Multi-hyphenate (actress-singer-dancer) and very busy lady Jennifer Lopez is returning to film for a somewhat unexpected role. She is set to play Colombian drug lord Griselda Blanco, known as the “Cocaine Godmother,” in an untitled project currently in development at HBO. Jennifer is also serving as executive producer for the film under her Nuyorican Productions banner. She announced the project on her Twitter feed on Wednesday, retweeting an article announcing the project and adding, “Here we gooo…”
Here we gooo… https://t.co/vypeBppHQR
— Jennifer Lopez (@JLo) August 10, 2016
The 47-year-old actress, currently playing one of the “good guys” on the NBC drama Shades of Blue, is going rogue with this role playing the criminal Blanco, the most powerful female cartel members of all time. A key player in Miami’s notorious Medellin cartel, Blanco was found guilty of the murder of three men – although most believe she was responsible for the death of many more. She definitely led an, umm, interesting life. Blanco was gunned down at the age of 69 in Colombia in 2012.
Apparently, Jennifer has wanted to tell Blanco’s story for a while, recently telling Variety, “I’ve been fascinated by the life of this corrupt and complicated woman for many years. The idea of teaming with HBO felt like the perfect fit for finally bringing Griselda’s story to life.”
Blanco has already been immortalized in pop culture. Her “story” was told on an episode of Comedy Central’s Drunk History, where she was played by Maya Rudolph. In addition, back in 2013, rapper Lil Kim created an alter ego and recorded a song as “Kimmy Blanco” in tribute to her. There’s even another biopic about Blanco in the works, The Godmother, starring Catherine Zeta-Jones as the notorious kingpin – or “queenpin” as it were.
The real Blanco has been featured on two critically-acclaimed documentaries, Cocaine Cowboys and Cocaine Cowboys 2: Hustlin’ with the Godmother. The second film dealt primarily with Blanco and both are worth a watch. They’re available on Netflix. They are really good, especially if you’re a documentary nerd like me. Check out the trailer for Cocaine Cowboys 2 – warning before clicking: it is a bit NSFW for language and some crime scene photos.
Griselda Blanco lived a hard life – and it showed. It’s going to take a lot of time in the makeup chair to transform Jennifer into a “take no prisoners” drug lord. Jennifer more than effectively transformed herself into doomed singer Selena for the 1997 movie of the same name – the film that pretty much launched her career. I wonder if she can pull this off. Beautiful actresses having to “frump it up” for movie roles often leads to awards, see Charlize Theron in Monster.
Photo credit: Getty Images, Pacific Coast News, Fame Flynet
That last photo of her in the green jumpsuit looks like she just emerged from the grotto at the Playboy mansion. And that’s not a compliment.
This should be interesting but I hope that her life is not romanticized for the screen. This woman was absolutely dangerous and she had no soul. The only this that shocked me was that she lived to almost 70.
I saw the Cocaine Cowboys documentaries and thought they were fascinating and well done. But I really do not like feature films that seemingly humanize or romanticize drug kingpins and their crimes. Having seen firsthand the havoc that the cartels have wrought along the Texas-Mexico border for over a decade now, there is NOTHING glamourous or positive about the drug game. NOTHING.
Terrible miscast. The only reason JLo kind of got it right with Selena is her natural dancing ability and theoretical singing ability. She doesn’t have the acting chops for this type of project.
Interesting casting. I don’t mind being surprised but they would really have to hide J Lo the movie star.
Confession: The Cell is one of guilty pleasures.
UMMM NO Hard PASS FROM GO I actually have a Voice note of me screeching No to my Gfs about this Griselda wasn’t a movie star looker, Griselda is not the Character where you are gonna get by on saying ” Ya know?”a lot whilst batting your ever so seductive lashes and a couple obligatory Show me your butt accidentally on Purpose Sequences So NO Off Top NO
Produce it and find ya a real Colombian or a Wagner Moura Caliber of actor- which you are not! ( what a Pleasure to see this dude chew scenery in an actual Cali Accent which he had to learn?!?!)
Let’s not all forget how you romanticized and Sexified Puchi who was a TERRIBLE woman To/For Hector/To his friends etc LOL
i would love it if she teamed up with steven soderbergh for this project. he does TV now and is already in the HBO family with the knick (cinemax – HBO company). he got an amazing performance out of her in out of sight and is excels in this genre. i can see this being an awesome project for both.
Thanks for the recommendation of documentaries. I’m a totally documentary nerd and I love that Netflix has a lot of them!
This doesn’t make sense to me. If you want a romanticize version better watch La Viuda Negra with Ana Serradilla as Griselda, BUT people outside Latin America don’t really understand the deep horror that is to live in a country full of narco-violence. It is not glamorous, for most of the population is pure violence and fear, so I’m really against these type of productions which romanticizes a situation that has my country in ruins
It’s always sheltered nations that romanticize or try to make money out of real tragedies in other countries. Meanwhile the people actually living through it would give anything to get away from that nightmare.
Jlo doesn’t have the acting skills for this role. I hope this is as good as the godfather and not like another idiotic romantic drama just because it’s about a woman.