The television classic “I Love Lucy” is coming back from the 1950s, this time as a movie that started filming this week in Los Angeles with Javier Bardem and Nicole Kidman in the lead roles.
Titled “Being the Ricardos,” the movie, written and directed by Aaron Sorkin, portrays a week of filming the TV series that inspired it, from the read-through of the script by all the actors on a Monday to the recording before a live audience on Friday.
Along the way the lead characters face different crises that could end their career and risk their marriage. “Being the Ricardos is a drama about the people responsible for one of the most famous comedies in television. I am anxious to start to work with Nicole, Javier, J.K. Simmons, Nina Arianda and the rest of our great cast,” Sorkin said in an announcement by Amazon Studios. Javier Bardem. Robert Zuckerman Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, married and the parents of two children in real life, were the most beloved couple in American television from 1951 to 1960, playing the roles of a housewife and a Cuban orchestra director living in the United States. Arnaz was also president of Desilu Productions, which produced the show.
“My brother Desi and I joined this project because it is a story about the real relationship between our parents, tempestuous and complex, and not a remake of ‘I love Lucy’ because no one could have done that,” said executive producer Lucille Arnaz, daughter of the famed couple. Nicole Kidman She added that Sorkin did not plan the movie as a biography of Desi and Lucy but chose to focus on the TV program’s most successful periods.
“The selection of the cast was truly inspiring. We are anxious to see what this impressive group of actors will do with the script,” Arnaz said. The movie also will have clips of two stars from the original TV show, the late William Frawley and Vivian Vance. Rounding out the cast will be Emmy Tony Hale, Alia Shawkat, Jake Lacy, Madelyn Pugh and Bob Carroll Jr. as well as Clark Gregg, Nelson Franklin, John Rubinstein, Linda Lavin, Robert Pine and Christopher Denham.
