The Long-Awaited First Full Trailer for Being the Ricardos Is Here
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Lucy and Ricky are heading to the big screen. Aaron Sorkin's Being the Ricardos, starring Nicole Kidman as Ball and Javier Bardem as Arnaz, will offer viewers a behind-the-scenes look into the stars' tumultuous relationship.
Here's everything we know so far about Being the Ricardos—including what Ball and Arnaz's daughter thinks of it.
Nicole Kidman and Javier Bardem will star in the film.
Kidman will play Lucille Ball, and Bardem will play Desi Arnaz. Aaron Sorkin (The Trial of the Chicago 7, The West Wing) wrote the screenplay and will direct.
The famous onscreen neighbors Fred and Ethel Mertz have also been cast, per Harper’s Bazaar. J.K. Simmons (Whiplash) will portray William Frawley, who originally played Fred. Nina Arianda plays Vivian Vance, the original Ethel. Other cast members include Tony Hale (Veep) and Alia Shawkat (Search Party, Arrested Development).
Kidman told Variety she’s learned a lot about the real-life Lucille through her research. "I love Lucille, having looked now and delved into her," she said. Kidman went on to praise Sorkin’s work, saying, "I'm very excited for people to see what Aaron found out about her and the way he's interpreted Desi and Lucy and the way that it's so rich. I didn't know any of this."
In a separate Variety interview in June, Kidman noted that she was focused on perfecting Ball's speech patterns. "I've had to put in an enormous amount of time on Lucille Ball right now, because she has a very particular way of speaking," she said. Kidman also noted that she’s “out of her comfort zone” in a comedic role, but that she hopes her performance is funny.
But Kidman’s casting also came with some criticism from fans. The couple's daughter Lucie Arnaz, who will serve as an executive producer of the film alongside her brother Desi Arnaz, Jr., responded to these reactions in a Facebook video in January. "Here’s the deal and what you should understand: We're not doing a remake of I Love Lucy," she said. "No one has to impersonate Lucy Ricardo [or do] any of the silly things. It's the story of Lucille Ball, my actual mother—not Lucy Ricardo—and her husband, Desi Arnaz, my dad—not Ricky Ricardo."
The official trailer has been released.
In November of 2021, the long-awaited first full trailer for Being the Ricardos was released. The footage offers an extended glimpse of Kidman's take on Ball, and her long-running working relationship with both Desi, and with CBS.
Lucille Ball visited the set.
Earlier this month, Lucie visited the set—and she was impressed. "Nicole did a spectacular job," she told Palm Springs Life. "Boy, what she did was astounding. She's got such poise and class."
Ball does, however, have a few qualms with the film. "I mean, there are certain scenes that I wished hadn't been in the feature film," she said in the interview. "I couldn't get my way and have them taken out, but they weren't accurate. And I thought, 'That shouldn't be in there, because that never happened. That's not true.' And it's not just theatrical license, it just wasn't true. And the day they shot the scene, the sprinklers went off on the set and destroyed the whole set." Ball didn't elaborate further about what specifically was untrue.
Overall, Ball says she thinks Sorkin is doing her parents justice. "I think he treated my mother and my father really well. I think they are accurate composites of these people. And what I've seen of it... I haven't seen any of the rushes, but I was on the set for just two days. What I saw was extraordinarily classy and first rate. The people that he has cast are just really great performers."
The movie includes four musical numbers.
Aaron Sorkin recently revealed that Being the Ricardos will feature four musical numbers. However, Sorkin clarified that the songs will be "organic" in the context of the film.
"There are four musical numbers in the film, and that's something I'd never done before, but we had a great musical director, great choreographer," Sorkin told Turner Classic Movies.
He continued, "The musical numbers are organic. It's not La La Land. It's rehearsals for Too Many Girls. It's at Ciro's where Desi and his orchestra are playing, that kind of thing."
The plot will follow the couple through a “crisis.”
As Arnaz notes, Sorkin’s film will not be a remake of the hit show. "It is a story of the two of them and how they met," she said in the video, "and what went right with finding the show and what went wrong, their relationship, their love affair."
"The strange thing about Lucille Ball is that everyone thinks we're remaking the I Love Lucy show, and it's so not that," Kidman told Variety. "It's about Lucy and Desi and their relationship and their marriage," she said. "It's very deep, actually."
The movie will follow Ball and Arnaz–and their real-life relationship–throughout a week of filming I Love Lucy, per Deadline. Little else about the plot is known publicly, except that it will be complicated by a "crisis" that jeopardizes both Ball and Arnaz's careers and relationship. Sorkin also revealed that this "crisis" focuses on three points of "friction" between Ball and Arnaz that are historically true, but Sorkin condensed them into the timeline of the single week.
Ball and Arnaz married in 1940–just six months after meeting. I Love Lucy aired from 1951 to 1957, and the couple divorced shortly after in 1960.
Being the Ricardos will premiere in December.
It will hit theaters December 10, and be available to stream on Amazon Prime December 21. Sign up for Amazon Prime. In the meantime, catch up on all six seasons of I Love Lucy on Hulu.
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