion.
At one point it seems that Griselda is hooked on the drug, but unfortunately it drives her paranoia as she begins to question everyone close to her and suspects several of her nearest and dearest of co-operating with the cops.
In a recent interview on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, Sofia revealed that Griselda director Andrés Baiz, 49, mentored her throughout filming.
‘I didn’t know anything. He taught me how to smoke. He taught me how to do cocaine,’ she explained, admitting that she was 51 and didn’t even know how to light a cigarette.
‘I had never done cocaine. It was amazing. It was a great experience,’ she said, before quickly clarifying that the cigarettes and the cocaine were fake: ‘I had to pretend, but the acting was real.’
Sofia shows off Griselda’s manic side as she forces couple to have sex in the middle of a party at gunpoint
In one scene, Griselda turns her gold-plated machine gun on her party guests
Griselda forces one man to strip, get on all fours and bark like a dog, and then she orders two other people to start having sex at the party
Griselda consists of six episodes and was directed by Andrés Baiz – who is also Colombian
Perhaps one of the most shocking scenes in Griselda is when Sofia’s character loses it at her husband’s birthday party after smoking crack and uses the gold-plated machine guy she bought him to spray bullets into his car.
After telling Darío, ‘You’re lucky it wasn’t you,’ she charges back inside, still carrying the gun, and proceeds to tell one man to strip and get on all fours.
Once down on the ground, Griselda demands that he starts barking like a dog and then turns her attention to a couple of other partygoers behind her.
Clearly terrified, they too offer to bark like a dog, but instead she orders them to strip and start having sex – and they don’t hesitate for a second.
It’s unsure just how far Griselda would go in this moment, especially with a gun, but luckily for everyone else, her good friend Carmen – played by Paulina Dávila – arrives just in time and convinces her to hand over the weapon.
However, just moments later Griselda turns on Carmen too after she tells her she has been approached by a cop.
Still feeling paranoid about who is talking to the police, Griselda attempts to strangle Carmen in her bedroom – but is stopped just in time by Darío.
Griselda is available to watch on Netflix now.