“I’m not really scared of [menopause],” Vergara continues. “I’m pre-menopause. I’m not feeling any hot flashes, but sometimes my memory’s not the same, and I used to have the best memory. Sometimes [I’ll say], ‘Where the fuck are my glasses?’ And they’re right here. Stuff like that never used to happen to me.”
“My knees hurt more,” she adds. “If I sneeze sometimes the wrong way, my back is like, ‘What the fuck?’” I giggle, not because menopause or the bodily signs of aging are inherently funny, but because of Vergara’s delivery. She is still very much the comedian and actor the world fell in love with during early episodes of Modern Family—even if, according to her, she doesn’t quite look the same as she did then.
“Something that I hate is when I am watching sometimes an episode of Modern Family, and they don’t come in order; they put one from the first season when I was 37 and then the one 10 years later right after. I’m like, ‘Fuck you!’”
“You can see the age,” she says. “I shouldn’t complain because I’m 51 and I’m still healthy, and I’m very active. I still look in the mirror and I see someone beautiful. But sometimes it’s like, ‘Who are you?’ I’m still happy with what it is. I just learn to accept it’s not me. It’s a new me.”
Vergara is the first to say that her door to Hollywood was, at least in part, unlocked because of her looks—but as anyone who’s seen an episode of Griselda knows, it’s her talent that’s kept it open. “I knew what I had and I was grateful for it. I don’t have this thing where I have to say that everything is because of my hard work. No, I had these huge tits that opened doors for me. I don’t feel bad for it. I took advantage,” Vergara says. “They keep coming more beautiful and more young than me, but I’ve been working already for 30-something years.”
During that time, her work has evolved (she produced Griselda in addition to playing the title role) and so too has her beauty routine. Today, for one, her almond-shaped nails are longer than usual. “Right now I have gel because I start [America’s Got Talent] next week. And during AGT, I have to compete with Heidi Klum. Have you seen Heidi Klum’s nails?” asks Vergara. (I haven’t but Google them later; they are long and stiletto-shaped.) “I’m like, ‘Heidi, how do you even do anything with those?’ So every time that I start AGT, I get gels so that I can grow them more.”