She is best known for her role as the glamorous and vivacious Gloria Delgado-Pritchett on the hit TV sitcom Modern Family, but now fans are seeing a completely different side of Sofia Vergara.
For her latest role, the 51-year-old actress transformed herself into cocaine godmother Griselda Blanco – a Colombian drug lord who founded one of the most profitable cartels in history.
The six-part Netflix drama proves that Sofia can handle a serious and dark role just as well as a comedic one. She had previously revealed that she sat in the make-up chair for two hours every day to film herself transforming into “The Boss”.
From sniffing cocaine and chain-smoking cigarettes to puffing on a crack pipe and beating a man with a baseball bat, Sofia gave it her all to tell the story of Griselda and her rise to power in Miami in the late 1970s.
Sofia Vergara portrays the “cocaine godmother” Griselda Blanco in the new Netflix series Griselda
The 51-year-old actress shows her serious side in the role of the Colombian drug lord
Sofia as Gloria Delgado-Pritchett in Modern Family alongside actor Rico Rodriguez, who played her on-screen son Manny Delgado
The actress previously admitted that she was out of her comfort zone in such a serious role, sometimes spending two months practicing certain monologues for scenes in the series.
“Believe it or not, it was my first time having to act in Spanish and my first time having to do a drama, which I wasn’t comfortable with.” [doing] “Because Modern Family…that's all I know how to do,” she said during a Jan. 16 appearance on Good Morning America.
“It was a joy and a torture at the same time to be part of this project. I worked on it for a very, very long time, almost 15 years, so I'm very, very proud of it.”
It was clearly a lot of firsts for Sofia and it's also a first for fans to see her like this – as the actress explained: “It was a lot because I've never done anything like this before, I didn't even think I would “could cry.” a scene I had never tried before.
“Before that, it took me about two months to prepare with someone who helped me understand what really serious, dramatic acting was, so that was a lot of preparation.”
Here, takes a look at some of the most shocking scenes from the Netflix series…
Sofia shows her violent side when, as Griselda, she beats a man on the street with a baseball bat
Sofia doesn't hold back as Griselda and is seen hitting a man with a baseball bat in the first episode
Sofia changed the way she walked, talked and looked for the iconic role, wearing a wig as well as false teeth and a prosthetic nose
In the very first episode of Griselda, viewers get a taste of what to expect when they see Sofia beating a man with a baseball bat on the street in broad daylight.
The epic scene takes place about halfway through the first part, when Sofia decides to get revenge on a man named Johnny who steals her cocaine during one of her first nights in Miami.
Determined to get her drugs back, Griselda follows Johnny in her car the next day and spots him in a bar trying to sell her kilo of cola to a man named Eddie.
As Johnny leaves the bar and goes to the trunk of his car to get the drugs, Griselda confronts him with a baseball bat and hits him square in the legs, causing him to fall to the ground.
She continues to hit him a few times and demands that Johnny get her a meeting with Eddie so she can sell her drugs and make a profit.
“Give me a fucking meeting!” she screams before spitting on him and walking away with her bag of cocaine and baseball bat.
Sofia brandishes a gun as she shoots her on-screen husband in the first episode
Sofia is seen with a gun in several scenes in the series, including the very first episode
In the first part, Griselda shoots her second husband, Alberto Bravo (played by Alberto Ammann), in a parking lot
The real Griselda was married three times and it was believed that at least two of those husbands were 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 must have sex with his brother to clear her debt to settle .
In the explosive first episode, Griselda reluctantly does the deed with Alberto's older sibling and then goes to her husband at a local bar to tell him that the debt has been paid.
The two end up having a heated argument, which results in Griselda telling Alberto that she is 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 far, she pulls a gun on him and shoots him – but ends up getting injured herself.
The spontaneous murder causes Griselda and her brood to flee Colombia, as she quickly realizes that if she stays here, she will end up dead when Alberto's brother finds out what she has done.
Speaking exclusively to , Ammann opened up about what it was like filming the dramatic scenes with Sofia, describing them as “very professional”.
“We talked and laughed a lot,” revealed Ammann. “Actually in the scene in the car I said to her, ‘Sofia, this guy is terrible,’ and she told me – we spoke in Spanish – and she told me, ‘Yeah, you’re a shit!’ “We laughed a lot and talked about the job.”
