Sofia Vergara says Jennifer Aniston helped with Griselda role – but another star guided her to ‘act out the bad stuff’
SOFIA Vergara has revealed an unlikely friendship with actress Jennifer Aniston who helped her perfect her part in Griselda.
The star, 51, won rave reviews for her role as “The Cocaine Godmother” Griselda Blanco in the Netflix miniseries.
But she was nervous about making the switch from comedy to drama after years on Modern Family.
Speaking at a Netflix FYSEE event in Los Angeles, Sofia said, “I don’t want to say that I have things that are similar with [Griselda], but there [are], because I [am] a woman, Colombian mother, single mother, an immigrant.”
“There were many similarities. And so I kind of understood that. But it was so much work to get the whole project going,” Sofia explained.
“The last three months before shooting, I was like, ‘How am I going to do this? I need to find somebody to help me with the lines?’
“I knew there was no way that I was going to learn how to act in three months.
“So I was like, at least somebody to help me understand every scene because of the English. Sometimes I have a lot of problems.
“And so I thought, ‘What actors that I love have been doing comedy and are now doing drama?’
“So I found the person that helped… Jennifer Aniston.”
HOLLYWOOD WORRIES
Sofia detailed how she began to connect with Aniston after realizing she could help her with her new role.
“And so I started meeting with her on Zoom because it was the pandemic and all that. And so she would help me like not to like act, but to start feeling everything that I was supposed to feel in every scene,” she said.
“And then Andy [Andres Baiz], the director, was the one in charge of teaching me the bad stuff, like to smoke, come to my house, the cocaine, the crack, all of that.”
She joked, “I don’t know where he learned that [she laughs]. But it came out good. Imagine at 50 to learn to do all those things.”
Sofia added, “We were lucky because there were six episodes and they were kind of written already.
“So we started in order, which helped me amazingly. If you saw the series, she starts changing and getting crazier and crazier and crazier.
“I couldn’t transform exactly into her because it would have taken forever. So what I wanted to do was Gloria Pritchett and me to disappear so that people wouldn’t think of [them].”
Sofia reunited with Aniston for The Hollywood Reporter’s Drama Actress Roundtable to discuss everything from mentorship to menopause.
She again expressed her insecurities over her acting abilities, saying, “I did 11 years on Modern Family, but it was almost playing myself in a way. I never went to an acting class in my life.
“And when I decide to do something different, it’s hard because this accent is beautiful, but it’s like, I cannot be a scientist, I cannot be an astronaut.”
THICK ACCENT
Sofia revealed she linked up with Aniston’s acting coach, Nancy Banks.
She revealed she struggled to get out of character, which she also spoke about at the Netflix event, hinting it could have contributed to her divorce.
Sofia told The Hollywood Reporter, “I couldn’t fall asleep. I decided to take Xanax because I had to wake up the next day to go again.
“It was either I start sleeping or I’m going to die. I was talking to Nancy, too. I was like, ‘Nancy, I don’t know if I’m going to survive this.’ She’s like, ‘You’re an actor now.'”
She also spoke further about how she attempted to get rid of her thick accent to get more Hollywood roles.
Sofia said, “I tried at the beginning of my career. When I moved to [Los Angeles], I’m like, ‘I cannot believe Penelope Cruz or Salma Hayek don’t change their accent, they’d have so many more opportunities. I’m going to do it.’
“Then I spent so much money and time with people teaching me, and it was a f**king waste.”