biography true story teresa mendoza

Is Queen of the South a True Story?

The drug business is one of the most dangerous and profitable businesses in the world. Over the years, all over the globe, there have been people who rose from nothing and became some of the most notorious personalities in the world because of their involvement in this trade. Figures like Pablo Escobar have not only given Hollywood-worthy crime stories to the world but have also presented storytellers with compelling character sketches of dark and twisted personas.

There have been many shows that tell the story from the point of view of these crime lords, but almost all of them have had men as their protagonists. USA Network’s ‘ Queen of the South ’ changed the game when it put a woman at the centre of this riveting premise. It follows the story of a woman named Teresa Mendoza who gets sucked into the world of drug trafficking, and soon becomes the most successful and feared drug lord.

While the show is an engaging watch, it also makes us wonder about the feasibility of the situation. Have women really had such influential positions in the drug business? Could ‘Queen of the South’ be based on a real story? Here’s the answer.

Is Queen of the South Based on a True Story?

No, ‘The Queen of the South’ is not based on a true story. It is based on a novel of the same name written by Arturo Pérez-Reverte. He had served as a war correspondent for 21 years, during which he came across several female figures who proved to him that women were better adapted to surviving the harshest of situations as compared to men. While writing the character of Teresa, he looked towards these women, whom he had witnessed in the horrors of war, and gave his protagonist the key qualities that he had noticed in them.

His familiarity with the workings and the violence of the drug world also played an important part in creating the world that Teresa lives in. Though he didn’t exactly base her character on a particular person, she shares some similarities with the women who have gained notoriety in the business of drug trafficking.

The Real Queens of Drug Business

Teresa Mendoza might be the fictional Queen of the South, but in reality, the title is owned by Marllory Chacon Rossell. Dubbed by the Guatemalan press as the Queen of the South, she was called “the most active money launderer in Guatemala” by the US Treasury Department. Her reach extended to the political figures in the country, which proves just how influential a figure she was.

Her glory days came to an end when she was caught in 2014. She pleaded guilty and in exchange for lessening her sentence, she collaborated with the DEA, following which her 12-year sentence was reduced to 5 years. By the time the reduction happened, she had already served 53 months in prison and soon, she was free again.

Another woman to emerge as one of the most prolific drug traffickers is Sandra Ávila Beltrán. Called The Queen of the Pacific, she is related to Rafael Caro Quintero and Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo , who was once the godfather of the Mexican drug business. She enjoyed immense power and influence for a lot of time, but her reign came to an end in 2007 when she was charged with organized crime and conspiracy to drug trafficking. Efforts were made to extradite her to the US and pursue a strong case against her, but it didn’t turn out as expected.

Ávila denied the charges but eventually had to settle with a plea deal where she agreed to have financially assisted in an illegal situation. Eventually, she was deported back to Mexico, where she got in more trouble. She faced money-laundering charges and had to spend five more years at the Federal Social Readaptation Center No. 4 Federal Prison in Tepic, Nayarit. She was released in 2015 and settled in Guadalajara.

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The true story of the Mexican cartel that inspired ‘Queen of the South’

Many have inquired whether the character of Teresa Mendoza from Queen of the South is actually a real person. While Teresa is indeed only a character from Arturo Pérez-Reverte’s best-selling novel, La Reina del Sur, a lot of thought was put into her persona. 

In the show, Teresa is from the barrio of Jalisco, Mexico. In real life, there is indeed a huge and powerful drug cartel in Jalisco. Its name: the Jalisco New Generation Cartel .

The birth of the CJNG drug cartel 

The initials CJNG come from the drug cartel’s proper Spanish name: Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generación . 

The CJNG are said to have their drug-dusted tendrils in all 32 Mexican states to varying degrees. CJNG was spawned at the death in 2010 of the Sinaloa Cartel’s leader, Ignacio “Nacho” Coronel Villareal. CJNG originated as an individual organized crime group that forged an alliance with and learned from the Sinaloa Cartel.

Come 2013, relations between CJNG and Sinaloa had frayed. In 2016, when two of the Sinaloa leader gang’s sons were kidnapped by what many believe to have been CJNG gunmen, the two gangs’ relationship was publicly changed forever. 

CJNG continues to expand its operation and absorb smaller “orphan” organizations into its gang. Some worry this mass-consolidation will allow CJNG to bribe political organizations even more easily.

How the famous Mexican cartel operates

CJNG, one of the fastest rising drug cartels since the downfall of the Zetas gang, has recently been taking over the streets of Mexico. Their message to locals is that they eschew involving civilians in kidnapping and extortion, so their focus has been on rival drug cartels and policemen who get in their way. 

The CJNG functions somewhat like a military in itself: it’s heavily armed and responsible for many of the most intense attacks on Mexican police officers in recent memory. For example, in 2015 CJNG shot down a Mexican military helicopter with a rocket-propelled grenade while trying to protect its leader.

In 2019, the CJNG even hung a banner under an overpass declaring “Beautiful people, continue your routine”. Under and around this announcement hung nineteen chopped-up bodies. The drug cartel’s message? CJNG had moved in to clean up local gangs, but civilians should go about their business as usual. 

Despite the high levels of violence that the CJNG uses, some locals turn to the drug cartel for protection, claiming things have been better with CJNG than with other local gangs. Like Teresa in Queen of the South, some locals see hope when they turn to this famous Jaliscan drug cartel.

The powerful woman involved in the drug cartel CJNG  

On April 10, 2020, María del Carmen Albarrán García , better known as “ La Cecy ,” was arrested by Mexican police officers. She is suspected to be the leader of the CJNG drug cartel. 

Albarrán had crystal meth on her, ready for shipment, as well as a pistol which she threatened law enforcement with. It’s possible that Albarrán is partly the inspiration for Queen of the South’s Teresa since she is a main part of the Jalisco gang. 

While gangs like the Zetas were said to not be particularly good at the business side of drug dealing, such as carving out new routes, women like Albarrán have really upped the quality on rate of returns. A focus on balancing the violent aspects of running a drug cartel with the business side of things has allowed the CJNG to flourish. 

Where to catch Queen of the South 

You can learn more about the drug cartel of Jalisco and the boss women behind it by watching Queen of the South . The show has three seasons and is available on many platforms. Hulu, Netflix, iTunes, GooglePlay, Vudu, and Amazon Prime all air Queen of the South.

Bianca Myrtil

Bianca Myrtil is a writer and freelance editor. She relishes raving about her favorite shows and turning people’s drafted darlings into polished finished products. In her free time, Bianca enjoys stabilizing dangling modifiers and walking her cat. (No, that’s not a typo.)

[email protected]

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Kate del Castillo on how El Chapo made her broke and her return as TV drug lord ‘La Reina’

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The last time the world saw notorious drug trafficker Teresa Mendoza, she had narrowly evaded capture by Spanish police, survived a shootout that resulted in the death of her most loyal associate, publicly testified over the narcotrafficking roots of a prominent Mexican politician, then disappeared into the clutches of the U.S. witness protection program — all while pregnant with the child of a onetime lover whose death she had personally ordered.

That was in May of 2011. At that time, viewers of television all over the world thought that was the last they would ever see of “La Reina del Sur” (“The Queen of the South”), the smash Telemundo soap that turned Mexican actress Kate del Castillo into an international star — and which counted among its most prominent fans none other than El Chapo , then the chief of the Sinaloa cartel.

‘Narcos’ vs. narco novelas: In Latin America’s cartel TV shows, a compelling complexity »

“They’d always flirted with the idea of doing a second part,” says Del Castillo, as she sinks into a comfortable couch on the terrace of her Los Angeles home, glass of wine in hand. “It was such a success that, you know, networks get excited. But I never wanted to do a second part.”

“I was, like, this is perfect ,” she adds emphatically. “Let’s just leave it like it is. Why tamper with that?”

But eight years after “La Reina” made history, becoming a global pop cultural phenomenon and helping Telemundo beat the English-language networks in prime time, the queen is back — in a major way.

ALSO: She met ‘El Chapo’. Now, Kate del Castillo is afraid to return to Mexico »

Forget the internecine machinations of “Game of Thrones.” The most intriguing power struggle on TV in the coming weeks will be the hotly anticipated second season of “La Reina del Sur,” which kicks off Monday night on Telemundo.

“I always wanted to play Teresa again, I just didn’t want to force anything,” says Del Castillo, who despite a petite frame looks statuesque in a silky cream duster and high-heeled boots, her mini pinscher Lola trotting around at her feet. “You know, there is so much expectation. I mean, even right now, I am really nervous to be honest.”

For the network, the second season of “La Reina” is a case of stars aligning.

Like Del Castillo, many of the show’s other principal players had been skeptical about revisiting a program that had been so wildly successful. And Del Castillo had become “very protective” of a character that had come to define her career and her life.

“I’m broke. I’ve been paying lawyers in the United States and Mexico for so many years.”

— Kate del Castillo

“I was going through a very bad moment with my second marriage,” she recalls of shooting the first season. “So I would cry with her. And when people on the series would get hurt or died because of her, I would suffer with her. I think that’s one of the reasons that I made her so mine.”

Also on the list of skeptics was Arturo Pérez-Reverte , the Spanish novelist who wrote the best-selling book upon which the series is based and who would have to approve any new project.

“It took three years to convince Arturo Pérez-Reverte to do this,” says Marcos Santana, president of Telemundo Global Studios, which produced the show in conjunction with Netflix. “We also had to reunite writers from the original team. That took a long time.”

The story picks up eight years after the original concluded — an ending that left Teresa Mendoza pregnant and alone in an undisclosed location. The new season finds her living under an assumed identity with her daughter in the Italian countryside. It is in this pastoral setting that her past catches up with her, and her enemies in Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel kidnap her child.

