Nicole Kidman proves naysayers wrong by transforming into Lucille Ball in Being The Ricardos teaser
Aaron Sorkin's Lucille Ball and Arnaz biopic arrives on December 10
Aux News Nicole Kidman
When it was announced that Nicole Kidman would play comedic legend Lucille Ball in the biopic Being The Ricardos, the casting decision was met with plenty of outcry on social media. Sure, Kidman is a four-time Oscar nominee, but many didn’t feel like the Australian actor was the right fit to play the TV icon. Amazon Studios is set on proving naysayers wrong with the teaser for the movie.
The teaser is sneaky—you don’t get to see Kidman’s face as Ball throughout most of it. Instead, it features Kidman doing a voiceover for scenes from the film that peel back the curtain on the making of I Love Lucy.
“I am the biggest asset in the portfolio of the Columbia Broadcasting System. The biggest asset in the portfolio of Philip Morris Tobacco, Westinghouse,” says Kidman as Ball. “I get paid a fortune to do exactly what I love doing. I work side-by-side with my husband who is genuinely impressed by me. And all I have to do to keep it is kill for 36 weeks in a row. And then do it again next year.”
She continues, “You know, I did this show so Desi and I could be together. I had no idea it was going to be a hit.” And with that line comes our first proper peek at Kidman as Ball.
With her big, bright eyes, and coiffed hair peeking under a scarf, she recreates the grape stomping scene from I Love Lucy. She eerily does look just like Ball. Though her voice doesn’t sound exactly like Ball’s, it’s still close enough that it could make skeptical fans feel more at ease.
The teaser also provides a glimpse at the biopic’s star-studded cast, including Javier Bardem as Desi Arnaz, as well as Tony Hale, J.K. Simmons, and Jake Lacy.
The film, written and directed by Aaron Sorkin, is set to arrive to theaters on December 10 and hits Amazon Prime on December 21.
143 Comments
Yeah I still don’t think she looks anything like Lucy. Which is fine, you don’t need someone to be a carbon copy of the person they’re playing. But I’m still not seeing any significant resemblance.
She looks like someone wearing a very good Lucy costume and makeup. Which I agree is all she needs (same with the close but not identical voice). I think it’s been well established that ultimately it’s about capturing the essence of the subject, not being a spot-on impersonator (which can get boring fast if the story isn’t interesting).
very true. I think Rami Malek was terrible as Freddie Mercury, and got by using those teeth. I’m happy they didn’t force Kidman to look like Ball, it can get distracting.Renee Zellweger as Judy Garland I thought still felt like Renee look wise, but captured Garland so perfectly without it just being an impression of a celebrity.
Malek just didn’t have Mercury’s natural charisma. He was okay in the stage reenactments but there was no real indication why people would find him magnetic in everyday life (the hangers-on excluded, of course).
Malek just didn’t have Mercury’s natural charisma.To be fair, few do.
I never knew much about Freddy Mercury, but it did want to see what Sasha Baron Cohen was going to do with it. That just seemed a better fit to me. Rami was ok, but there was something about his portrayal that seemed off to me. I was frustrated he won all the awards for that. (This may sound harsh because I did like Mr. Robot, but personally, I don’t think he’s an Oscar-caliber actor)
Yes, Renee was such a great Judy for that reason. The essence of Judy was revealed.
Not sure I even accept the premise that this teaser ‘proves naysayers wrong’. I wasn’t exactly high on Kidman doing Ball originally, but I was convinced that Kidman wasn’t hired for an impression but they were going to do more off-camera focus on Ball. It’s promising, but I need to see more than this bit to be convinced.
Yeah. I’m not sure where the “eerily does look just like Ball” comes from. Maybe because the one time they showed her face it flashed by in a second? But if you take the still at the head of this article, she looks nothing like her.
She looks like Kristen Wiig.
She doesn’t, and a 1.5 second shot of her at a weird angle in black and white is a weird basis on which to declare the naysayers have been proved wrong.
