Everybody loves Lucy. Aaron Sorkin’s 2021 film about Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, not so much.
Speaking at a Hollywood event earlier in June, the couple’s daughter Lucie Arnaz reignited controversy about Sorkin’s award-winning biopic Being The Ricardos, labeling some scenes as “a crock of poop.”
The 73-year-old complaining Sorkin misrepresented her mother’s relationship with her I Love Lucy writing team, and wrongly stirred tensions between Ball’s co-stars Vivian Vance and William Frawley.
Set during a tense week of rehearsals for their famous show – when Ball was strained by Communist rumors and fears Arnaz was cheating – Being The Ricardos explores the couple’s tumultuous partnership.
Premiering in 1951, I Love Lucy transformed Ball from B-list movie actor to comedy legend. And yet Ball always insisted she wasn’t naturally funny.
Crediting her writing team for her famous scatterbrain schtick, Ball told Rolling Stone in 1983: “What I am is brave. I have never been scared. And there was a lot to be scared about. We were innovators.”
Always a shrewd businesswoman, Ball had to fight nervous network executives to have Arnaz cast as Ricky, and later included her real-life pregnancy in the show.
Far from being a turn-off, more than 44 million viewers tuned in to watch the fictional Lucy and Ricky welcome their first child (in reality it was the couple’s second, having already welcomed daughter Lucie two years earlier). That episode also became Ball’s happiest moment on the show.
“Because I was really having a baby [son Desi Arnaz Jr] and it was my last show before I had the baby, so it was real and it was the most exciting thing in my life,” Ball told Entertainment Tonight in 1984, five years before her death.
These events are detailed in Being The Ricardos, with Nicole Kidman and Javier Bardem starring as the famous bickering couple.
Despite being an executive producer on the Amazon Prime biopic, Lucie complaining that Sorkin dismissed her concerns about factual inaccuracies in his script, telling her: “Well, what do you know?
You were 15 months old.”
“You can’t talk to Aaron. He’s Aaron Sorkin,” Lucie said.
“I tried to work on it and correct the incorrect parts, especially [my mother’s] relationship with the writers.
“[It was] totally wrong. She adored those people. They got along so well; none of that backstabbing, crazy, insulting stuff.”
Despite reservations about the script, Lucie has always been glowing in her praise of Kidman and Bardem (who each gained Oscar nods for their performances), who initially faced criticism for their casting.
Some questioned why the Spanish actor had been cast to play the Cuban bandleader, prompting
Bardem to argue that nobody had complaining when American actor Meryl Streep played British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, or Marlon Brando – an American with no Italian heritage – transformed into The Godfather’s Vito Corleone.
“But me, with my Spanish accent, being Cuban? What I mean is, if we want to open that can of worms, let’s open it for everyone … we should all start not allowing anyone to play Hamlet unless they were born in Denmark,” an exasperated Bardem told The Hollywood Reporter.
There was also backlash against Kidman because she isn’t typically a comedic actress.
“There seems to be a lot of discussion about Nicole Kidman [and people saying] it should be Debra Messing … I don’t know, but here’s the deal and what you should understand: We’re not doing a remake of I Love Lucy,” Lucie posted on Facebook ahead of the film’s release.
“No one has to impersonate Lucy Ricardo [or do] any of the silly things. It’s the actual story of Lucille Ball, my mother – not Lucy Ricardo – and her husband, Desi Arnaz, my dad – not Ricky Ricardo.”
The fuss knocks Kidman’s confidence. And, during an appearance on Live With Kelly And Ryan, she confessed: “When the reality of playing her hit me, I went, ‘What did I say yes to?’ To which I then went, ‘Oh no, I’m not right. Everyone thinks I’m not right, so I’m going to try to sidestep this.’”
To nail the role, Kidman watched re-runs, took dialect lessons and worked with a movement coach to capture Ball’s physicality, particularly when recreating the famous I Love Lucy grape squashing scene.
In conversation with Chris Rock for Variety, Kidman admitted Ball was a tough act for anyone to follow, and that she was “way out of my comfort zone”.
“She’s Mount Everest. Just one of the most talented people to ever roam the earth.” Rock agrees.
“She could learn anything in a weekend. So, they would, like, write something on the show where she plays the tuba, and she would go, “I can’t play the tuba. Give me two days.”
But mostly, Kidman told the comedian, the toughest part of the gig was unleashing her own silly side. “I’d like to be funny,” she said. “I’m never cast funny.”
Celebrate Lucille Ball’s incredible legacy with these shows, streaming now on Tubi.
The Lucy Show: In this follow-up to I Love Lucy (after Ball’s divorce from Arnaz), the red-haired star plays a widow who goes to live with her divorced pal, Vivian.
Celebrate Lucille Ball’s incredible legacy with these shows, streaming now on Tubi.
The Lucy Show: In this follow-up to I Love Lucy (after Ball’s divorce from Arnaz), the red-haired star plays a widow who goes to live with her divorced pal, Vivian.
