Sofía Vergara spent a lot of time in the makeup chair to transform into her role as a cocaine lord in Griselda — and she thinks any suggestion otherwise totally blows.
On Wednesday’s episode of The Kelly Clarkson show, Sofía bristled when the host suggested that the makeup and prosthetics she wore to portray the notorious Colombian drug smuggler Griselda Blanco in her new Netflix miniseries looked subtle.
“I feel like they only changed your nose or something,” Kelly told the Modern Family alum.
“Are you crazy?” a shocked Sofía retorted.
“It looks slight. You know what I’m saying? Like, when you look at you, it doesn’t look …” Kelly continued. But Sofía wasn’t having it.
“No, Kelly, it was hours,” she said of the time she spent in the makeup chair.
Kelly stammered on, nervously trying to explain herself by admitting that her makeup “probably took time,” but the “slight change completely changed [her] being”.
“It was a wig!” Sofía said jokingly before telling Kelly to “shut up” so she could explain all the tweaks made to her physical appearance for the character.
“It was a lot! They did a lot to me! It was teeth. It was wig, It was nose. It was plastic [all over my face],” the America’s Got Talent judge said.
Kelly quickly changed her tune.
“What I’m saying though,” she said. “They did such a good job that it looks seamless.”
Clarkson continued: “You literally look like you’re a different actress, like, playing the role. You could have a whole different life as this actress.”
Sofía seemed to appreciate the assertion.
“That’s exactly what I wanted — that reaction,” she responded. “I loved that you thought it was just a little thing because that means it looks natural.”
Sofía then explained why she got a little sensitive about her look in Griselda. She said she was “worried” people wouldn’t take her seriously in a dramatic role if she looked too much like herself or her comedic character on Modern Family.
“I was like, ‘Are they going to see Gloria Pritchett in Griselda?’” she said. “I mean, did you see it?”
“I don’t see you at all in this character,” Kelly said.
Although Sofía’s character in Griselda does not closely resemble the real life queen pin (above) it’s understandable why she wanted to physically transform to play la madrina, or the Godmother, in her new Netflix series.
Blanco was accused of masterminding at least 40 homicides from Miami to New York during her reign in the 1970s and early ’80s. This included the assassination of a 2-year-old boy in 1982, an act she allegedly bragged about, per the Miami New Times.
Despite her ruthless nature that eventually earned her the nickname “The Black Widow”, she was also known for her ingenuity. She built a billion-dollar criminal organisation with clever inventions, like her line of underwear with secret compartments that hid drugs, allowing her smugglers to transport cocaine into the United States by taking commercial airline flights.