Kidman has always been an amazing comedic actress. even in the average Nine Perfect Strangers, when they let her lean into the comedy of her character and that zany accent in the last few episodes the show got a lot better. I think she’ll balance the star power and comedic vulnerability of Lucille Ball wonderfully.
To Die For is one of my favorite black comedies, and she’s the main reason.
the best. also one of the better kid villains in Paddington.
She so delightfully chews so much scenery in Paddington that it’s amazing she remains so thin.
Seeing as how you went ahead and did all the work that needed doing today, let’s close shop and knock off a little early. That okay with you, Boss?
Black comedy is a slightly different animal, but I agree her black comedy skills are quite good.
Agreed, she is terrific in To Die For. It might be my favorite part she has ever played.
I have a soft spot for Bewitched.
Ew, well, if you don’t tell anyone, I won’t either.
Alls I’m saying is, I know it seems an unpopular opinion, but maybe my family and I watched it at just the right age for our daughters to enjoy it, and it just clicked with us. Many quotes from it have become common expressions in our house.
Bless your heart.
Everyone is fine in that except Will Farrell. His whole performance is baffling.
Agreed. She’s like Meryl Streep in her sneaky comic work. Big Little Lies was funny because Kidman was in a drama and almost everyone else (Meryl included) was in a comedy.
“Kidman is a four-time Oscar winner”
Kidman has been nominated four times for an Oscar, though has only won one for “The Hours”. Research, it’s a beautiful thing.
“Sure, Kidman is a four-time Oscar winner”I think you mean nominee.
Four-time Oscar loser. Got it.
Indeed. She’s “only” won one, and been nominated four times. Unfortunately, she’s never managed to snag that coveted Nickelodeon Kid’s Choice Award, despite having three nominations.
That’s because the only film she’d done that would qualify for a Kid’s Choice was made twelve years before Nickelodeon was a thing.
They should have given her something for Paddington! Damn kids!
“twelve years before Nickelodeon was a thing.”Er… am I missing something? BMX Bandits came out in 1983 and Nickelodeon launched in 1979.
There’s a hole in the ozone directly over her hair.
Was Billy Zane in that one too? Because the first time I saw her was Dead Calm. Wowza.
So that simply isn’t true. I assume you mean because she hasn’t done anything “kid related” since BMX Bandits – but when the Nickelodeon Kid’s Choice Awards started in 1988 – the first movie to win favorite movie was the R-Rated Beverly Hills Cop II.Using that as a barometer for “Kid’s Choice,” she was in Batman Forever (nominated but lost to Ace Ventura II), Far and Away, Days of Thunder; Bewitched; Happy Feet; The Golden Compass; Aquaman (nominated, but lost to Avengers: Infinity War); and finally, how those idiot kids overlooked Dogville is beyond me.Basically, Nicole Kidman has made a lot of easy to ignore bad movies.
Fun fact: She wasn’t even nominated for a Kid’s Choice Award until 2003’s Dogville.
Yeah ok but this looks a bit when Meryl Streep does those wild diverse roles that it feels to me that she is doing cosplay.
Meryl Streep IS The Khaleesi!
She’s such a phoney baloney!
And don’t worry Sorkin fans, he’ll find a way to squeeze in that one egg joke he knows.Also, they probably won’t include Lucille Ball helping Star Trek TOS get made.
“Whaaa… Don’t talk to me like I’m other people, Ricky!”
Looks like it’s pretty tightly focused on the I Love Lucy years (1951-1957), so yeah, probably won’t get to the mid-60s.
It’s pretty focused on one week during the production of a single episode of I Love Lucy, from table read to taping.
It’s entirely focused on one week.
Seriously…I’ve had an oeuf.
You think?
Also, they probably won’t include Lucille Ball helping Star Trek TOS get made.
I hope not. Biopics tend to be best when they’re focused on a fairly tight period of time.