ALSO: In the Netflix docu-series ‘The Day I Met El Chapo,’ Kate del Castillo tells her story »

To be certain, the second season is no simple reboot. If the premiere episode is evidence of what is to come, Telemundo is kicking it up several notches with a visibly better wardrobe budget, plenty of action and oodles of location shooting. (The production traveled to eight countries, including Italy, Spain, Belize, Colombia and Mexico.)

Moreover, Del Castillo, who is fiercely committed to authenticity, did her own stunts — including a motorcycle sequence in the first episode that has her chasing the baddies around a Tuscan town at life-threatening speeds. (Not entirely unusual for the actress, who keeps a Ducati Monster at home.)

“It’s a more mature Teresa,” says Del Castillo of her character, whose drive now is the maternal urge to rescue her child. “She’s now blinded. She’s gonna kill everybody.”

If Teresa Mendoza is now more mature, so is the actress who plays her, notes Santana. “What we encountered was another actress of incredible skill,” he says. “She was so committed.”

Certainly, the intervening years for Del Castillo have played out like one of the convoluted plots in “La Reina del Sur.”

It began with Del Castillo’s infamous late-night tweet storm from 2012 that was directed in part to Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán Loera — tweets that led the capo’s lawyers to reach out to the actress to arrange a meeting about a movie deal. Like the rest of the viewing planet, Guzmán was also hooked on “La Reina del Sur.”

The meeting ultimately went down in 2015 — in the company of actor Sean Penn, who wrote about it in a rambling 10,500-word piece for Rolling Stone . Guzmán was apprehended shortly after this gathering.

Later, it came out that the meeting with the actors had helped the authorities track down and arrest Guzmán. El Chapo was quickly extradited to the United States and put on trial. In February, he was convicted for drug trafficking and operating a criminal enterprise, among other charges.

This sequence of events turned Del Castillo’s life upside down. Her text exchanges with El Chapo were leaked to the press, she was investigated for possible money laundering, and the investigation left her unable to return to her native Mexico for almost three years. Not a single charge was filed against Del Castillo, but the experience nonetheless took a toll.

“I’m broke,” says the actress with resignation. “I’ve been paying lawyers in the United States and Mexico for so many years.”

Last year, she filed a $60 million suit against the Mexican government for damages on the “unjustified” investigation. The actress believes she became a target of the Mexican government because she made them look ham-handed.

“It did make them look bad because it was like, ‘Look, here a performer was able to get a meeting [with El Chapo] and you guys supposedly can’t find him,’” she says.

While Del Castillo has moved on professionally — she just wrapped shooting on “Bad Boys for Life” with Will Smith and Martin Lawrence — she says she will never be able to leave this episode of her life completely behind her.

“I know it’s something that’s gonna be haunting me forever,” she says. “But I take responsibility for that. I decided to go down there. It was in my hands and I assume the responsibility.”

In the meantime, Del Castillo is only looking forward. In addition to the film, she is at work on a one-woman stage show that she is not yet ready to announce. And, of course, there is the second season of “La Reina del Sur” to look forward to — which has reconnected her to a character that has been vital to her career.

Teresa Mendoza is wily and headstrong. She is a survivor. She somehow manages to surmount the insurmountable.

“There are so many things of Teresa that I have in me,” says Del Castillo. “And I think Teresa has a lot of things that I’ve given to her.”

“La Reina del Sur”

Where: Telemundo

When: Premieres Monday at 10 p.m.; airs weeknights at 10 p.m.

Rated: TV14 DLV

[email protected] | Twitter: @cmonstah

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The Insane, Unbelievable, Totally True Story Behind USA’s Drug Drama Queen of the South

By Laura Bradley

USA’s new narco-drama Queen of the South , which premieres this Thursday, has perhaps one of the most bonkers backstories in TV history. The series itself is based on a novel, La Reina del Sur , which takes its inspiration from real-life players in the drug game. The novel’s first adaptation was a telenovela by the same name starring Kate del Castillo —and if the actress’s name sounds familiar, it’s because you probably heard about her earlier this year: she was the one who introduced Sean Penn to the infamous drug lord El Chapo, whom he interviewed for a splashy, controversial article in Rolling Stone .

Naturally, with a backstory like that, Vanity Fair had to speak with Queen of the South executive producer David Friendly to find out where USA’s new show fits in.

Queen of the South follows a charismatic protagonist named Teresa ( Alice Braga ) whose desirability belies her true asset—a cunning, ruthless mind. As the American pilot opens, Teresa paces and preens in her pristine, Cribs -worthy mansion and discusses her drug kingpin—er, queenpin—philosophy via voiceover. Then, right before our eyes, she’s assassinated by a single gunshot through her window. Her death sends us plunging back into the past to find out how she got here.

Friendly said when he came across La Reina del Sur three years ago, he knew he wanted to make a show out of it. He contacted Telemundo, which ran its own 63-episode adaptation in 2011, and was told that the English-language rights had to be acquired from the novel’s author, __ Arturo Pérez-Reverte.__

According to Friendly, getting the author’s go-ahead was no cakewalk.

“For about a year, literally, I spoke to his agent in Spain every day begging him to let me make an offer for the English rights to the book,” Friendly said. “I thought it was a terrific story.” Eventually, his relentless perseverance won out: “They got tired of my phone calls, I think, so they allowed me to option the book.”

As the show made its three-plus-year journey to the screen, two big events catapulted Telemundo’s adaptation, its female lead, and some of the narrative’s key inspirations into the spotlight. This January, Rolling Stone ran Sean Penn’s interview with El Chapo. The drug lord, whose real name is Joaquín Archivaldo Guzmán Loera , runs the Sinaloa cartel in Mexico—where Queen of the South ’s protagonist is from. El Chapo has escaped prison in Mexico twice; he was still a wanted convict in hiding when Penn interviewed him.

How on earth did Penn manage to get in touch with El Chapo? Reina del Sur star Kate del Castillo introduced them . Turns out that she and El Chapo had been in contact ever since he reached out to her, asking del Castillo to help him make a biopic about his life. Naturally, del Castillo’s involvement introduced both the actress and her telenovela to many people who had never heard of either before.

As fate would have it, the real-life Reina del Sur, whose real name is Marllory Chacón, also made headlines this year when she was implicated among others, including El Chapo, in the Panama Papers scandal.

As all of the intrigue surrounding his upcoming series’s real-life and fictional influences unfolded, Friendly said, “I was certainly aware of what was going on, and I was fascinated.” But in the end, he considered himself nothing more than an “interested observer.”

“It really had nothing to do with our show and what we were doing,” Friendly said. Instead, his focus remained on one thing: making his adaptation as good as it could possibly be, especially for its underserved Hispanic audience.

“There is a balance going on here,” Friendly said. The show is set in the U.S., and centers on a Mexican-born protagonist. Getting her story right, and making it resonate with both Hispanic and non-Hispanic viewers, required some precise considerations—and a couple tweaks to the original story line. For instance, in the books, Teresa makes her home in Spain; in USA’s series, Teresa ends up in Dallas. It’s a nod to U.S. viewers—one that also introduces the potential for some fascinating angles on ever-contentious border issues, should the show decide to go in that direction.

As a nod to Hispanic audiences, Friendly also wanted to ensure that Spanish made its way into the show—in the right way. “It’s set in the U.S., so obviously the main language is English,” he explained. “But there is a fair amount of Spanish in the show with subtitles.”

And for her part, the show’s Brazilian leading lady Alice Braga was more than happy to put in the work that would make her character, and the story as a whole, ring true. That may be why the book’s author loved this adaptation, according to Friendly. Throughout the pilot, Braga is magnetic and confident—a believably compelling honcho in the narcosphere. That enthusiasm and energy is present both on- and offscreen; the actress was in constant communication with the directors and show-runners to make sure everything about her character, from her behaviors to her accent, rang true.

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“She literally carries around a tattered copy of the book with her every shoot day,” Friendly said. “We’re talking about months here. And she has passages underlined.”

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Was The TV Series 'Queen Of The South' Based On A True Story?

The storyline was gripping, but was 'Queen of the South' rooted in any truth?

Society as a whole has long had a fascination with true crime stories and yes, even the people who are said to move illicit substances across national and international boundaries. The fast-paced lifestyle of los narcos has a lot of people interested in TV series like 'Queen of the South,' which documents the life of Teresa Mendoza, a woman who unwittingly got sucked into Mexico cartel life but winds up dominating the entire "industry."

It's a vastly different tale of Mexico (and other Latin countries) than, say, Kendall Jenner's adventures in 'building homes for the poor.' In fact, tons of viewers tuned in to watch Teresa's story play out, leaving one big question lingering: does 'Queen of the South' have any roots in truth, or is it all fiction?

Was 'Queen Of The South' A True Story?

If viewers thought 'Queen of the South' was too crazy a story to be true, it kind of is. The series itself is based on a novel called 'La Reina del Sur' (which was then translated into English for the show) by Spanish author Arturo Pérez-Reverte.

RELATED: Cameron Diaz + 9 Other Celebs You Didn't Know Had Latinx Roots

The novel is the basis for many of the show's characters and plots, so while it's full of drama and intrigue, most of that is manufactured. However, people with knowledge of Latin America's narcotraficantes may see some very realistic scenarios played out.

Was Teresa Mendoza A Real Person?

Unfortunately, the beloved character of Teresa Mendoza is not a real person (though fans kind of hoped she was since they were all rooting for her during the show!). Yet the character of Teresa wasn't created out of thin air; there was some real-life inspiration for Pérez-Reverte's novel early on.

Who Was The Inspiration For Teresa Mendoza?

