Sofia Vergara on Embryo Battle, Starring in 'Hot Pursuit' With an Oscar Winner
Vergara's ex-fiance has opened a legal battle over the couple's frozen embryos.
-- To say Sofia Vergara is busier than ever could be an understatement.
The “Modern Family” star is headlining a movie – “Hot Pursuit” – with Reese Witherspoon, getting her own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and planning a 2015 wedding to “Magic Mike” star Joe Manganiello.
Those personal and professional highs are why Vergara, 42, says she does not plan to give any attention to the legal battle her ex-fiance, Nick Loeb, has started over the couple’s frozen embryos.
“I really want to make this, like, the last time I talk about it because I don’t think it’s fair,” Vergara told ABC News’ Amy Robach in an interview that aired today on "Good Morning America."
“I’ve been working very hard for 20 years to get to this point where I am, enjoying my movie,” she said. “I promote all my movies, all my work, but I don’t like promoting my private life and I don’t understand why this person...I don’t want to allow this person to take more advantage of my career and try to promote himself and get press for this.”
Loeb, from whom Vergara split in 2014, penned an opinion piece last week in the New York Times to explain why he wants to “protect” the embryos he says the couple used in-vitro fertilization to create. Loeb is not alleging that Vergara is actively trying to destroy the embryos. He writes that it is his mission to preserve them at all costs.
“It shouldn’t be out there for people to give their opinion when there’s nothing to talk about,” said Vergara. “There’s papers signed. There is a court date. He shouldn’t be creating something so ugly out of nothing.”
Vergara, who describes herself as “super happy” at this point in her life, says she does not understand why media outlets are giving Loeb a voice.
“Just with the press, it’s like, and allowing somebody to invent things and create press for himself,” said Vergara, who has a 23-year-old son from a previous marriage. “He’s not an actor. He’s not a celebrity. It’s like, why? Why are they allowing him to do that?”
Loeb, a businessman and banking heir, filed the complaint over the embryos last August in Santa Monica, Calif.
“I am having an amazing month with all these things that I get to do with my career and he’s got nothing,” Vergara said. “I’m not sad.”
“I have to enjoy what I’m living right now,” she added. “You know, in the life of an actress you have very big ups and downs. I mean I just did a movie with Reese Witherspoon.”
Witherspoon compared the pair’s chemistry in “Hot Pursuit” to that of the legendary pair of TV best friends, Lucy and Ethel.
“I grew up watching Lucy and Ethel but it does feel sometimes like that relationship,” Vergara said. “Reese and I were doing mischievous things together and having fun.”
The movie follows Witherspoon and Vergara as Witherspoon’s character, a cop, tries to protect Vergara’s character, the widow of a drug boss.
“I fell in love with her since the moment I saw her,” Vergara said of Witherspoon. “And can you imagine, you know, to be able for me, I never dreamed of working with somebody Oscar-nominated, [who] won Oscars. I mean, it was such a treat for me.”
Vergara says the pair got along even when Vergara sent Witherspoon to the hospital after an on-set accident.
“I warned her,” Vergara said. “I said, ‘Am I shoving you too hard into this sofa,’ and she like, ‘No, it’s fine.’”
“So she had to go to the hospital but she was back to work the next day,” she said of Witherspoon. “Very professional.”
"Hot Pursuit" opens in theaters nationwide this Friday, the day after Vergara is scheduled to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
"Ed O’Neill, when I called him to tell him, 'Are you going to come,' and he’s like, 'What? How did you get one so fast?,'" Vergara said of her "Modern Family" co-star. "The people in Columbia are super happy. I'm bringing like my whole family."