I can just see a nice, Walk Hard-style “I’ll help you get your space show made, Gene Roddenberry!”
Really? Really. Really? Really.
Looking forward to when Desi walks up to Lucy with a quarter: “You stand to win everything. Call it.”
I want to see Bardem as Desi Arnaz. Nice change from his usual psycho-killers.
I’d like to see Desi Arnaz blowing shit up with a blank expression.
With that laugh of his as the punctuation on the mayhem.
“The time for s’plaining has passed.”*slowly walks away from burning apartment building*
Ricky: “Call it, friendo.”Fred: “Um…what?” (looks around nervously) “And what did you do to your hair??”
I want to see Desi finish ploughing a MILF and then beating the shit out of a jealous lover with a ham. WARNING: It’s a European film, there’s a glimpse of bush in this clip. Maybe don’t watch it in church.
I like Bardem, but how in the heck did he get top billing over Kidman?
His Oscar is more recent.
He… *checks notes* has a penis.
Aaron Sorkin.
As I said in my other comment here, I am far more leery about Sorkin than I am about her, and that the main character and leading actress was billed under the ostensibly supporting actor in this film does NOTHING to dissuade me from that.
Be as leery of Sorkin as you like, but film directors typically don’t control billing on their films, to my understanding. That’d most often be agents/managers negotiating with the producer/studio (with the latter balancing competing demands from the representatives of Actor X versus Actor Y).
Kidman is such a bigger star than Bardem that the only thing I can think of is that in this specific story Lucy has a much smaller role than Desi? Seems unlikely, but I’m hard-pressed to think of anything likelier. . .
I think Bardem is the real miscast. Voice is too deep and gruff and he’s built like a linebacker, not a svelt conga drummer.
He looks too old to play Desi Arnaz
I think the look is alright and I’d be up for watching something where Kidman has to do some comedic work, even if this is a drama/biopic. Her only comedies that I can think of off the top of my head are Stepford Wives and Practical Magic. The real challenge, I think, will be the voice and the idiolect. Lucille Ball’s voice is much deeper than Kidman’s and with a distinctive gravel, rough around the edges. Kidman’s voice is light and melodic, she sort of floats from word to word. I’ve always loved that quality of her voice. But here in the trailer it was a bit of a struggle for me to hear Lucy because Kidman’s voice, even with the inflection she gives it for the role, is so different from Lucy’s. I don’t think it’s a dealbreaker, it just stood out to me. I’ll probably still watch it on Prime.
It’s too bad Dirk Bogarde is dead and they can’t cast him as Desi.
Desi Arnaz would have been even better, but sadly he’s dead too.
Or is he?!…yes.
Is there a Desi Arnaz Jr. Jr.? I bet he’d be good.
Is there a Desi Arnaz Jr. Jr.? I bet he’d be good.He already played his father in Mambo Kings. 30 years ago.
That would be Jr., not Jr. Jr. Junior has only daughters and is now in his 60s, far too old for the role (looks at Javier Bardem) or maybe not.
You missed a jr.
I’d go with a junior Al Unser, Jr. personally.
I can’t stop laughing at this exchange.
To be fair, Dirk Bogarde was born a full 4 years after Arnaz.
or so the Germans would have us believe…
It’s very strange how there’s been no buzz for this movie up until now. I didn’t even know if it was coming out this year until now.At any rate, I’m not sure what I think about this one. The early days of TV, especially re: Desilu, are very fertile ground for movies like this, but it doesn’t feel like it wants to go particularly deep.
Eh, “particularly deep” isn’t what Sorkin does. I’m a gigantic West Wing fan, and I think The Social Network might be one of the single greatest screenplays ever written. I even like The American President. But Sorkin’s writing is kind of like Christopher Nolan’s writing, where it’s just detailed enough to feel very smart without actually being very smart.
