Sofía Vergara became a big-name star through her performance as the loving Gloria on Modern Family, which she was a cast member of for 11 seasons. As for what she's done since then, the fan-favorite star has joined America’s Got Talent as a judge and more, recently landed her first post-MF TV role via Netflix’s Griselda, which is a gritty crime drama. In terms of what influenced Vergara’s dramatic turn following her sitcom stint, she revealed that she looked no further than Jennifer Aniston, who shifted from comedy to workplace drama The Morning Show.
Going from playing the good-natured Gloria on Modern Family to notorious crime boss Griselda Blanco was a challenging transition for Sofía Vergara. It’s understandable, considering that dropping hilarious one-liners on a network sitcom is much different wielding a gun and snorting (fake) cocaine on one of the best shows on Netflix is vastly different. As scary as this career shift was for the Colombian actress, she revealed amid THR’s Drama Actress Emmy Roundtable that she viewed comedic and dramatic actress Jennifer Aniston as inspiration for taking on the Netflix role:
That’s why, for example, when I decided to do Griselda, I wasn’t thinking, 'Oh, I want [to distance myself from] Gloria. No, it was I know that character. I lived in Colombia in that era. My brother was a drug dealer and got killed. But I’ve never seen it as a woman — I knew it as many, many men. Then I said, ‘Maybe I can’t do it. I’m going to find out who Jennifer Aniston [who also transitioned from a sitcom to drama] worked with.’
For 10 seasons, Jennifer Aniston played the role of Rachel Green on the NBC sitcom Friends, and she's still widely known for that performance today. She did many rom-coms and comedy films on the big screen after the show ended but, in 2019, she finally returned to TV to star alongside Steve Carell, Reese Witherspoon and more for The Morning Show. While Aniston plays the role of tough co-anchor Alex Levy flawlessly, she admitted to Sofía Vergara that she wasn’t all that confident when taking on that career-changing Apple TV+ role:
I was just going to say, every time I go to work, even when I start the next season of The Morning Show, I’ll think, ‘I don’t know how to do this.’ It’s like I have absolutely zero memory of how to be an actor.
Luckily, as Sofía Vergara explained, she looked to Jennifer Aniston’s acting coach, Nancy Banks, to help her channel Griselda Blanco. Banks has famously helped high-profile clients like Margo Robbie, Chris Pine, Patton Oswalt and more. Considering critics couldn’t stop talking about Vergara’s performance on Griselda, the Office Space actress' decision to seek out an acting coach who knows how to mold her stars well definitely worked in her favor.
The New Year's Eve alum spoke honestly at the Roundtable about how difficult it was to play the role of the real-life crime boss. Modern Family is TV-PG, and what the AGT judge had to perform a number of risque acts in the 2024 Netflix TV series. Her character drank alcohol, smoked in practically every scene and killed people. But she told Jennifer Aniston and their fellow actresses that Nancy Banks taught her all about how to bring out all of one's buried emotions for a dramatic role. She humorously pointed out that after playing this complex character, she's of the mindset that "comedy is so much nicer!”
Jennifer Aniston and Sofía Vergara's careers are certainly similar in that have very both started off making people laugh through network comedies before diving into murkier material. Both are incredibly talented, and it's awesome that Vergara decided to take a cue from Aniston while moving forward with Griselda. Here's hoping that both stars will continue to tackle interesting material -- and lean on each other for support -- as time goes on.
The biographical miniseries Griselda is available to stream using a Netflix subscription. Also, be sure to also watch Jennifer Aniston’s The Morning Show with the help of an Apple TV+ subscription. There's even information on other shows, which can be found on the 2024 TV schedule.
