Nicole Kidman Channels Lucille Ball In 1st Photos From ‘Being the Ricardos’ Movie Set – Pics
Months after Nicole Kidman vowed to do her ‘best’ in portraying Lucille Ball, the ‘Big Little Lies’ actress was spotted with bright red hair on the set of ‘Being The Ricardos.’
Being The Ricardos, Aaron Sorkin’s drama about Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, has yet to release an official image of Nicole Kidman as the I Love Lucy star, but fans have now gotten a sneak-peak. On Tuesday (Apr. 13), Nicole, 53, was spotted set, wearing a “shoulder-length wig” of red hair and a hooded coat, per Daily Mail. In the pictures – which you can see here – Nicole wore a cream-colored blouse, a pale green blazer, and brown slacks. At first glance, the look doesn’t exactly read as “Lucille Ball,” but considering the nature of the upcoming Amazon drama, this casual look may be part of the story.
The film is set during one production week of the iconic TV comedy I Love Lucy, per Deadline. Being The Ricardos covers the time between Monday’s table read through Friday’s audience filming. Along the way, “Lucy and Desi face a crisis that could end their careers and another that could end their marriage.” Since production has just begun, this could be the preliminary shots for that table read?
“I love Lucille, having looked now and delved into her,” Nicole told Variety at the start of 2021. Nicole’s casting was initially met with some skepticism from fans online, but she said she was confident that she could pull it off. “With Aaron’s words and his direction and Javier [Bardem, cast as Desi] … that’s kind of a wonderful prospect to, you know. But yikes, off we go. Give it a go. Try my best—see if I can do it.”
“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,” she added. In addition to Nicole and Javier, Being The Ricardos will also see Alia Shawkat (Search Party, Arrested Development) and Jake Lacy (High Fidelity, Fosse/Verdon) portray I Love Lucy’s longtime writing partners Madelyn Pugh and Bob Carroll Jr. The drama will also see Tony Hale (Veep, Arrested Development) portray the show’s executive producer/head writer, Jess Oppenheimer. Bringing William Frawley and Vivian Vance – aka Fred and Ethel on I Love Lucy – to life will be J.K. Simmons (Whiplash, Spider-Man) and Nina Arianda (Billions, Midnight In Paris), respectively.
Nicole’s casting might have raised a few eyebrows, but Lucie Arnaz, the 69-year-old daughter of Lucille and Desi Arnaz, told everyone that there was nothing to worry about in a Facebook video. “It’s the story of Lucille Ball, my actual mother, not Lucy Ricardo, and her husband, Desi Arnaz, my dad, not Ricky Ricardo,” she said. “There will be humor in the film, but it is a story of the two of them and how they met and what went right with finding the show, what went wrong, their relationship, their love affair… It is a two-hour feature film about these two people and some of the remarkable things they lived through.”