Of course, the difference between the two men is that I think Nolan is quite aware that he’s an artist in a silly medium, while Sorkin is very convinced of his importance in the annals of history
Ooh boy, Sorkin trying comedy again…
I’m not sure that was enough to prove anybody wrong. Her voiceover is all determined and gravitas-y and we see her face for like a second, that doesn’t answer if she can do the “I Love Lucy” show justice at all.if the point is that they don’t have to be funny, that’s fine. I’d rather they don’t even try then have Sorkin try to make us believe “Crazy Christians” was the apotheosis of SNL sketch comedy, but don’t just like make up that this answers any concerns. They love casting Kidman in musicals and she can’t sing very well, this seems like a similar thing.
I’m sure both Nicole and Javier will be great in this, but I still think neither of them look the part.
They both seem off to me, I’ll still watch this though.
I’m not sure there’s enough evidence in this teaser to say that she proved the naysayers wrong. I may be a naysayer, in that Nicole Kidman wouldn’t be an obvious choice for Lucy. I’d be happy to be proven wrong. For now, I will continue saying “nay.” Nay, I say. Nay!
yeah if anything this backs up my previous nay. though i am impressed she can move her face that much, didn’t see that coming.
Hopefully all that work is starting to loosen up and she’s learned her lesson.
Daaaaammmn
Clickbait headlines gotta clickbait. The more illogically infuriating, the more clicks.
My only negative response to her being cast in this was ,“does she have to be in everything? Can’t another actress do this just as well?” I’m sure she’ll do fine, as the role is pre-defined and super juicy, but that also makes it a good part for a lesser known actress.
Frankly I’m getting sick of all of this anti-naysayer bias. Naysayers are people too and being told they’re wrong all the time can’t be good for their self-esteem.
Call me a weirdo, but, I could have seen Kathryn Hahn doing this role…but instead, she got Joan.
“I didn’t get a Nay outta that guy.”“You heard the governor…”
You know, for all the shit Kidman is getting for not looking like Lucy and her somewhat underexplored comedic talents in her career, she’s at least shown promise in many of the things she’s done. In fact, she’s the LEAST of my problems with this.
My biggest problem, and I think it’s a REALLY big problem, is that Aaron Fucking Sorkin is writing, directing and producing.
I am really dreading how he’s going to lame up Lucille Ball. In fact, I am really confused about why he wanted to take on her story in the first place, considering how much he underwrites women, and that the last show he did about people who make comedy was one of the most notable misfires in the history of television. Because I can only imagine that this is a big self-important “I’ll show them!” swing for the fences to prove his critics wrong about what he can do, and boy howdy, am I leery about his prospects for success.
Look, I ain’t no screenwriter, and I ain’t got no Oscars, and he’s done a lot of good work. But I know Sorkin has also always been extremely didactic and thus hit and miss for me, and also more misses than hits when it comes to how he writes women, and Lucille Ball is one of the UR-women of American pop culture. Here’s hoping his hopes meet his clear ambitions, because based on Studio 60 and the Newsroom and the reviews of Molly’s Game (which I admit I never saw), my hopes are quite reserved.
But did you like the little heart he gave himself at the end of the trailer?
His movies are always entertaining, but these bio projects he does are total bullshit. Usually that’s OK because it’s for a “good” cause (The Trial of the Chicago 7 was a farce, Mark Zuckerberg is a sociopathic twat), but I’d kind of like to learn something about Lucille Ball.
What I don’t want is to see ‘50s Nicole Kidman marching down a hall, stopping only to blow an executives’ hair back with some tirade about how TV comedy is like sand, and people need the sand or else they’ll eat the sand because they don’t know any better or whatever the fuck.Who’s playing Fred Mertz?
JK Simmons is Fred.
All I want from this film is a recreation of the infamous incident when Vivian Vance ordered a champagne toast when William Frawley died (they HATED each other).
As that allegedly happened in 1966, when Frawley died, I don’t think that will come up in this movie.
As Vance’s comment was made after Frawley’s death in 1966, I don’t think that will make the cut in this film.
