Nicole Kidman loves Lucy!
In a recent conversation with Chris Rock for Variety, the 53-year-old Oscar winner opened up about the joys and challenges of playing comedy queen Lucille Ball in Aaron Sorkin’s upcoming film, Being the Ricardos.
Pushing herself to perfect the Ball’s voice, Kidman said: “I’ve had to put in an enormous amount of time on Lucille Ball right now, because she has a very particular way of speaking.”
Agreeing with the 56-year-old stand-up star’s comment that Ball was “just one of the most talented people to ever roam the earth,” Kidman said, “I am way out of my comfort zone right now, Chris! I’m free-falling.”
“I’d like to be funny. I’m never cast funny,” she said.
Joking with the actress, Rock said, “Oh, you could be funny. You’re playing Lucille Ball. You better be funny.”
“Lucille Ball is hopefully funny. The strange thing about Lucille Ball is that everyone thinks we’re remaking the ‘I Love Lucy’ show, and it’s so not that. It’s about Lucy and Desi and their relationship and their marriage,” The Undoing actress said. “It’s very deep, actually.”
Praising the comedy and sitcom legend as a “trailblazer,” Kidman highlighted just how far ahead of her times Ball truly was.
“She formed her production company. Desi was Cuban, and she had to fight to get him on the show. They had just so many things in their marriage that are so relevant today, and what she was also dealing with in terms of everything that artists deal with, where you’re up against big corporations. And you’re like, “No, this is art,’ ” Kidman said.
Being the Ricardos is a biographical drama about Ball and her husband, Desi Arnaz, who starred in the popular 1951 sitcom I Love Lucy. The two were married in 1940 and split in 1960.
Javier Bardem at the 91st Academy Awards
Javier Bardem stars as Arnaz, Ball’s then-husband and comedic partner. Tony Hale, Alia Shawkat, Clark Gregg and Jake Lacy also appear, according to The Hollywood Reporter,
Ball and Arnaz’s daughter, Lucie Arnaz, 69, has also played an active role in the stories portraying her late parents and posted a video to Facebook to address the Behind the Ricardos casting criticisms earlier this year.
“We are not doing a remake of I Love Lucy. No one has to impersonate Lucy Ricardo nor do the Vitameatavegamin routine, or the chocolate factory routine or any of the silly things,” the couple’s daughter said. “It’s the story of Lucille Ball, my actual mother, not Lucy Ricardo, and her husband, Dezi Arnaz, my dad, not Ricky Ricardo.”
Lucie reassured fans that the film would have “humor” but also focus on the very real story of her parents as a couple and as people.
“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,” she said.
In April, Kidman was spotted on set in with a wavy, light orange hairstyle similar to Ball’s as she wrapped a long black coat over her costume in between takes.
A release date for Being the Ricardos has not yet been announced.
