Sofia Vergara on Joe Manganiello, GRISELDA, Revisiting MODERN FAMILY, and More for VARIETY Magazine

Pin

In a new cover story for VARIETY, actress Sofia Vergara speaks to Senior TV Features Editor Emily Longeretta and Senior Awards Editor Clayton Davis about starring as Griselda Blanco, a terrifying drug lord, in the Netflix crime series “Griselda.” Vergara also discusses her ex-husband Joe Manganiello, working with Jennifer Anniston’s acting coach for “Griselda,” learning to smoke for the role, and revisiting “Modern Family.” 

Pin

Pin

Vergara on Manganiello: Although Vergara has said publicly that her relationship with Mangeniello ended because he wanted children and she didn’t want to be an “older mom,” Manganiello has said that Vergara’s statements are “simply not true.”

“At the end of the day, you never even know if that’s what he said for real. I’ve read a lot of things that I’ve said that I’m like ‘Huh?’ What am I gonna do, call him? I don’t know if he even said that.”

On working with acting coach Nancy Banks—who has worked with Jennifer Anniston—to prepare for “Griselda”: “I’m like, OK, who is a comedic actress that did good in a drama? Jennifer Aniston!…Nancy said, ‘If you want to cry, you just have to think of something.’ And I did have a lot of horrible things to think about.”

However, the horrible things that set her off remained in her mind after each day of shooting. Vergara struggled to sleep for the first three weeks of filming, and thought something was wrong with her.

“I was anxious. Nancy told me, ‘You’re killing, you’re screaming, crying—everything—during the day. You go home and your body doesn’t know that you weren’t doing those things for real, feeling those things.’ So I had to start taking a little bit of Xanax at night to calm down. I was not prepared for that. I didn’t know. That’s why actors go crazy! How do they do that for years?”

On needing to hide her curves to play Blanco: “She was maybe not a Barbie doll, but the real Griselda Blanco had something—she had some kind of sex appeal that I needed to show…I didn’t want the bouncing that is natural for Latin women to show. I would have to wrap myself so that my butt wouldn’t jiggle. I had to wear a really bad bra. I had to cover my arms, because I have very skinny arms, and you don’t look threatening when you have this stupid little arm.”

On learning to smoke for “Griselda”: “I had never smoked in my life. [Director Andrés Baiz] would come to my house the month before we started. We would talk about the script, and he would teach me how to smoke and do cocaine and crack.”

On the differences in dialogue memorization between “Modern Family” and “Griselda”: “Back then, my lines were easy. It wasn’t like monologues…I’m going through pre-menopause; I can’t remember where my glasses are. And now I have to learn all these monologues?”

On revisiting “Modern Family”: “I’d die to be on that set. It’d be so much fun. A TV movie maybe?”

[Photo Credit: Greg Swales for Variety Magazine]

• Editorials
• Greg Swales
• Magazines
• Sofia Vergara
• Variety