Arturo Pérez-Reverte has previously explained that the inspiration for his character of Teresa Mendoza, la Reina del Sur, came from a woman called Sandra Ávila Beltrán. Ávila Beltrán was a third-generation naroctraficante (drug trafficker) from Mexico, and her life had many of the same plot points as Teresa's in the TV series.

RELATED: 10 Celebs Who Are True Crime Junkies

The media often called Sandra "La Reina del Pacífico" (queen of the Pacific) because of the routes her shipments took, while others called her "La Reina del Mar" (queen of the ocean) and yes, also "La Reina del Sur."

RELATED: This Is How Dog The Bounty Hunter Escaped A Mexican Prison Sentence

Ávila Beltrán was eventually arrested and charged with various drug trafficking crimes. Unlike some of her connections in the industry, she was ultimately released in 2015 after serving seven years in prison over various sentences for money laundering and drug trafficking.

Will 'Queen Of The South' Be Rebooted?

A lot of fans who watched 'Queen of the South' for its five-season run are really hoping the series will have a revival. The unfortunate truth is that it's probably done for good; the series wrapped in mid-2021 and there have been no plans to bring the show back.

Yet fans have found another way to revisit the storyline, albeit in a bit of a different direction.

Is There Another 'Queen Of The South' Show?

What's a bit confusing to many fans is that while 'Queen of the South' has apparently ended for good, its sister crime drama hasn't . Remember how 'Queen of the South' was based on Arturo Pérez-Reverte's novel? So is another crime drama -- this one in Spanish -- on USA Network's sibling network, Telemundo.

In fact, it's important to specify that 'La Reina del Sur' is the one that inspired 'Queen of the South,' and preceded it in production by five years.

Who Is 'La Reina Del Sur'?

In the Spanish-language series 'La Reina del Sur,' fans might be interested to know that Teresa Mendoza is played by Kate del Castillo.

If her name doesn't ring a bell, here's the back story: Kate del Castillo, with all her experience acting in narco-centric films and TV series, was tapped to interview El Chapo, AKA Joaquín Guzmán, a drug trafficker who escaped authorities for years and was only captured in 2016, shortly after Kate and Sean Penn interviewed him in Mexico.

In a recent special about her interview, Kate also admitted she fell in love with Sean Penn, and that they had a secret relationship for some time; she recalled him telling their mutual friends stories about his relationship with Madonna back in the day.

While some viewers will need to switch on their English subtitles to get the most out of 'La Reina del Sur,' many of the same characters from Pérez-Reverte's novel make an appearance.

When Will 'La Reina Del Sur' Come Back?

'La Reina del Sur' had its first season all the way back in 2011, with its second debuting in 2019. A third season has been promised, but while fans wait for that, there are a full 120+ episodes of the first two seasons to enjoy on streaming services like Netflix.

While 'La Reina del Sur' does depart a bit from the 'Queen of the South' storyline, it also imitates life even more than the sister series; in 'La Reina,' Teresa Mendoza's daughter is kidnapped, requiring her to reconnect with her old industry to save her kid. As it happens, that happened in real life to Sandra Ávila Beltrán, the real 'Queen of the Pacific.'

NEXT: 19 Surprising Things No One Knows About El Chapo

Is 'Queen of the South' Based on a True Story? Inside the Book-Inspired Drama Series

Apr. 24 2020, Updated 2:09 p.m. ET

Queen of the South has been captivating fans since it hit the small screen in 2016, and now, in the heat of the compelling fourth season, viewers can't help but wonder if the hit series is based on a true story. Scroll down for everything we know!

The star of the show, Alice Braga, once spoke out on the topic. "I think it's inspired by some female, some women who were cartel leaders, but it's a fiction book," she revealed to Bustle . "The book is very different from the series. I mean, it's inspired by the book, but the journey for the character, they decided to create a different journey." 

Is Queen of the South based on a true story?

It's no surprise that there are questions about whether or not the show is based on true events, especially considering the fact that the series is inspired from Arturo Pérez-Reverte's best-selling novel, La Reina Del Sur . 

View this post on Instagram We know we can always rely on our #QueenFamilia to hold on until the next episode of #QueenOfTheSouth. We'll see you again on @USA_Network in only two more days. A post shared by Queen of the South (@queenonusa) on Jun 18, 2019 at 2:54pm PDT

So, is the book a true story then? Not exactly. While the book drew inspiration from real-life events in the drug world, it wasn't entirely based on a true story. And before USA Network decided to air the show, there was a telenovela based off the same book that aired in 2011.

That said, Queen of the South 's executive producer David Friendly had to contact Telemundo, who housed the show, but they told him the book's author had to give him the go-ahead.

But that wasn't exactly easy. "For about a year, literally, I spoke to his agent in Spain every day begging him to let me make an offer for the English rights to the book,” he told Vanity Fair . “I thought it was a terrific story.”

But he eventually got his way. “They got tired of my phone calls, I think, so they allowed me to option the book.” Well, thankfully they did!   

View this post on Instagram A Queen cannot conquer alone. Season 4 of #QueenOfTheSouth comes to @USA_Network June 6th. A post shared by Queen of the South (@queenonusa) on Apr 17, 2019 at 3:15pm PDT

Is Teresa Mendoza real?

On the show, Alice plays protagonist and drug lord Teresa Mendoza, whom USA network describes as "a poor young woman from the 'barrio' of Jalisco, Mexico who found a way to rise above her hopeless conditions — first by falling in love with a successful member of a drug cartel, then eventually by creating her own powerful drug empire and becoming one of the wealthiest women in the world."

But even though Teresa is the character in the book, she's not a real person. That said, Alice had to do a lot of work to try and become that character. "I watched a bunch of documentaries about the powerful women of the cartel world, like Cocaine Cowboys , and there is a real 'La Reina del Pacífico,' which is 'The Queen of the Pacific,' which exists in Mexico, so I tried to read about her." 

She added, "[I was] kind of inspired by true events, but trying to base myself on the character from the book, which I think it's a wonderful character. So I tried to at least get the human being she is, like the core of the character, even though the journey is different from the book — trying to honor Teresa Mendoza from the book."  We think you're honoring her quite well, Alice!

Teresa Will Continue to Expand Her Empire in Season 4 of 'Queen of the South' (Spoilers)

La Reina del Sur' Reboot Is Not on Netflix Yet — Here's How to Watch

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'The Queen of the South'

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By ARTURO PÉREZ-REVERTE

• Aug. 1, 2004

Ialways thought that those narcocorridos about Mexican drug runners were just songs, and that The Count of Monte Cristo was just a novel. I mentioned this to Teresa Mendoza that last day, when (surrounded by bodyguards and police) she agreed to meet me in the house she was staying in at the time, in Colonia Chapultepec, in the town of Culiacán, state of Sinaloa, Mexico. I mentioned Edmond Dantès, asking if she'd read the novel, and she gave me a look so long and so silent that I feared our conversation would end right there. Then she turned toward the rain that was pittering against the windows, and I don't know whether it was something in the gray light from outside or an absentminded smile, but whatever it was, it left a strange, cruel shadow on her lips.

"I don't read books," she said.

I knew she was lying, as no doubt she'd lied countless times over the last twelve years. But I didn't want to insist, so I changed the subject. I'd tracked her across three continents for the last eight months, and her long journey out and back again was much more interesting to me than the books she'd read.

To say I was disappointed would not be quite accurate-reality often pales in comparison with legends. So in my profession the word "disappointment" is always relative-reality and legend are just the raw materials of my work. The problem is that it's impossible to live for weeks and months obsessed with someone without creating for yourself a definite, and invariably inaccurate, idea of the subject in question-an idea that sets up housekeeping in your head with such strength and verisimilitude that after a while it's hard, maybe even unnecessary, to change its basic outline. We writers are privileged: readers take on our point of view with surprising ease. Which was why that rainy morning in Culiacán, I knew that the woman sitting before me would never be the real Teresa Mendoza, but another woman who was taking her place, and who was, at least in part, created by me. This was a woman whose history I had reconstructed piece by piece, incomplete and contradictory, from people who'd known her, hated her, and loved her.

"Why are you here?" she asked.

"I'm still lacking one episode of your life. The most important one."

"Hm. One 'episode.'"

"Right."

She'd picked up a pack of Faros from the table and was holding a plastic lighter, a cheap one, to a cigarette, after first making a gesture to stop the man sitting at the other end of the room, who was lumbering to his feet solicitously, left hand in his jacket pocket. He was an older guy, stout-even fat-with very black hair and a bushy Mexican moustache.

"The most important one?"

She put the cigarettes and the lighter back down on the table, perfectly symmetrically, without offering me one. Which didn't matter to me one way or the other, since I don't smoke. There were several other packs there, too, an ashtray, and a pistol.

"It must be," she added, "if you're here today. Must be really important."

I looked at the pistol. A SIG-Sauer. Swiss. Fifteen 9-millimeter cartridges per clip, in three neat staggered rows. And three full clips. The gold-colored tips of the bullets were as thick as acorns.

"Yes" I answered coolly. "Twelve years ago. Sinaloa."

Again the contemplative silence. She knew about me, because in her world, knowledge could be bought. And besides, three weeks earlier I'd sent her a copy of my unfinished piece. It was the bait. The letter of introduction so I could get what I needed and finish the story off.

"Why should I tell you about that?"

"Because I've gone to a lot of trouble over you."

