Catherine Zeta-Jones Found Playing Griselda Blanco, 'Cocaine Godmother', 'Liberating'

Catherine Zeta-Jones is diving into the narcos-world playing Griselda Blanco, known in Latin America as "La Viuda Negra", in an upcoming Lifetime movie. “It was so liberating,” she said at a TCA panel (via Deadline). “I didn’t want to play a caricature of her, and do like a Mrs. Doubtfire’s fat suit. I wanted to play her from the inside out. Her attitude was much more than whether I didn’t wear mascara or lipstick.”

The Welsh actress said that she had left the acting world and this character reminded her on why she started acting in the first place. “For a few years there, I lost my mojo on what this is about. I love being a mother I love being a wife, I have a very nice career behind me,” she added. “I wasn’t seeing anything that would even come close to me feeling like that, and you kind of lose that spark. It’s made me remember why, when I was nine years old, I left home to go and do theater in London — that feeling of joy, and feeling that I’m home and this is what I love to do. I haven’t had that feeling in years.”

In an interview with Parade, the actress explained what attracted her about the character and if Griselda Blanco had any redeeming qualities about her. "She was completely uneducated, but she had very good business skills. What was fascinating was the power that she had over men, how they feared her and revered her," Zeta-Jones explained. "I didn’t want to make her likable or acceptable in any way. But I have to admire her having power and also abusing that power. She made it big in a very dangerous world."

"I feel that Griselda was a power addict as well as an addict," she continued. "She had an addict’s mentality and an addict’s behavior in many ways. I think she reached a point, where at that time, it was a little avant-garde. It was certainly not as open as we are luckily today. But that would never deter Griselda. She wanted to be different. I truly believe that in her head, Griselda was a movie star in her own movie. And she created Griselda. We did not take artistic license about her naming her son Michael Corleone. We didn’t even get into the fact that her dog was named Hitler. This woman was fascinating and dangerous."

Back at the TCA panel in California, Catherine Zeta-Jones says her intent is not to make Griselda Blanco likable. “She had a power and a strength of character that of all the things that I do not relate to, I do relate to that,” she said. “I do admire that in her. It was, where are the cracks in her? I don’t want to make everyone like her. I don’t like her.”