Earlier this year, Nicole Kidman was cast as comedic legend Lucille Ball in an upcoming film, a decision that was met with some backlash from fans. The movie is currently filming, and Ball’s daughter, Lucie Arnaz, shared an update with The Palm Springs Life magazine, calling Kidman’s performance “astounding.”
“Nicole did a spectacular job,” Arnaz said. “The two days that I watched, though, were both little flashbacks — so she was playing Lucy in the late ’30s and mid-’40s. She wasn’t Lucy of Lucy Ricardo fame yet, so it was a trifle different. And I know she meant it to be, so it could feel different.” The biopic, Being the Ricardos, stars Kidman as Ball and Javier Bardem as Arnaz’s father, Desi Arnaz. “But boy, what she did was astounding,” Arnaz added of Kidman. “She’s got such poise and class.”
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When the interviewer noted that it seems like the film will be “a real performance, not mimicry,” Lucie agreed. “There are no look-alikes,” she said. “I mean, nobody was cast because they look exactly like somebody. They were cast because they’re spectacular performers, actors, and they can capture the basic essence of what has been written in this script. And [director] Aaron [Sorkin] was adamant about that and thank God. I’m looking forward to seeing the finished product.”
Lucie shared that the upcoming movie largely takes place during rehearsals for an episode of Ball and Arnaz’s famous sitcom, I Love Lucy, in the ’50s. “There are a few scenes where they’re at their house in Chatsworth, before working, after working,” she said. “There are two or three short flashback scenes to her life before I Love Lucy, when she worked on the radio show, when she was trying to convince the network to hire dad. But stuff happens that week that didn’t happen altogether the way Aaron has written it. He’s taking some theatrical license and sort of cramming a couple of true events that did happen, they just didn’t happen at the same time.”
“But you do learn a lot about what it was like back then,” she noted. “His dialogue is always incredible. And 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.”