She was looking at me through the cigarette smoke, her eyes slightly Mongolian, somehow, like the masks at the Templo Mayor. She got up and went over to the bar and came back with a bottle of Herradura Reposado and two small, narrow glasses, the ones the Mexicans call caballitos , "little horses." She was wearing comfortable dark linen pants, a black blouse, and sandals, and I noticed that she was wearing no diamonds, no stones of any kind, no gold chain around her neck, no watch-just a silver semanario on her right wrist, the seven silver bangles I'd learned she always wore. Two years earlier-the press clippings were in my room at the Hotel San Marcos-the Spanish society magazine ¡Hola! had included her among the twenty most elegant women in Spain. At about the same time, El Mundo ran a story about the latest police investigation into her business dealings on the Costa del Sol and her links with drug traffickers. In the photo, published on page one, you could see her in a car with the windows rolled up partway, protected from reporters by several bodyguards in dark glasses. One of them was the heavyset guy with the moustache who was sitting at the other end of the room now, looking at me as though he weren't looking at me.

"A lot of trouble," she repeated pensively, pouring tequila into the glasses.

She sipped at it, standing up, never taking her eyes off me. She was shorter than she looked in photos or on television, but her movements were still calm and self-assured-each gesture linked to the next naturally, as though there were no possibility of improvisation or doubt. Maybe she never has any doubts about anything anymore, I suddenly thought. At thirty-five, she was still vaguely attractive. Less, perhaps, than in recent photographs and others I'd seen here and there, kept by people who'd known her on the other side of the Atlantic. That included her profile in black-and-white on an old mugshot in police headquarters in Algeciras. And videotapes, too, jerky images that always ended with big gruff gorillas entering the frame to shove the lens aside. But in all of them she was indisputably Teresa, with the same distinguished appearance she presented now-wearing dark clothes and sunglasses, getting into expensive automobiles, stepping out onto a terrace in Marbella, sunbathing on the deck of a yacht as white as snow, blurred by the telephoto lens: it was the Queen of the South and her legend. The woman who appeared on the society pages the same week she turned up in the newspapers' police blotter.

But there was another photo whose existence I knew nothing about, and before I left that house, two hours later, Teresa Mendoza unexpectedly decided to show it to me: a snapshot wrinkled and falling apart, its pieces held together with tape crisscrossing the back. She laid it on the table with the full ashtray and the bottle of tequila of which she herself had drunk two-thirds and the SIG-Sauer with the three clips lying there like an omen-in fact, a fatalistic acceptance-of what was going to happen that night.

As for that last photo, it really was the oldest of all the photos ever taken of her, and it was just half a photo, because the whole left side was missing. You could see a man's arm in the sleeve of a leather aviator jacket over the shoulders of a thin, dark-skinned young woman with full black hair and big eyes. The young woman was in her early twenties, wearing very tight pants and an ugly denim jacket with a lambskin collar. She was facing the camera with an indecisive look about halfway down the road toward a smile, or maybe on the way back. Despite the vulgar, excessive makeup, the dark eyes had a look of innocence, or a vulnerability that accentuated the youthfulness of the oval face, the eyes slightly upturned into almondlike points, the very precise mouth, the ancient, adulterated drops of indigenous blood manifesting themselves in the nose, the matte texture of the skin, the arrogance of the uplifted chin. The young woman in this picture was not beautiful, but she was striking, I thought. Her beauty was incomplete, or distant, as though it had been growing thinner and thinner, more and more diluted, down through the generations, until finally what was left were isolated traces of an ancient splendor. And then there was that serene-or perhaps simply trusting-fragility. Had I not been familiar with the person, that fragility would have made me feel tender toward her. I suppose.

"I hardly recognize you."

It was the truth, and I told it. She didn't seem to mind the remark; she just looked at the snapshot on the table. And she sat there like that for a long time.

"Me, either," she finally said.

Then she put the photo away again-first in a leather wallet with her initials, then in the purse that was lying on the couch-and gestured toward the door. "I think that's enough," she said.

She looked very tired. The long conversation, the tobacco, the bottle of tequila. She had dark circles under her eyes, which no longer resembled the eyes in the old snapshot. I stood up, buttoned my jacket, put out my hand-she barely brushed it-and glanced again at the pistol. The fat guy from the other end of the room was beside me, indifferent, ready to see me out. I looked down, intrigued, at his splendid iguana-skin boots, the belly that spilled over his handworked belt, the menacing bulge under his denim jacket. When he opened the door, I saw that what I took as fat maybe wasn't, and that he did everything with his left hand. Obviously his right hand was reserved as a tool of his trade.

"I hope it turns out all right," I said.

She followed my gaze to the pistol. She nodded slowly, but not at my words. She was occupied with her own thoughts.

"Sure," she muttered.

Then I left. The same Federales with their bulletproof vests and assault weapons who had frisked me from head to toe when I came in were standing guard in the entry and the front garden as I walked out. A military jeep and two police Harley-Davidsons were parked next to the circular fountain in the driveway. Five or six journalists and a TV camera were under a canopy outside the high walls, in the street: they were being kept at a distance by soldiers in combat fatigues who were cordoning off the grounds of the big house. I turned to the right and walked through the rain toward the taxi that was waiting for me a block away, on the corner of Calle General Anaya.

Now I knew everything I needed to know, the dark corners had been illuminated, and every piece of the history of Teresa Mendoza, real or imagined, now fit: from that first photograph, or half-photograph, to the woman I'd just talked to, the woman who had an automatic lying out on the table.

The only thing lacking was the ending, but I would have that, too, in a few hours. Like her, all I had to do was sit and wait.

Twelve years had passed since the afternoon in the city of Culiacán when Teresa Mendoza started running. On that day, the beginning of a long round-trip journey, the rational world she thought she had built in the shadow of Güero Dávila came crashing down around her, and she suddenly found herself lost and in danger.

She had put down the phone and sat for a few seconds in cold terror. Then she began to pace back and forth across the room, opening drawers at random, blind with panic, knowing she needed a bag to carry the few things she needed for her escape, unable at first to find one. She wanted to weep for her man, or scream until her throat was raw, but the terror that was washing over her, battering her like waves, numbed her emotions and her ability to act. It was as if she had eaten a mushroom from Huautla or smoked a dense, lung-burning joint, and been transported into some distant body she had no control over.

Blindly, numbly, after clumsily but quickly pulling on clothes-some jeans, a T-shirt, and shoes-she stumbled down the stairs, her hair wet, her body still damp under her clothing, carrying a little gym bag with the few things she had managed to gather and stuff inside: more T-shirts, a denim jacket, panties, socks, her purse with two hundred pesos. They would be on their way to the apartment already, Güero had warned her. They'd go to see what they could find. And he did not want them to find her.

Before she stepped outside the gate, she paused and looked out, up and down the street, indecisively, with the instinctive caution of the prey that catches the scent of the hunter and his dogs nearby. Before her lay the complex urban topography of a hostile territory. Colonia las Quintas: broad streets, discreet, comfortable houses with bougainvillea everywhere and good cars parked in front. A long way from the miserable barrio of Las Siete Gotas, she thought. And suddenly, the lady in the drugstore across the street, the old man in the corner grocery where she had shopped for the last two years, the bank guard with his blue uniform and twelve-gauge double-barreled shotgun on his shoulder-the very guard who would always smile, or actually, leer, at her when she passed-now looked dangerous to her, ready to pounce. There won't be any more friends anymore , Güero had said offhandedly, with that lazy smile of his that she sometimes loved, and other times hated with all her heart. The day the telephone rings and you take off running, you'll be alone, prietita. And I won't be around to help.

She clutched the gym bag to her body, as though to protect her most intimate parts, and she walled down the street with her head lowered, not looking at anything or anybody, trying at first not to hurry, to keep her steps slow. The sun was beginning to set over the Pacific, twenty-five miles to the west, toward Altata, and the palm, manzanita, and mango trees of the avenue stood out against a sky that would soon turn the orange color typical of Culiacán sunsets. She realized that there was a thumping in her ears-a dull, monotonous throbbing superimposed on the noise of traffic and the clicking of her own footsteps. If someone had called out to her at that moment, she wouldn't have been able to hear her name, or even, perhaps, the sound of the gunshot.

The gunshot. Waiting for it, expecting it with such certainty-her muscles tense, her neck stiff and bowed, her head down-that her back and kidneys ached. This was The Situation. Sitting in bars, among the drinks and cigarette smoke, she'd all too often heard this theory of disaster-discussed apparently only half jokingly-and it was burned into her brain as if with a branding iron. In this business , Güero had said, you've got to know how to recognize The Situation. Somebody can come over and say Buenos días. Maybe you even know him, and he'll smile at you. Easy. Smooth as butter. But you'll notice something strange, a feeling you can't quite put your finger on, like something's just this much out of place -his fingers practically touching. And a second later, you're a dead man -Güero would point his finger at Teresa like a revolver, as their friends laughed- or woman .

Continues...

Excerpted from The Queen of the South by Arturo Pérez-Reverte Copyright © 2002 by Arturo Pérez-Reverte. Excerpted by permission.

All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Entertainment

Alice Braga On 'Queen Of The South's Inspiration

On Thursday, June 23, USA will debut its new series Queen of the South , a drama focusing on a woman named Teresa Mendoza who gets involved with a drug dealer, but then is forced to go on the run soon after he is murdered in Mexico. From that moment on, Teresa finds herself working her way up the drug cartel ladder, eventually landing herself as the leader of the biggest drug empire in the western hemisphere. The series is based on Arturo Pérez-Reverte's best-selling novel, La Reina Del Sur . Since the TV adaptation found inspiration from a book, I'm sure you might be wondering, "Is Queen of the South based on true events?" Luckily, Bustle had a chance to chat with star Alice Braga about whether or not the series and/or her character are or are not purely fiction.