Sofia gets dirty with her co-star Alberto Guerra in a raunchy but tastefully filmed sex scene
In episode three, Sofia goes topless in a racy sex scene with actor Alberto Guerra
In several scenes, her character Griselda can be seen in sexy nightwear in the bedroom
Modern Family is known for being a PG-rated series, so Sofia certainly wasn't used to stripping down and doing intimate scenes in her role as Gloria.
In Griselda, however, she had no problem with it and took part in a particularly raunchy sex scene with professional killer Darío Sepúlveda – played by Alberto Guerra.
Darío was later Griselda's third husband – who was also murdered by her (by a hitman) – and in the third episode of the series, viewers see them romantically linked for the first time as Griselda rises to fame.
The blink-and-you'll-miss-it scene is filmed from behind, giving viewers a tiny hint of Sofia's breasts while she's topless for the scene.
There are several other scenes in which Griselda and Darío kiss passionately, but the only other reference to sex comes in episode five, when Marta Ochoa – played by Julieth Restrepo – informs Griselda that she has invited a female companion to a party to have fun with her her.
It has already been reported that the real Griselda loved sex and was known to regularly hold bisexual orgies and drug parties.
Regarding her portrayal of Griselda, Sofia told Good Morning America, “It was both a joy and a torture to be a part of this project.”
Sofia strips down and gives Netflix viewers a peek in a can't-miss bath scene
The brunette actress wasn't afraid to show some skin and decided to go topless for a bathing scene in Griselda
The bathing scene was only one of two occasions where Sofia decided to get naked for the series
In addition to getting dirty in the brief sex scene, Sofia also strips down for a shot in Griselda – while taking a bath in her luxurious Miami home.
About 40 minutes into the fourth episode, viewers see Griselda trying to relax in the midst of a day of murder and misery.
The scene was cleverly shot with bath water to protect Sofia's modesty and avoid a head-on situation. It's very short, but fans can still see a different side of the Modern Family actress.
This came after Sofia claimed she had to hide her stunning curves while playing the fearsome drug lord.
Appearing on The Graham Norton Show in the UK, Sofia claimed she wore unflattering underwear to ensure her usual physique wasn't necessarily on display.
“The hardest part was that I had to wear a wig, false teeth, a false nose and 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, having admitted at the age of 51 that she had never tried a cigarette before
In one scene, Sofia's creepy character is seen getting high while smoking a crack pipe
Sofia, here with her husband, played by Alberto Guerra, had to learn to smoke for the role of Griselda Blanco
Not only did Sofia learn how to smoke cigarettes for the role, she also admitted she had to practice snorting a line of cocaine.
In the smoking scenes, Griselda was seen puffing on a crack pipe in the fifth episode as she threw a huge birthday party for her husband Darío at their Miami mansion.
At one point it appears as if Griselda is addicted to the drug, but unfortunately her paranoia increases as she begins questioning everyone close to her and suspects several of her loved ones of cooperating with the police.
In a recent interview on “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon,” Sofia revealed that Griselda director Andrés Baiz, 49, supervised her throughout filming.
“I knew nothing.” He taught me to smoke. “He taught me how to do cocaine,” she explained, admitting that she was 51 years old and didn’t even know how to light a cigarette.
“I had never done cocaine before. It was wonderful. “It was a great experience,” she said, before quickly clarifying that the cigarettes and cocaine were fake: “I had to pretend, but the acting was real.”
Sofia shows Griselda's manic side when she forces a couple to have sex at gunpoint in the middle of a party
In one scene, Griselda points her gold-plated machine gun at her party guests
Griselda forces a man to take off his clothes, get on all fours and bark like a dog, and then she orders two other people to have sex at the party
Griselda consists of six episodes and was directed by Andrés Baiz – also Colombian
Perhaps one of the most shocking scenes in Griselda is when Sofia's character loses her temper at her husband's birthday party after smoking crack and uses the gold-plated machine she bought him to fire bullets into his car.
After telling Darío, “You're lucky it wasn't you,” she storms back inside, still gun in hand, and tells a man to take off his clothes and get on all fours.
Once he's on the ground, Griselda tells him to bark like a dog and then turns her attention to a few other partygoers behind her.
Apparently frightened, they also offer to bark like dogs, but instead she orders them to undress and begin sex – and they don't hesitate for a second.
It's uncertain how far Griselda would go at 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 give up the gun.
But just a few moments later, Griselda also turns against Carmen after telling her that she was approached by a police officer.
Still afraid of who is talking to the police, Griselda tries to strangle Carmen in her bedroom – but is stopped just in time by Darío.
Griselda is now available to watch on Netflix.