'Tentacles of narco traffic were everywhere': Sofia Vergara reveals the inspiration behind 'Griselda'
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: Sofia Vergara recently revealed she decided to do Netflix's new dark drama ‘Griselda’ for her personal reasons.
The Columbian star, who became a household name with her performance as Gloria Pritchett in ‘Modern Family’, lost her brother to drug gangs back home.
Sofia Vergara lost her brother to drug gang
The 51-year-old revealed about the late 1990s incident, prompting her to say yes to this project of the cold-hearted story of ‘Grisela.’
In the series, she plays an ex-prostitute and gangland wife from Medellin, Colombia. She then arrives in Miami in the late 1970s with her three sons and a kilogram of cocaine stashed in her youngest child’s baggage.
“Honestly, I had to learn how to snort cocaine and smoke cigarettes for this,” shared Sofia.
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Explaining further on doing the part in Andres Baiz’s drama, the star said, “I went for a new job but I was also moving away from the situation in Colombia in the 90s with all the narco traffic. Then my brother was killed not long after I moved to Miami. I didn’t want my son to grow up in that environment.”
Sofia continued, “Unfortunately, in Colombia at that time, the tentacles of narco traffic were everywhere.”
“I cannot tell you that everyone was a drug dealer, because that’s not true. “But, for example, if you were an architect, who was buying the apartments? If you had a car dealership, who buys the cars? The narcos. You knew who the narcos were. Everything was touched by it. My brother was a nice guy – a good guy. But he took a wrong decision and unfortunately he paid for it. We all paid for it,” she added.
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No winners
The entire Sofia family struggled to start living a normal life. “Heartbreaking. When there’s a death of someone super special and a good father and a good brother, it destroys the family. My mother and father were never the same. My other brother, who was very close to him, became an alcoholic and then a crack addict because of the trauma," she said.
It wasn't just her family that suffered the pain of losing a family, but it was a common occurrence during those days, as per Daily Mail.
"I don’t know a single story of a drug dealer who had a happy ending. At some point, they’re in jail, or dead, or running away, or they can never see anyone anymore or their whole family is destroyed," she added
