Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1524900
THE ARTISAN FALL 2024 • 29 As with every show that was made during COVID, we now look back and wonder, "How the hell did we make it through? Griselda was no different. In the summer of 2021, I received a call from Philipp Barnett, a line producer that Dennis Parker and I had previously worked with on the Starz show Counterpart. He was producing a show about Griselda Blanco, starring Sofia Vergara, and wanted me to meet with Eric Newman, the executive producer, and Andre Bias, the director. Andy and Eric had a long-standing relationship stemming from Narcos and shared a creative vision. Our initial discussion about achieving that vision began with the question, "How can we change Sofia's look, taking into consideration that she is in every scene, and make it work for a TV schedule?" is was no small order. ey then proceeded to tell me that they had done some initial make-up tests prior to the COVID shutdown with Bill Corso and Vivian Baker. Also, that Art Sakamoto had been brought on to sculpt teeth for Sofia to wear. I immediately asked Ken Niederbaumer to join me on this project. en I reached out to Bill Corso. Come to find out that we had the same initial idea of changing Sofia's eyebrows. Ken and I did quite a few make-up tests using eyebrow blockers from "Out of Kit" with custom eyebrows hand-tied by Kristy Staky of Top Knot. We had known from the get-go that this would never be a realistic prosthetic recreation of the actual Griselda. Money and time constraints would have made it impossible. What we wanted instead, was to find a way to disguise Sofia Vergara's iconic face with minimal application. Given the parameters that we had to work within, it was challenging. We suggested giving her a slightly down-turned nose to help create a character with a bit of a sinister edge. To get an idea if it would work, we applied a stock broken-nose piece to the end of her nose. We loved it. We brought in Stevie Bettles to sculpt a small nose appliance. at last detail gave us exactly what we were looking for. Kelly Kline, who was Sofia's Sofia Vergara as Griselda B Y A N G E L A N O G A R O | D E P A R T M E N T H E A D M A K E - U P GRISELDA ON THE RUN (L-R) Alberto Guerra as Dario, and Sofia Vergara