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"I think it's inspired by some female, some women who were cartel leaders, but it's a fiction book," Braga says. " The book is very different from the series . I mean, it's inspired by the book, but the journey for the character, they decided to create a different journey." Even though the overall story is fiction, that doesn't mean both the book and the TV series didn't find inspiration from true events and actual cartel leaders.

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Braga did quite a bit of research to get into character, and she was already a huge fan of the book . The 33-year-old actor reveals, "I read the book seven years ago and fell in love with the character." Before channeling Teresa Mendoza and filming, she made sure to study the drug empire world as much as she could, and says,

"I watched a bunch of documentaries about the powerful women of the cartel world, like Cocaine Cowboys , and there is a real "La Reina del Pacífico," which is 'The Queen of the Pacific,' which exists in Mexico, so I tried to read about her. [I was] kind of inspired by true events, but trying to base myself on the character from the book, which I think it's a wonderful character. So I tried to at least get the human being she is, like the core of the character, even though the journey is different from the book — trying to honor Teresa Mendoza from the book."

And for fans of Narcos , and those who may be curious, Braga says that her show is very different than the Netflix hit, which tells the story of drug lord Pablo Escobar. "It's really interesting, because one of my really good friends is Wagner Moura, who plays Pablo Escobar," Braga says. " It's a very different show , because Narcos tells the true story of Pablo Escobar." She adds,

"No matter what, [ Queen of the South ] is based on fiction and Narcos is based on this very powerful character that is Pablo Escobar that all of us know about. So, I think those are the differences, but there are a bunch of things about cocaine, about this world of cartels and all that that could be similar, apart from being a female lead character and a male lead character."

Basically, fans of shows focusing on the ins and outs of drug empires now have two exciting series to watch, meaning you should definitely tune into USA's Queen of the South on Thursday, June 23 at 10 p.m.

Image: Justin Stephens/USA Network

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Is ‘Queen of the South’ Based on a True Story?

Where to stream:.

• Queen of the South
• Based On A True Story

Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Scoop’ on Netflix, The Story Behind Prince Andrew's Epic Epstein Fail

Stream it or skip it: ‘the zone of interest’ on max, an unblinking stare at the banality of evil, is ‘scoop’ based on a true story what to know about prince andrew and jeffrey epstein, stream it or skip it: ‘música,’ a rhythmic, romantic trifle from director-star rudy mancuso.

Queen of the South   is a TV series that first aired on USA Network in 2016 and finished its full run with a fifth season that wrapped up on June 9, 2021. But the title made it big all over again after its final season dropped on Netflix last week on Thursday, April 7. Now Queen of the South is getting a second wind and sits amongst the Netflix Top 10 currently trending titles in the United States on the platform, leading even more people to get curious about the show and its origins.

Queen of the South  is a crime drama show developed by M.A. Fortin and Joshua John Miller, and stars Alice Braga as Teresa Mendoza, a poor woman from Sinaloa, Mexico, who must flee to America after the murder of her boyfriend, a member of a successful drug cartel in Mexico.

In her efforts to start fresh in the States, she joins forces with an unlikely figure (Veronica Falcón) from her past, and together they try to take down the leader of the drug ring that’s on her tail. Those efforts pay off, as Teresa gets rich and creates a sweeping drug empire, but she soon finds that vast wealth can’t solve all of life’s problems, and can even be the cause of a host of brand new ones.

Wondering if Queen of the South is based on a true story? Here’s everything we know:

IS QUEEN OF THE SOUTH  BASED ON A TRUE STORY?

Queen of the South  is the final product in a line of inspirations. The series is an adaptation of Telemundo’s popular Spanish-language telenovela La Reina del Sur , which initially premiered in 2011 with a 63-episode first season that had 60-episode follow up sophomore season in 2019. And that telenovela version of the series also is an adaptation, as it was based on Spanish author Arturo Pérez-Reverte’s 2002 book of the same name.

While Pérez-Reverte’s novel is a work of fiction, it’s inspired by real-life female drug lord Marllory Chacón, a Guatemalan-born woman who ran cocaine from there to the United States through Colombian and Mexican drug cartels, building an empire so successful she earned the moniker of (you guessed it) “Queen of the South.” Chacón was eventually caught and sentenced to 12 years of prison in the U.S. in 2015 for drug trafficking, then in 2019 saw the sentences reduced to five years by a federal judge, and was eventually released altogether just five days after that final decision.

So long story short, yes,  Queen of the South  is indeed loosely based on the real-life story of Marllory Chacón.

WHERE CAN I WATCH  QUEEN OF THE SOUTH ?

Right now,  Queen of the South is available to stream on Netflix and USA (with your cable subscription), but if you don’t have an account with either service, you’ve still got options.

You can also watch Queen of the South   on Prime Video , iTunes , Vudu , YouTube , and Microsoft Store , where each season is available to buy for $9.99 in SD and $14.99 in HD

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Is Queen of the South a true story? It’s inspired by female drug traffickers

• by Lilyanne Rice
•  – on Apr 14, 2022
•  in TV Shows

Few shows can compare to  Queen of the South  in terms of popularity. The leaders of the narco world are often portrayed as ruthless men who decapitate enemies and traitors at the snap of a finger. Rarely do we see a woman build and lead a drug-trafficking cartel on television.

In  Queen of the South , Teresa Mendoza flees Sinaloa, Mexico, following the murder of her boyfriend, a drug trafficker in Mexico. She plots to take down the drug leader seeking to kill her and, in the process, creates a powerful drug cartel. 

Contrary to your expectations, perhaps,  Queen of the South  may have real-life inspirations. 

Queen of the South  is based on a novel reportedly inspired by real-life trafficker Marllory Chacon

Queen of the South  is based on Arturo Perez-Reverte’s book of the same name.  La Reina del Sur  was first adapted as a Spanish language telenovela before executive producer David Friendly laboriously acquired the English rights to the book. 

Arturo’s book is based on fiction, but it reportedly draws inspiration from Marllory Chacon. Marllory trafficked cocaine into the United States using Colombian and Mexican drug cartels, earning the title ‘Queen of the South.’

Chacon was a skilled money launderer who eventually became a drug trafficker. She stood out, not because of her fair complexion and long, light brown hair, but because she dealt drugs with powerful men. 

Women were often the wives or girlfriends of drug dealers, but Chacon flipped the script: her partner was the husband of a drug dealer. 

For an unclear reason, the Guatemalan government protected Chacon. A former employee of the Lorenzana mafia told  Vice :

“[Chacón Rossell] moved with security everywhere. Marllory was guarded by the National Police. She had three or four cars with her from the Ministry of the Interior—it was security that was assigned to her.”

Marllory was sanctioned by the United States and became an informant for the DEA. She was sentenced to 12 years in prison in 2015 and successfully appealed for the reduction of her sentence to 5 years. 

She was released in 2019 after helping take down major figures in the Central American drug trade. 

Some allege that the inspiration behind Teresa Mendoza is another drug trafficker named Sandra Avila

During the height of the Central American drug trade, several women held high positions, including Cotton Vasquez, Marllory Chacon, and Vergara Hernandez.

Arturo could have drawn inspiration from any of these women. However, many believe that he sourced his story from the life of Sandra Avila Beltran, aka The Queen of the Pacific. 

Beltran was the daughter of a former leader of the Guadalajara Cartel, so she grew up surrounded by drug dealers. She was considered a ‘third-generation’ drug trafficker in her family. 

She was married twice to police commanders who ditched the force to become drug traffickers. They were both murdered by assassins.

Avila was arrested in Mexico City following a four-year investigation. She described herself as a housewife earning little money selling clothes and renting houses. 

Beltran faced drug trafficking charges in Florida, where she denied the charges and accepted a plea deal. Sandra was deported to Mexico and sentenced to five years for money laundering. She left prison in 2015 and currently resides in Guadalajara. 

Any of the women calling the shots in the drug trade might have inspired Arturo. Perhaps he drew inspiration from all of them. 

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Why Teresa From Queen Of The South Looks So Familiar

On the USA Network crime drama Queen of the South , Alice Braga plays Teresa Mendoza, a resourceful woman who carves out a niche for herself in the American illicit drug market. Over the course of four seasons, we see Teresa's evolution from the girlfriend of a cartel member to the boss of her own operation. The character's humble origins and drive to reach a level of security within a world marked by chaos are what makes her so compelling to watch. Braga's warm and determined performance in the title role is the heart of the show's success.

Although Teresa is from the Mexican state of Sinaloa, Braga herself was born and raised in Brazil. Between her work on Brazilian screens and her transition to the American market, Braga has decades of experience as an actress. She's even been cast in the upcoming comic book adaptations The New Mutants and The Suicide Squad .

If you've been catching up on the fourth season of Queen of the South since it dropped on Netflix in June 2020, you might be wondering where else you've seen Braga. Here are a few of the multitalented actress' most famous roles.

City of God helped launch Alice Braga to international stardom

Braga's feature film debut also happens to be one of the 21st century's most critically lauded films. Cidade de Deus , or City of God , follows a cast of characters as they grow up and become involved in organized crime in one of Rio de Janeiro's most notorious favelas (or slums). The movie received glowing reviews when it was released worldwide in 2002. It has since been noted as one of the best films of the century and was #38 on the BBC's "The 21st Century's 100 Greatest Films" list , which was aggregated from selections by 177 film critics from around the world.

In the film, Braga plays Angélica, a young woman who becomes romantically involved with several gang members. Although the role was relatively small, it did help launch her career on the international stage after a still of her kissing another character was used for the film's US poster. In a documentary about the making of the film, called City of God: 10 Years Later , Braga said, "[T]hat frame became the poster for the movie in the US, and it was really cool because people became curious about my work... even if it was a relatively small part, it was through City of God that I found my agent in the U.S."