Thanks for reminding me of one of the most annoyingly pseudo-profound rants in cinema history. In the middle of an otherwise lightly enjoyable movie, no less.
Lucille Ball was a smart and cutthroat businesswoman who wasn’t afraid to battle with entertainment execs. I’m not anticipating Sorkin will put in the effort to get it right but the potential is there, if he doesn’t phone it in.
“Mark Zuckerberg is a sociopathic twat”I am so stealing that…although you forgot to add the word “homophobic”– based on Instagram’s censors…
Sorkin watered down Abbie Hoffman’s politics in Trial of Chicago 7 from anarchist to liberal.
Well, it’s nice you’re giving him a chance.
this is all from 1942 or 1943 Nicole Kidman as Cate Blanchett playing Katherine Hepburn in The Aviator Klaus Fuchs and Oppenheimer on the Stalin’s memo I Love Lucy script Nicole Kidman as Hilary Swank’s psychotic vengeful FBI agent sitting at the bar in Logan Lucky Audrey Hepburn’s pink and white striped hatbox from Breakfast At Tiffany’s the OSS counter interrogation technique of the pencil used by the Manson Girls the improvised sabotage with the Zippo lighter of American Nazi troops moving through villages slaughtering civilians lighting their homes on fire in Platoon Hitler’s desk from the Reich Chancellery topped with leather made from human skin from Pretty Woman the lampshade from Bergen-Belsen German-American Bund sleeper agents Red Scare McCarthyite paranoia the desk is a death threat the photograph of Hitler that was used to call Julia Roberts a bloody Nazi cunt is a favourite of U.S. school photographers check your children’s school yearbooks flammable clothes fucking creeps with alcohol that soaks and vapourises or sticks like napalm who like to click their Zippo lighter click click click
Yeah, agreed with all this. Sorkin is pretty shitty at writing women characters. Maybe he got a script doctor in to help but with his ego my gut says “nope.” The documentary “Finding Lucy” which aired on PBS 20 or so years ago is a nice look at who Lucy was, and I found the ending of it especially moving (her later years weren’t nearly as successful as her earlier ones – not the B movie fame but First Lady of TV era, obviously). It pops up on YouTube, where the anti-piracy algorithm plays whack-a-mole with it.
Genuine comment: I got chills watching this and I cannot wait to watch!Snarky comment: Having exhausted all other options, Nicole Kidman resorts to acting.
Oh mercy. Will this be a lot of “walk and talks” as they wander through multi-camera sets? (Hot take – the mismatch here was Sorkin. I’d rather have whatshisname who works with Will Ferrell but then got into highbrow movies.)
They had their own production company so I would imagine there’s lots of scope for walks and talks and business shouting.
Vegemiteameatamegamin
How does this clip prove anyone wrong? The fact that they only show her for a millisecond proves she must not be a very good Lucy, or they would have showed her more. She has nothing of Lucy’s energy, and anyone can make that face she makes in the millisecond shot.I’m more impressed that Javier Bardem was able to speak legible English, that may be the first time I’ve ever understood him.
Kidman as Lucy in “Stone Pillow” or GTFO.
Is the headline a joke? She doesn’t sound anything like her. She’s got that weird “I can’t quite make my all my vowels sound American” thing going on.
Ohr nor!
In Big Little Lies, would it have killed them to put in a line or two about how Kidman’s character had grown up in Australia and moved to the US as a young woman? It wouldn’t have changed anything about her character and we wouldn’t have had to follow her accent round the houses every time she raised her voice.
A 2 second B&W clip “proves naysayers wrong”? You must be easy to please. I would be more concerned about why they spent 99% of the trailer hiding Kidman’s performance. She’s a good actress, but if she could pull off Lucille Ball convincingly then the trailer would have had her face front and center.
