Sofía Vergara Defends Her 'Modern Family' Character, Gloria Delgado-Pritchett

Colombian star Sofía Vergara defended her character on ABC's comedy series "Modern Family" from those who criticize her representation of Latino culture, Latina reported.

"Whoever said that all Latin women are the same? It's impossible to caricature millions of women from 20 countries. There are many kinds of Latinas, just like there are many types and styles of women all over the world," said Vergara in talks with Efe, according to Fox News Latino.

Although the 41-year-old actress agreed that a Latina stereotype does exist, she pointed out that "goes more toward seeing us as all about our families, hard working, standing up for ourselves, ultraprotective of our kids, and that we do ourselves up more than others, because a lot of us wear perfume even to take the kids to school in the morning."

"Gloria has a lot of my mom and my aunts in her, especially the funniest and most temperamental of them. I love my character, it makes me proud to play her as a symbol of many Latin women, but not all of them," added Vergara.

"However, I have a lot of friends and fans who are white, Jews, African-Americans, Europeans, Australians and of all ages and colors whose relatives tell them they are identical to Gloria," added the "Machete Kill" star.

During her appearance on "The Queen Latifah Show," Vergara recalled how she tried to change her accent when she first arrived to Los Angeles but decided to just be herself. "At the beginning I thought, when I moved to Los Angeles to Hollywood, I'm like 'How hard can it be? I mean I don't understand how Penelope Cruz or Salma Hayek haven't changed their accent so I'm gonna do it!' I hired a teacher, a speech coach, and for months I spent so much money because they charge you by the hour and you don't need one hour a day, you need like three hours a day four times a week," said the "Findinf Gigolo" star.

"So I was losing so much money and then I was doing horrible in the auditions because I was showing up there and all I could think of was the word that is coming [makes sound] and the tongue behind the teeth...so the acting was horrible, I didn't get any jobs until I said 'You know what, I'm gonna start just relaxing and do, you know, use what I have' and that's it," stated Vergara.