Alice Braga got physical in American action movies

After catching the eye of the American film industry, Braga made her mark co-starring in several action blockbusters. The first was the 2007 Will Smith vehicle I Am Legend . In the film, Smith plays Neville, the last man alive in New York City following the outbreak of a virus that has turned the rest of the city's inhabitants into vampiric mutants. Braga plays Anna Montez, who arrives late in the movie to rescue Neville after hearing a broadcast he's been putting out to other potential survivors.

In an interview with Collider , Braga described Smith as a "generous" scene partner and went on to say, "I'm in the beginning, and it's my first American movie, and it was an enormous pleasure working with him."

In 2010, she landed a role in Nimród Antal's Predators . The movie is a revival of the Predator franchise, and features an ensemble cast that includes Braga, Adrien Brody , Laurence Fishburne, and Mahershala Ali. Braga plays the sniper Isabelle, the only woman on a squad of violent misfits sent on a mysterious mission to kill the titular predators.

I Am Legend and Predators are on a long list of hard-as-nails characters Braga has played over the years, up to and including Teresa in  Queen of the South . However, the actress has also had plenty of opportunity to show off her softer side.

The Shack gave Alice Braga the opportunity for a softer role

In a project that couldn't be more different from her roles in  Predators or Queen of the South , Braga plays the personification of wisdom in the 2017 Christian themed movie  The Shack , based on William P. Young's novel of the same name. Young self-published the book, which went on to become a massive success, spending years on the New York Times' Paperback Trade Fiction bestseller list .

The film stars Sam Worthington as Mack Phillips, a man who is dealing with the loss of a child when he's invited to a remote shack in the Pacific Northwest by God (Octavia Spencer). In the shack, Mack meets the rest of the holy trinity, as well as a number of other religious figures who help him come to terms with his loss and his religion. Braga's character, Sophia, appears to Mack toward the end of his journey to elucidate the nature of God's wisdom for him.

Like the book before it, the movie was a financial success, even if it didn't win over many critics . It grossed $96.9 million at the global box office (via Box Office Mojo ) against a $20 million budget, according to Variety .

With films as diverse as City of God and The Shack on her resume, there are plenty of options for those looking to do a deep dive into Alice Braga's filmography while waiting for season 5 of Queen of the South .

Alice Braga will appear in two highly anticipated comic book movies

Speaking of waiting for Alice Braga's face to pop up on our screens again, the future incredibly bright for the actress (and for her fans). Braga is all set to appear in two long-awaited films — both comic book adaptations.

The first is  The New Mutants , the Josh Boone-directed superhero horror flick centered around the titular group of preternaturally powered young adults who have become staples in Marvel Comics. Originally scheduled to debut in theaters way back in April 2018,  The New Mutants was delayed multiple times over , most recently settling into an August 28, 2020 slot. Braga will star alongside Maisie Williams ( Game of Thrones ), Anya Taylor-Joy ( Split ), Charlie Heaton ( Stranger Things ), and more as Cecilia Reyes, a doctor who oversees and mentors the crew of mutants — and who has super-abilities herself.

Then, fans can find Braga in James Gunn's  The Suicide Squad , a reboot-slash-sequel to follow 2016's  Suicide Squad from director David Ayer. It's not yet known who Braga is playing in the film, but she'll share the screen with a stacked cast — some from the original  Suicide Squad and some who are totally new to the property . These include Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn, Joel Kinnaman as Rick Flag, Jai Courtney as Captain Boomerang, Viola Davis as Amanda Waller, Daniela Melchior as Ratcatcher, David Dastmalchian as Polka-Dot Man, and Steve Agee, who voices King Shark. Other stars like Peter Capaldi, John Cena, Idris Elba, Storm Reid, Pete Davidson, and Gunn's fellow Marvel Cinematic Universe director Taika Waititi will also appear in  The Suicide Squad — in theaters on August 6, 2021.

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Alice Braga on why her Queen of the South character is a woman who kicks ass: 'Teresa is a survivor'

Rosy covers the news for Entertainment Weekly in Los Angeles. Nice to meet you!

As Alice Braga begins her promotional tour in support of the fifth and final season of USA Network's Queen of the South , she looks back proudly at all she and her character Teresa Mendoza accomplished together.

"What captivated me about the character, years before I shot the pilot when I read La Reina del Sur from Arturo Pérez-Reverte, was that Teresa is a survivor," Braga recounts to EW ahead of the drama's final series premiere on Wednesday, April 7 at 10 p.m. ET/PT.

"This woman is someone who never victimized herself," she continues. "She never feared a challenge or a difficult situation. Teresa always found a way to flip bad situations into something that works to her advantage. She's such an interesting character who always overcomes adversity. What I learned from her is to always look forward toward the future no matter what—keep going!"

Braga understands Teresa is an antihero as a narco queen pin and one that demands respect from those involved in the heavily male-dominated drug business on both sides of the border.

"Teresa is the antihero and the hero of her own life, which is what I enjoyed most about playing her," she shares. "I love that we were able to show all her layers by revealing it little by little, which is the blessing of working on a TV show where you have years to unravel each detail and each secret. I'm so grateful we had five wonderful seasons to tell this story and to show her evolution from a young woman in Culiacán discovering where she belongs to battling a racist, corrupt judge in New Orleans as a total boss. Always surviving and always learning. Yes, she works in the cartel business—not selling ice cream. But there are a lot of lessons within Teresa Mendoza that are worth learning from."

Portraying Teresa required Braga to go into action, literally. Each season has been packed with danger, drama, and fiery explosions coming at the Brazilian actress while simultaneously trying to one-up the bad guys, which is no small feat.

"Before joining the show, I'd worked on some action films but it was nothing like the action I got to be a part of on Queen on the South ," Braga says. "That's another thing I loved about being on this show, it was so action-packed! Total dream come true. I was always aware of my limits and knew when it was time to let a professional stunt coordinator take over. I always compare my experience to being inside a video game. Not many people can say they've experienced that."

She continues, "From Teresa, I learned a lot about physical strength because for the past six years I had to be very present in my body and always ready for anything. I did a lot of running and training in preparation for whatever the writers would surprise me with. I feel like I really gave myself to this character while living in her shoes. Teresa did a lot of things I would never do; I would never be a drug dealer. But viewing the world through her eyes was empowering."

Of course, Braga also recognizes that Teresa Mendoza is one of many strong women depicted on Queen of the South .

"The character of Camila Vargas, played by Veronica Falcon, is a badass woman who likes to get straight to the point. She knows what she wants, is very powerful and very intelligent," says the actress.

Adding, "Kelly Anne [Burnett] is this girl who in the beginning you see her being girly and kind of the wife of someone, who turns out to be intelligent, smart, powerful, and the kick-ass girl who survives—who overcomes her struggles from an abusive relationship and thrives," We have really powerful female characters! Of course, I cannot forget to mention Brenda, who was played by Justina Machado, a phenomenal actress."

Watch EW's interview with Braga in the video above.

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Related content:

• Queen of the South star Alice Braga on Teresa's future with James: 'In this world, love weakens you'
• Queen of the South will go out on top with fifth and final season
• Queen of the South wraps season 4 with a heartbreaking death and a shocking return

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¿Quién fue la verdadera ‘Reina del Sur’?: la historia detrás de Teresa Mendoza

En el año 2002, el escritor Arturo Pérez-Reverte publicó la novela “La Reina del Sur” , que casi una década después se convirtió en un fenómeno televisivo protagonizado por la actriz Kate Del Castillo .

Tanto la novela como la serie de televisión narran la historia de Teresa Mendoza , una mujer que se convirtió en pieza clave dentro del narcotráfico mexicano y que mostró gran fuerza y pasión durante las diferentes pruebas que le puso la vida.

De acuerdo con el escritor, el personaje surgió luego de que escuchó en una cantina de México la canción “Contrabando y traición”, interpretada por Los Tigres del Norte . “Escuché un corrido que se llamaba ‘Camelia la Texana’, y me pregunté qué mundo era ese que no conocía y que me parecía fascinante”, señaló el año en el que se publicó el libro.

Pérez-Reverte aseguró en una entrevista con El País que el personaje de Teresa Mendoza, quien vuelve a la televisión en “La Reina del Sur 2” , es completamente ficticio, aunque sí tuvo que realizar una investigación exhaustiva en Culiacán, Sinaloa, para comprender el mundo del narcotráfico.

Mira también: Los personajes y actores de ‘La Reina del Sur 2’: ¿quién es quién en la segunda temporada?

“No hay nada real en el libro, ¡es una novela! Está entre tapas. Es literatura”, dijo el escritor. Sin embargo, durante años se han encontrado similitudes entre Teresa Mendoza y Sandra Ávila Beltrán , quien fue conocida como la “Reina del Pacífico”, así como con otras reinas de belleza relacionadas con el crimen organizado.

Cuando Ávila Beltrán ingresó a la universidad a los 18 años de edad, mostraba un estilo ostentoso que no pasó desapercibido entre sus compañeros. Según la BBC , varios exalumnos la recuerdan usando joyas y collares de oro, que inmediatamente ligaron al narcotráfico.

“A nosotros nos parecía sospechoso, tenía toda la imagen de ser pariente de narcos o novia de alguno porque era demasiada ostentación. A los 18 años y con tanta joya encima nadie se le acercaba”, reveló un testigo al sitio británico.

Mira también: ‘La Reina del Sur 2’ y la Orquesta Sinfónica de Miami tienen colaboración histórica

La “Reina del Pacífico” fue arrestada en 2007, acusada de narcotráfico y asociación delictiva, además de asistir económicamente a un narcotraficante y por lavado de dinero. Se publicó que era una pieza clave en la operación del Cartel de Sinaloa y que tenía cercanía con Joaquín Guzmán Loera “El Chapo” e Ismael Zambada García “El Mayo” .