Like most naysayers, I too was shocked to discover that one of our finest actors was able to act.
sorkin and ryan murphy become more and more alike with each project, if they are not already the same. prove me wrong. i am certain they would both hate the comparison 🙂
Honestly, the casting I was most worried about was Bardem as Arnaz, and this doesn’t assuage my concerns. By changing Desi from a baby-faced heartthrob to a ruggedly handsome man’s man, the film risks changing the dynamics of the Ball-Arnaz marriage quite significantly. The fact that Lucy was with a younger man was a big part of their whole thing.What’s especially frustrating is that there was always an obviously perfect actor for the role of Desi: younger, half-Cuban actor, singer, and guitarist Oscar Isaac.
Kidman is receiving all the scrutiny, but I’m not clicking with Bardem’s Arnaz at all. It’s like Desi Arnaz by way of Lenny in Of Mice and Men. Eek.
Bardem’s way to rugged for Ricky, who was just a beautiful guy.
Exactly this. And you’re being kinder than I would be, because Bardem is wrinkly and old and it makes no effing sense!
You guys know that putting a transcription of the trailer doesn’t count as an article, right? … right?
I don’t find a problem with Kidman’s casting. Prior to TV, Lucille Ball was a starlet who was doing a variety of dramatic roles before hitting on comedy as a career path. The big worry is the movie will suffer from the same boring beats as every biography movie these days. Its tough to take any of them seriously after “Walk Hard-The Dewey Cox Story” mercilessly skewered the genre.
Kidman is so talented, I bet she can pull this off, but it seems extremely premature to say she “proves the naysayers wrong” given this teaser trailer shows basically nothing.
Hollywood and society at large are to blame for this because of how older women are treated, but Kidman has unfortunately reached that stage where her surgically altered face completely overshadows her acting ability. You can even see it in the still frame above.
Maybe I’m a total sucker, but that looks fucking great.
Nina Arianda really looks like Vivian Vance.
How is anything proved wrong? You see her for .5 seconds. And from that her fucking dead upper lip is clearly on display. Any longer and you’d see her do that weird lizard lick she has to do to make sure her enervated face is still attached to her skull.
I think the best looking older actresses are either genetically blessed or get really excellent surgery/other work where they look like a gorgeous version of their actual age. Kidman crossed some kind of surgical/filler threshold years ago where she just can’t move her face all that much and I find it hugely distracting—no slam on her for making her own choices, I just can’t watch stuff she’s in b/c it takes me right out of the story.
It’s made her shiny. How tight does your skin have to be before you can’t dull it with movie makeup?
I’m not convinced, but I’m also not interested, so my opinion really doesn’t matter.
Now all she needs to do is play Shirley Jones and Barbara Eden and she’ll pretty much have the market cornered on tv sitcom moms.
Nicole Kidman IS Meredith Baxter Birney AS Elise Keaton!
Does she though? I mean, did we all watch the same trailer?
Sorkin directing??
Definitely some concerns.
I think this would be more interesting if it was written by Amy Sherman-Palladino. Although being fair most things would.
Naysayer? I’m a Yeasayer.
I don’t see why anyone would have a problem with her playing Ball.
This will be a special Lucy who can’t move her face from all the Botox.
What the fuck did that teaser do to show off anything about the performance or film, let along “prove critics wrong”?
If people are excited by this, that’s awesome. But stuff like “She eerily does look just like Ball”- this is subjective and not at all true; this is a writer trying to will something into existence because that writer wants it to be. She looks like Nicole Kidman and nothing at all like Lucille Ball (which is fine, this is just a movie), but trying to manifest something that isn’t so in such a blatant way- does a disservice to the project.
Are they going to let Kidman sing the theme song?
BAH-BAH-LOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
Maybe Lucy’s right: of all the Lucille Balls in the world, Nicole Kidman’s the Lucille Ball-iest.
No
Like Al Bundy, I would be more interested to see a biopic of William Frawley’s character, or as Al put it, “They need to get rid of that loud mouthed redhead, the illegal bandleader, and the frumpy neighbor and make a show all about Fred Mertz, and call it “Mertz’s World!”