Lucille Ball’s Daughter Says Aaron Sorkin’s Being The Ricardos Has Inaccurate Scenes

Lucie Arnaz, the daughter of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, says there are scenes in Being The Ricardos that are inaccurate. Aaron Sorkin, the incomparable screenwriter behind hit shows like The West Wing and films like The Social Network, made his directorial debut in 2017 with Molly’s Game, a biopic starring Jessica Chastain as the aspiring Olympic skier turned “Poker Princess.” Sorkin followed that up with The Trail of the Chicago 7 for Netflix, which was nominated for a slew of Oscars at the 2021 Academy Awards.

Now, Sorkin will be following up his hit historical drama with another biographical drama. Being the Ricardos stars Nicole Kidman and Javier Bardem as Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, the married couple who created and starred together as Lucy and Ricky Ricardo in the classic sitcom, I Love Lucy. Sorkin’s film will follow Ball and Arnaz over the course of a week during the production of I Love Lucy as they cope with a crisis capable of ending their careers and their marriage. The Sorkin-directed drama has been in production for Amazon Studios since March.

Lucie Arnaz, the daughter of Ball and Desi Arnaz and an actress who recently appeared in an episode of Will & Grace, had a chance to visit the set of Being the Ricardos during filming. In an interview with Palm Springs Life, Arnaz revealed what that experience was like, and admitted that she tried to have a few scenes removed from the film because she felt they were inaccurate. Read what Arnaz had to say below:

I mean, there are certain scenes that I wished hadn’t been in the feature film. I couldn’t get my way and have them taken out, but they weren’t accurate. 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.

Arnaz purely seems interested in protecting her parents’ legacy, so her opinion should be respected. However, this wouldn’t be the first time a writer took certain liberties when adapting a story. The biggest issue Arnaz seems to have with the film is how it crams numerous true events into one week that didn’t actually happen simultaneously, which Sorkin likely did to fit within the time restraints presented by a feature film. The screenwriter employed a similar structure for his 2015 film, Steve Jobs, which chronicles 15 years of the Apple co-founder’s life through three separate product launches over that period of time.

Sorkin is also no stranger to this type of controversy. Every feature film he has written since 2007’s Charlie Wilson’s War has been based on true events, and The Social Network portrays Mark Zuckerberg and other Facebook founders in a way they strongly disapprove of. Unlike then, Lucie Arnaz is an executive producer of Being the Ricardos, so her qualms will more than likely be heard by Sorkin and others.