Su fama creció al punto en el que varios corridos se inspiraron en su historia, como la canción “Reina de Reinas” de Los Tigres del Norte, además de que se publicó el libro “La Reina del Pacífico: es la hora de contar”, del periodista Julio Scherer .

Aunque pudo ser Sandra Ávila Beltrán u otras mujeres relacionadas al narcotráfico quienes inspiraron el personaje de Teresa Mendoza, la historia continuará en la segunda temporada de “La Reina del Sur” este 22 de abril a las 10PM/9C por Telemundo.

Mira también:

La Reina del Sur 3: trama, elenco, tráiler, y fecha de estreno de la tercera temporada

El elenco de La Reina del Sur 3: los actores de la tercera temporada

La Reina del Sur 3: Cuándo se estrena, horario y dónde ver los capítulos

Sesión de fotos con Kate del Castillo y el elenco de ‘La Reina del Sur’ ¡Kate del Castillo festeja sus 46 primaveras con el elenco de ‘La Reina del Sur’! Kate del Castillo y Mark Tacher revelan cómo será la nueva temporada de ‘La Reina del Sur’

VIDEO RELACIONADO: MIRA EL TRÁILER DE LA SEGUNDA TEMPORADA DE 'LA REINA DEL SUR'  

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Queen of the South: addictive story of a drug baroness à la Narcos

Loosely based on a true story, this gripping show puts a different spin on the narco drama – and the main character is a Latina MacGyver , but with better hair

What’s the name of this show? Queen of the South

When does it premiere? Thursday 23 June at 10pm EST on USA

What is this show about? Teresa Mendoza ( Alice Braga ) starts off as a lowly money changer in the Mexican state of Sinaloa but rises to run a drug cartel of her very own.

So it’s like lady Narcos ? Yeah, kind of, but that’s a little bit reductive. This series is based on a popular telenovela La Reina del Sur , which aired on Telemundo, which is itself an adaptation of a Spanish novel by the same name by Arturo Pérez-Reverte . The book is based on the life of drug trafficker Marllory Chacón . So, yes, like Netflix’s excellent Narcos, about the life of Pablo Escobar , it is a narco drama based loosely on real events, but the spirit of the endeavour is different.

What happens in the first episode? We first meet the wildly successful Teresa as she gets gunned down in her immaculate mansion. The action flashes back to her earlier years when she first meets a drug runner and falls in love, elevating her social status considerably. When her boyfriend steals from the head of his cartel, Don Epifanio (Joaquim de Almeida), he ends up dead and Don Epifanio’s men are after Teresa to tie up any loose ends. She takes the money, cocaine, gun and mysterious notebook he gave her and takes off to try to save her life.

Is there a lot of action? Eventually. At first there is a lot of exposition about who Teresa is and her place in the cartel, which is made even more egregious by a voiceover, which is, coincidentally, also the worst aspect of Narcos. However, once the pursuit begins it’s one near miss after another. Teresa runs, hides, blows up some cars, shoots a few dudes and does just about anything to escape. What makes her fascinating to watch isn’t the kinetic movement (which is well-shot in gritty hues), but seeing her try to get herself out of sticky situations using her limited resources. She’s like a Latina MacGyver , but with much better hair.

Is it any good? It’s quite good, actually, but viewers will have to give it a little bit of time. At first the show seemed clumsy and silly, with Teresa butting her head into the Don’s business and eavesdropping on a fight between him and his wife, the ruthless Camila (Veronica Falcon). Then she’s lying in a tub watching Scarface on television, and it’s just a little too on the nose. It seemed like it was trying to be smart and edgy and failing miserably.

Next thing you know, you’ll be sucked into Teresa’s story, not only because she’s literally fleeing for her life, but also because there hasn’t been a character quite like her on television before. It’s easy to say that she is a female Walter White , but their motivations are entirely different. Every male antihero on television (and there have been more than Donald Trump has bankruptcies ) is compelled by mostly selfish reasons, especially White, who says he’s cooking meth to help his family but he’s really doing it to feed his own ego.

Teresa, on the other hand, is forced into this situation where she has to be deadly and conniving as a matter of survival. She is the victim of a system where she can only prosper by aligning herself with a man, but that alliance also leads to her destruction. Who can blame her for fighting back? We root for her as an act of defiance against the system that created her. Teresa is the aggressor, but she is also the victim and it’s a fascinating dynamic to watch.

Only the first episode was made available for critics, so it’s hard to judge what Queen of the South is going to look like as a series, but the pilot is one of the best I’ve seen in quite some time.

Doesn’t USA usually just make dumb procedurals? Yes, in the past they were known for shows like Burn Notice , Psych and Royal Pains , but with the premiere of the critical hit Mr Robot last summer, it’s offering darker, more ambitious fare. Queen of the South isn’t an obvious home run like Mr Robot (especially when only judging one episode), but it shows that the development team at USA is serious about their new direction and doing a great job picking projects.

What’s wrong with the show? The biggest problem is the use of Spanish. The characters almost always speak English, which is unrealistic, but, let’s face it, American audiences are far too lazy to watch something with subtitles. However, occasionally the characters lapse into Spanish for words, phrases or full sentences. There is no rhyme or reason as to why they use their mother tongue and having the mishmash of the two languages doesn’t make it seem more authentic – it just alerts the viewer to the fact that they should be speaking in Spanish the whole time.

Is there anything else that is great about the show? At several moments I noticed how wonderful the pulsating electronic score is and then noticed in the end credits that it’s by musical pioneer Giorgio Moroder . That’s just the icing on the cake.

Should I watch this show? Yes, you should. It’s ambitious, different and captivating, even if just for the first hour. How the rest of the season will shape up is anyone’s guess, but if potential was cocaine, this show would have mounds of it piled up on the coffee table.

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Teresa Mendoza

• Queen of The South
• Also known as The Queen of The South, Teresa Mendoza. Teresa fled Mexico after the murder of her boyfriend El Guero. El Guero trafficked drugs for a local cartel. After his death Teresa fled to where she began working. Teresa is referred to work for Driss Larby, a businessman and low-level underworld operator in the Spanish enclave of Melilla on the North African coast. On the ferry, she meets Fátima Mansur, a prostitute who works at Driss' bar "El Yamilla." Teresa proves herself to be an invaluable asset by balancing Driss' books every night. Teresa meets Santiago Fisterra, a Galician ("El Gallego") who works smuggling black market goods such as cigarettes across the strait of Gibraltar into Spain, and his friend Lalo. Teresa and Santiago begin dating. Knowing that Santiago is unhappy working the small time, Teresa arranges with Colonel Abdelkader Chaïb to get Santiago into the hashish trade. The trade provides huge profits, and Teresa and Santiago move to Málaga. A year later, Driss Larby is still furious from Teresa's abandonment, and conspires with a Spanish Naval Officer, to have Santiago busted during a major drug run. Instead, Santiago crashes his boat into rocks at high speed and is killed, while Teresa is thrown free, arrested, and sent to jail. In prison, Teresa meets Patricia O'Farrell, the wild child in a wealthy family & a local celebrity. The two become fast friends-although the bisexual Patricia clearly wants more. Upon release, Patty reveals to Teresa that she knows where a half ton of cocaine was hidden by her late boyfriend, and plans to sell it back to the Russian mob. During the negotiation, it becomes clear to the Russian mob boss, Oleg Yasilkov that Teresa's business smarts would be a valuable asset to him. Teresa negotiates the retrieval of the cocaine from its hiding place, under the nose of the confounded Spanish police, the first of many successes in her new career as a rising drug lord. As Teresa quickly rises in the drug world a familiar DEA agent, Willy Rangel arrives in Spain. Teresa continued to smuggled tons of drugs including hashish & cocaine. After her partner Patty O'Farrel meets a girl & begins spiraling out of control the organization quickly deteriorates. Patty's girlfriend, Lupe is actually DEA agent, Veronica Cortes. Cortes infiltrates Teresa's company Transer Naga a shell company used to disguise Teresa's real business. Soon after Veronica Cortes (Lupe) begins compiling evidence against Teresa. Soon after the DEA & Willy Rangel also turn Teo Aljarafe into an informant. Aljarafe is Teresa's lover as well as her company's attorney who has been stealing money from Teresa. Teo & Veronica compile enough evidence to have Teresa arrested. Before the arrest can happen, Willy Rangel of the DEA sneaks Teresa out of Spain in order to testify against Epifanio Vargas leader of the Juarez Cartel. In Mexico. Vargas was the godfather to the late El Guero and the man who ordered Teresa and El Guero's death. Teresa returns to Mexico to testify in order to stop Vargas from becoming the next president of The Republic of Mexico & in return she will receive immunity from prosecution. Vargas is finally arrested and Teresa was free of prosecution. She found a home and gave birth to her first child. - IMDb Mini Biography By: M.H.

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Kate del Castillo, from 'La Reina del Sur' to Hollywood honcho

Kate Del Castillo is back in action. 

The Mexican actress , who has grown alongside antihero Teresa Mendoza in Telemundo’s hit drama “La Reina del Sur” (Queen of the South) for more than a decade, is reprising her role on the small screen after a 3½-year wait. Season 3 premiered Oct. 18 (9 EDT/PDT) on Telemundo; new episodes air weeknights. 

Fans shouldn’t be surprised Season 3 took this long. There was an eight-year gap between its 2011 debut and the Season 2 premiere. “We’re just a very ambitious series,” Castillo says. Still, fans are “very intense and passionate” about “La Reina,” she adds with a warning: “Be prepared for everything that’s coming.” 

