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Griselda: Created by Carlo Bernard, Ingrid Escajeda, Doug Miro, Eric Newman. With Sofía Vergara, Alberto Guerra, Juliana Aidén Martinez, Martín Rodríguez. Fleeing from Medellín to Miami, Griselda Blanco creates one of the most ruthless cartels in history.
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- 2024-01-25
- Biography, Crime, Drama
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Sofia Vergara, Karol G, Alberto Guerra and more star in the upcoming Netflix series based on Griselda Blanco.
Feb 5, 2024 · Sofia Vergara as Griselda Blanco. Netflix. Dubbed the "Godmother of Cocaine," Sofia Vergara gives a commanding turn as Griselda Blanco. The ambitious, self-made businesswoman will do anything...
- Jake Dee
- Staff Writer
Griselda is an American biographical crime drama television miniseries directed by Andrés Baiz and produced by Eric Newman and Sofía Vergara. It is written by Doug Miro and Ingrid Escajeda. It stars Vergara as Griselda Blanco, a notorious Colombian drug lord. The miniseries premiered on Netflix on January 25, 2024.
- Overview
- Two women, 'two sides of the same coin'
- 'Part of Colombia's history'
- Despite stereotypes, a cautionary tale
The late Colombian drug kingpin Pablo Escobar once said, “The only man I was ever afraid of was a woman named Griselda Blanco.”
That quote immediately sets the tone of “Griselda,” a highly anticipated limited series premiering Thursday on Netflix.
Created by “Narcos” and "Narcos: Mexico" producers Doug Miro, Carlo Bernard and Eric Newman and “Justified” producer Ingrid Escajeda, the six-part drama series chronicles the epic rise and fall of Griselda Blanco, played by Emmy-nominated comedy actor Sofía Vergara.
Nicknamed “The Godmother” and “Black Widow,” Blanco used her lethal blend of natural charisma and unsuspected savagery to amass a vast empire as a cocaine trafficker between Colombia and Miami and become a central figure in the violent Miami drug wars of the 1970s and ’80s.
The limited series has been generating headlines of a different sort in the last few days, after Blanco's only surviving son, Michael Corleone Blanco, and his wife, Marie, filed a suit in Florida's Miami-Dade County against Vergara, Netflix and others involved in the project for using the unauthorized “image, likeness and/or identity” of family members, according to the lawsuit obtained by NBC News and reported on Today.com.
They also allege that the show’s producers relied on recorded conversations with Blanco without compensation. The pair are seeking damages “in excess of $50,000” and an emergency temporary injunction to block the limited series' release.
Miro, Newman and “Narcos” director Andrés Baiz pored over books, documentaries, depositions and news footage to learn more about Blanco and her inner circle, including her hit man, Jorge “Rivi” Ayala.
But the most important discovery was June Hawkins, a Miami police homicide detective who played a fundamental role in convicting Blanco of murder and drug trafficking charges.
Whereas past documentarians of Blanco’s life were unable to locate her, Miro and Newman were able to track down Hawkins, now retired, and her husband, who worked together on the case. (Hawkins is played by Juliana Aidén Martinez in the series.)
“I tracked her down because the idea that we had this woman who was a narco and we also had a woman who was chasing her was too good to be true,” Miro said. “Those pieces of research are just invaluable and show up in the show. When you watch it, it feels authentic, layered, textured and real, like 'Narcos,' which is what we all try and set out to do.”
In “Griselda,” Blanco and Hawkins, both single mothers who are constantly undermined by the men in their life, represent two sides of the same coin, Escajeda said. They “could have probably been friends in another lifetime, because they could talk about what it’s like to be women in men’s worlds, yet here they were on opposite ends.”
It’s a meaty role that Vergara, best known for playing the feisty, fun-loving Gloria Pritchett on the ABC sitcom “Modern Family,” has been preparing to play for over a decade.
“Griselda” is a dramatic departure from the previous work of Vergara, who wanted to completely “disappear” into her interpretation of Blanco, Baiz said.
But instead of imitating Blanco’s real-life appearance, the producers felt it was more important for Vergara to feel like she was simply playing a different person. The creative team used tape to cover her distinctive eyebrows, gave her more restrictive clothing to make her voluptuous figure less prominent and spent about a year and a half experimenting with different wigs and prosthetic noses, forcing Vergara to spend around three hours in the makeup chair every day.
Vergara met with Baiz, who is also Colombian, once or twice a week before filming to understand Blanco’s motivations in each scene. “We started asking all these questions about Sofía’s background in Colombia growing up in a very turbulent, violent Colombia from the ’80s,” said Baiz, who directed all six episodes of “Griselda.” “She started seeing that there were many aspects of her life that she could use to flesh out the character.”
Vergara and Baiz are not the only ones who share cultural DNA with “Griselda.” The large ensemble cast includes Christian Tappán, who plays Blanco’s accountant, Arturo; Paulina Dávila and the singer Karol G, who portray two of her most important employees; and Orlando Pineda, who plays her eldest son, Dixon.
Pineda, in fact, shares an even closer connection than most of his castmates. He did not realize until after he had landed the role that his father, now a general in the Colombian military, was responsible for taking down one of the bosses of the Cali cartel, one of Blanco’s direct competitors.
Pineda said his father, who has yet to watch the show but was “very proud,” was approved by the U.S. government and assigned to lead a special intelligence team specifically formed to take down the cartel.
Since “Griselda” was announced in late 2021, the show’s creative team has faced criticism over a drama that risks perpetuating stereotypes of Latinos as criminals and drug dealers.
While Vergara believes that criticism is valid, she pointed out in a Spanish interview that many of the studios that are greenlighting such Latino-led projects continue to favor such kinds of crime-driven stories — and she saw the miniseries as an opportunity to hire more Latinos on both sides of the camera.
As Vergara does, Miro and Baiz, who faced similar questions while making six seasons of “Narcos,” believe there is still significant value in telling Blanco’s story as a unique cautionary tale.
“Griselda can say, ‘I’m doing this for my children. I’m doing this for love,’ but there’s a craving that she has for respect and for being admired,” said Baiz, who reiterated that the intention was to “humanize” rather than “glamorize” Blanco.
“The things that befall Griselda in particular are tragic, and those are the results of the choices she made,” Miro said. “If we’re not allowed to tell stories that are tragedies, where characters make mistakes [and] make a choice they have to pay for, I don’t know what types of stories we can tell.”
Vergara said about her role: “I want the audience to take away how easy it is for power to corrupt people — beyond sex, politics, gender norms. The reality is that this story is about someone that was so blinded by power that it overcame any other motives that ever existed. She stood up to a lot of scary and powerful men. But none of that matters, because she ended up becoming one of them.”
- Max Gao
Jan 26, 2024 · Martín Rodríguez plays Jorge “Rivi” Ayala in Netflix’s “Griselda,” a character based on Griselda Blanco’s real-life hit man.
Sofía Vergara leads the cast of new Netflix series Griselda, which tells the true story of Griselda Blanco, a Colombian drug lord who died in 2012. Griselda follows the character as she...
