SOFIA Vergara has revealed her regrets about filming America’s Got Talent in the middle of production on her Netflix hit Griselda, as she struggled to get back into character.
The actress and talent show judge played “cocaine godmother” Griselda Blanco, who received rave reviews from critics for her first taste of the drama.
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But the 51-year-old revealed she found it tiring and wished she had stayed focused on the show rather than committing to AGT in the middle of filming.
During a Netflix FYSEE event on Sunday, A Conversation with Sofia Vergara in Los Angeles, she was asked about how she handled juggling two very different TV projects.
She laughed: “I don’t know what I was thinking. The most absurd thing. But I mean it tells you… if I was a real actress, I would have said absolutely no, I’m not doing this.
“Listen to how crazy this is… I agreed to become Griselda for three months, three crazy, intense months.
“I think I had four days off from becoming Sofia, from doing AGT, which is completely another change from doing AGT, that energy. And then finish that for a month and immediately, two days later, start again [filming] Griselda.”
“When I came back, I was so unprofessional,” she continued.
“I returned to Griselda [and] the director [during] in the first scene, I remember we were filming outside an airport, and then [he] it comes after the first two scenes like, ‘Sofia, I think during lunch I’m going to come into your trailer with my iPad and I’m going to show you the rhythm and the tone of voice that you were doing to Griselda because you look like AGT.
“I’m fine, okay. It took me some time. I shouldn’t have done that. I shouldn’t have stopped shooting Griselda to do AGT.”
But Sofia managed to nail the role and was pleased with the reaction from viewers after the show’s launch, explaining that it had been a passion project for over 15 years.
The Modern Family star intended to take on the role while the real-life Griselda, who created one of the most profitable cartels in history, was still alive.
“I started working, finding out more information about her, hiring writers, investigating, but she was still alive,” she said.
“She was released from prison and was living in Medellín [Colombia]. And I thought, I can’t do this project right now with this woman who was a monster, destroyed lives, her family’s life, her son’s life, and I’m going to make a movie and now she’s out of prison.”
“So I had to wait for her to die,” while the audience laughed at her honest comment,” Sofia admitted.
“But then, you know, she was killed in a horrible way, in the same way, unfortunately, that she used to kill people.
She was released from prison and lived in Medellín [Colombia]. And I’m like, I can’t do this project right now.
Sofia Vergara
“And then I picked up the project again, but I didn’t really know what to do with it. And then I started watching Narcos on TV. [the Netflix series]. And I thought, oh my God, these are the people I need to meet. Because they know everything about the world and I think they will know what to do with her.”
Sofia also served as the show’s executive producer and transformed into the titular character Griselda with the help of prosthetics, which she said took hours every day.
‘NERVOUS EXPERIENCE’
She had to wear plastic over her entire face, from forehead to eyebrows, and also wore a wig, which she hated but felt was necessary to separate her from her usual work.
“I had no idea what I was doing,” she admitted. “I think if I had really realized what I was going to go through, I would never have had the courage to do it.
“The first week I thought I was dying. First of all, three hours of hair and makeup, I had never worn prosthetics.
“I had never smoked and suddenly the director said, ‘You’re going to smoke in almost every scene’. I thought, what do you mean?”
The star then made the crowd laugh, saying, “I’ve never snorted cocaine. I’ve never done crack. So it was kind of stressful.
“I never did drama. I thought, what if I have to cry in these scenes, and I thought, this isn’t going to come out.
“It hit me when I was ready to start filming that week.
“The only good news is that I had never acted in Spanish, believe it or not.
“So it was a big relief. I didn’t have to start thinking or translating all the time.”
“It was just feelings, when you’re acting in your own language. That was really great for me,” she added.
“I would go to Latin America and do more things, but American dollars are better,” Sofia joked.
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This story originally appeared on The-sun.com read the full story
