Academy Award winner Catherine Zeta Jones has landed a juicy role that could place her firmly in the running for another chance at awards greatness. The Welsh actress has now signed on to play Griselda Blanco in The Godmother. The movie will be based on the real-life story of the notorious baron, who rose to prominence in the Colombian Medellin drug cartel in 1970s Miami.
Set to be directed by Eva Sorhaug (90 Minutes), Zeta Jones will instil fear into the hearts of her lackeys from a script by Frank Baldwin. It’ll mark a change of pace for the actress, who’s most recently been seen in Stephen Sondheim’s latest effort on Broadway.
The infamous kingpin has already been brought to the big screen, in the 2006 documentary Cocaine Cowboys. Speaking of, raiding the 1970s for criminal drug biographies is becoming somewhat of a trend. Just earlier this month, we learned that Michael Bay and Jerry Bruckheimer were bringing a cocaine drama to TNT – influenced by that very same documentary.
While their serial effort is set to explore the entire region, The Godmother will focus solely on Blanco’s reign as a fear-mongerer. She waged a great deal of influence during that time, and is thought to have ordered hundreds of assassinations – earning her some rather unsavoury nicknames.
What do you think of Zeta Jones’ latest bit of casting in The Godmother? Sound off below and read on for further details of Blanco’s chequered past, courtesy of Deadline:
Blanco was also one of the biggest success stories of her generation in the drug game. Born in Cartagena, Colombia, she rose from her roots as a teenage runaway and prostitute and emigrated to New York where she started a cocaine business with her husband. Indicted on federal charges, she fled back to Colombia but resurfaced in Miami. There she established a distribution network connecting New York, Miami, LA, and Colombia that made her a multi-millionaire by her forties. After a 1985 arrest the mother of four served 18 years in prison before being released in 2004. She was deported back to Colombia, where she was killed in a motorcycle drive-by assassination in 2012.