Season 3 opens four years later, with Mendoza serving time in an American prison for the murders of three drug enforcement agents. Once freed, she forms new allies and enemies, and risks her life throughout Latin America, hoping to reunite with her daughter, Sofia (Isabella Sierra) and kissing her life as a fugitive goodbye. 

Castillo says the new season continues to unravel Mendoza's multifaceted character, who rose from humble beginnings to a drug-lord legend. “Teresa is this powerful, street-smart woman,” she says.

Castillo says she and Mendoza share some “fortunate and unfortunate” traits and qualities. After all, as actors, “we are called to do a role and give a little bit of our personality in some way or the other.” 

“We both love men, we both love tequila, we are borrachas (drunks),” Castillo jokes. (Castillo  runs her own tequila business, Honor .) 

“We curse all the time, but we love with a passion and we are protective.” 

15 must-watch shows for Latino Heritage Month: 'Los Espookys,' 'With Love,' 'Superstore,' more

The daughter of telenovela actor Eric Del Castillo, the 50-year-old  grew up in this industry. “I’ve done it since I can remember,” Castillo says.

She got her start at a young age with leading roles in telenovelas including 1991’s “Muchachitas,” 2000’s “Ramona” and 2001’s “El Derecho De Nacer.” Then she ventured out with recurring roles in English-language shows including Showtime’s “Weeds” and CW’s “Jane the Virgin.” Her first Hollywood roles were in Gregory Nava's “Bordertown,” starring Jennifer Lopez, and "Under the Same Moon," alongside America Ferrera, Eugenio Derbez and the late Mexican actor Carmen Salinas in 2007.

Related: Eugenio Derbez opens up about recent accident, says doctors 'needed to reconstruct my arm'

“I say now that I would be an actress regardless of who my father is, but I will never know that for sure,” Castillo says. “All I know is that I owe my professionalism, the love and the respect I have for my craft to my father – not because he taught me to, but because I saw how much love he put into every single thing that he made and how much he sacrificed.” 

But her father, 88, didn’t want Castillo to be an actor. “He just didn’t want me to be rejected,” she says. 

Billboard Latin Music Awards 2022: Jaime Camil and Kate Del Castillo host; Christina Aguilera, Becky G, Maluma, more hit the red carpet

The passion Castillo has for her work trumps rejection any day. “For me, to be a successful woman is to live out whatever you love, and that’s what I do,” Castillo says. 

Aside from the international success of “La Reina,” a co-production between Telemundo and Netflix that also spawned a 2016-21 English version on USA Network, Castillo stars in another Netflix drama, “Ingobernable.” She also produced the 2017 Netflix documentary “The Day I Met El Chapo,” which followed her meeting with actor Sean Penn and the now-incarcerated drug cartel leader Joaquin Guzman .

In 2019, Castillo launched her own production company, Cholawood, to secure better roles than those she was being offered. Cholawood is currently in post-production of "A Beautiful Lie," a modern take on Leo Tolstoy's "Anna Karenina," for ViX+. Cholawood also co-produced the action-thriller movie, "Hunting Ava Bravo," which premiered earlier this year on Amazon Prime Video and Roku. Castillo stars in both projects. 

She's also filming "A Cuban Girl's Guide to Tea and Tomorrow," based on the r om-com by Laura Taylor Namey,  and starred in a new Peacock dark comedy,  "Til Jail Do Us Part" (now streaming). 

Castillo, who's lived in the U.S. for over 20 years, has proved more than a telenovela actor, who can go beyond "La Reina del Sur," and shows no signs of stopping her foray into Hollywood.

"Passion is what we have as Latinos," she says. "We have to work very hard in order for people to get to know us."

'Representation is a consolation prize': Malala Yousafzai on Hollywood's lack of Muslim, Asian inclusion

'Woman Without Shame' Sandra Cisneros talks sexual desires and feeling 'empowered in my 60s'

If You Like 'Griselda,' Watch This Cartel Crime Drama Series

Just like 'Griselda,' this series is a cautionary tale about power and ambition.

The Big Picture

• Sofia Vergara shines as the powerful Griselda Blanco in Netflix's gripping series, adding a distinctly female perspective to the cartel world.
• Both Griselda and Queen of the South are inspired by real stories of women who rose to power in the drug business, offering a unique take on the cartel drama genre.
• While Griselda explores the consequences of ambition and self-destruction, Queen of the South follows Teresa's journey from survival to pursuing power, with a longer and more fleshed-out story.

Sofia Vergara continues to maintain her reign as Queen Griselda with her latest series on Netflix. Following Vergara in the shoes of real-life Columbian drug lord Griselda Blanco Restrepo, Griselda is the latest addition to Netflix’s catalog of television series, which includes Narcos and El Chapo , from the gritty world of cartels and drugs. Best known for her role as Gloria Pritchett in Modern Family , Vergara leads the charge in Griselda through a story that delivers an impactful punch even when telling a familiar cautionary tale of reign and ruin driven by lust for power and ambition. With Narcos ’ success already serving as a great precedence for a cartel crime drama , Griselda allows its female protagonist to flourish in its own, distinct ways. If you like Griselda for all it brings to the table, Queen of the South can offer all of it and a bit more through its five seasons of gripping storytelling.

Queen of the South

Teresa flees Mexico after her drug-runner boyfriend is murdered. Settling in Dallas she looks to become the country's reigning drug smuggler and to avenge her lover's murder.

'Griselda' and 'Queen of the South' Are Both Inspired by True Stories

Also inspired by a true story, just like Griselda, and adapted from the telenovela La Reina del Sur ( also available on Netflix ), Queen of the South follows Alice Braga as Teresa Mendoza, who has been forced to fight a battle of survival after her boyfriend, Güero ( Jon-Michael Ecker ), gets caught and killed for crossing his boss, the kingpin of Sinaloa, Mexico, Don Epifanio Vargas ( Joaquim de Almeida ). Crossing the border to the United States due to compulsions forced upon her as a result of her connections to the world of crime and drugs through her boyfriend, Teresa is pushed against her back repeatedly as she keeps tackling grave dangers, riding on her instinct, in a bid to merely survive. Just like Griselda , Queen of the South tells a powerful tale of a woman’s battle against a system built to punish with great severity for every mistake committed. Through five compelling seasons, Queen of the South follows Braga on her journey to become the queenpin in a world and a profession dominated by men.

Griselda Blanco in the eponymous Netflix series is inspired by the Columbian drug lord of the same name, who also goes by the names the “Black Widow” and the “Godmother.” The Netflix series follows the true events from the life of Griselda Blanco , who ended up becoming one of the most powerful forces in all of Miami during the 1970s through the early 2000s. According to Vanity Fair , Queen of the South ’s Teresa Mendoza may be inspired by the real-life “Queen of the South,” Marllory Chacon , who also happens to be connected with Joaquín Archivaldo Guzmán Loera, aka El Chapo. Both television series narrate two rare stories inspired by real events from the lives of two women who managed to conquer the heights of the drug business running in the United States – a rare feat not replicated by many.

'Griselda' and 'Queen of the South' Add a Unique Perspective to Cartel Dramas

As opposed to the male-led counterparts in the genre, such as Narcos or El Chapo , Griselda and Queen of the South bring a fresh perspective to the life of crime and drugs encapsulated within all these shows. With the stories being female-led, both shows delve into aspects that could only be exclusively explored through such stories. In Griselda, Vergara's character is forced, by her then-husband, to sleep with his brother in order to satisfy a debt owed, which ultimately leads to her orchestrating her escape from the marriage. In Queen of the South , one of the first scenes in which Teresa appears shows her being “rescued” from the claws of an abusive boss.

The vulnerable nature of Griselda and Queen of the South’s protagonists makes the rise of these characters within the criminal world one with even higher stakes. Eventually, the emotional turbulence and identity struggle put forth by their respective journeys puts Braga’s Teresa on a similar path as Vergara's Griselda, allowing the audience to cheer their victories and mourn their losses even more passionately.

'Queen of the South' Is Different From 'Griselda' in One Major Way

While there are many similarities between the world of Griselda and Queen of the South , Alice Braga’s journey follows a much more classic route of the rags-to-riches story , bringing with it more grittiness and higher stakes. In Griselda, Vergara’s character ends up choosing a path of destruction that’s much of her own making. Quite early after setting foot in the United States, Griselda is provided an opportunity to live a life different from the one she has left behind through her friend Carmen ( Vanessa Ferlito ), but Griselda’s ambition, more than her circumstances, leads to her falling back on her old ways in order to build her own drug empire.

On the other hand, Queen of the South 's Teresa is pulled into a war that was never her own in the first place. Initially, Teresa admits to being thrilled by the risk that comes with a life of crime, but it’s only much later in the story that she actively ends up pursuing power and ambition. Teresa’s character arc, for a good part of Season 1 , focuses on her will to survive. As a result, Teresa is compelled to make choices that she may not have picked otherwise, time and again. While Griselda willfully chooses the life that eventually fails her, Teresa finds herself on the receiving end of a fate that she wishes to run away from. The contrasting approach of the characters is also reflected in the eventual fate that each of these women meet.

With limited runtime, Griselda presents a more concise view. Meanwhile, Queen of the South 's story spanning five long seasons allows the show to present a much more fleshed-out retelling of real-life events. Naturally, Queen of the South is able to be even more gritty and character-driven as a result, with Teresa’s internal conflicts often clearly visible, much more than what Griselda could do at its best in its six episodes. While Griselda provides a perspective on the ill effects of uncontained ambition in a world that punishes greed with death, Queen of the South presents its protagonist being tested in a battle of wits and instincts in which a similar fate is always one mistake away.

All episodes of Queen of the South are available to stream on Netflix.

Watch on Netflix