For actors, film is Lucy and Desi’s love story
Kidman and Bardem honor their legacy in ‘Being the Ricardos’
Before you even see Nicole Kidman and Javier Bardem as TV’s most beloved husband and wife in “Being the Ricardos,” a biopic that follows the famous duo behind the classic “I Love Lucy” sitcom, you’ll hear them. The pair get a slow reveal as Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, respectively, in the opening moments of the film, mid-fight and purposefully in contrast to their black-and-white TV personas.
It’s the first sign that writer-director Aaron Sorkin is all too aware of the expectations most viewers will bring to a film about the incomparable zany redhead and her broad-shouldered Cuban bandleader husband that they’ve come to know through nearly 200 timeless episodes.
Although Kidman and Bardem have inhabited well-known figures before on screen, both admit there was an especially high degree of difficulty in portraying one of Hollywood’s all-time great couples.
“When you’re playing someone that has done beautiful things for all of us, as an actor, you have a responsibility to honor that soul, that person,” Bardem says. “… In playing someone like Desi, what you have to do is prepare yourself and read and watch as much as you can; see and get information. And then there’s a moment where you have to jump into the pool ... We are trying to grab what they meant for the business, what they meant for the world, what they meant for the audiences, what they meant for each other.”
For Kidman, who wasn’t an obvious choice to capture Ball’s physical comedy genius, the process of disappearing into the lovable funnywoman proved “daunting.” She spent six weeks studying the “I Love Lucy” catalog.
“I didn’t know an enormous amount about her,” says Kidman. “Aaron was like, ‘This is not meant to be some sort of carbon copy of “I Love Lucy;” you can go do whatever preparation you’re going to do for the “I Love Lucy” (stuff ), but I’m interested in Lucy and Desi.’ ”
Kidman ditched the lilt of her Australian accent to demonstrate the ease with which she can now slip into her impression of Ball’s voice and that of her famous fictional alter ego, Lucy Ricardo.
“Lucille has a deeper voice, a voice that smokes a packet of cigarettes a day,” she says. “And then the Lucy Ricardo is a very different timber. It was a really rigorous, technical approach.”
Bardem added: “We worked our (butts) off to get as close as we could in order to really honor who they were physically, their behavior, their voice, their tone, their differences between who they were on the show and who they were behind the show.”
“Being the Ricardos” continues Sorkin’s penchant for telling behind-the-scenes stories exploring the tensions and grand themes that emerge in the making of extraordinary things. The film opens with the conceit that a documentary is being made about a chaotic week of production on “I Love Lucy” in 1952, in which a convergence of crises — including an investigation by the House Un-American Activities Committee into Ball’s alleged ties to communism — nearly brought down the wildly popular 1950s sitcom and deepened the cracks and strengths of Ball and Arnaz’s real-life marriage.
“It’s exploring marriage and the nature of building a company together in a creative union versus a romantic union, and how do you navigate that?” Kidman says of the film, which arrives Dec. 10 in theaters and Dec. 21 on Amazon Prime Video.
Ball and Arnaz wed on Nov. 30, 1940, and were married for 20 years — not always happily. Ball filed for divorce on March 3, 1960, while filming the series finale of “The LucyDesi Comedy Hour.”
Although their on-screen chemistry mirrored their real-life affection, things weren’t always so picture-perfect off-screen. Sorkin’s film spends time mining the intimate moments of their complex relationship — the way their respective careers kept them apart early in their relationship, Ball’s suspicions of Arnaz’s philandering and the stress of running a business empire together.
“Something that Javier and I talked about is that this is a love story — this is about two people that, whatever the situations and the barriers and the things they’re up against, the underlying love has to shine through,” Kidman says. “I love how they handled their failures, separately and together. Each failure spurred them on. And I love that they had this kinetic energy — he saw her, what she was capable of, and he believed in her even when she didn’t believe in herself ... That’s so romantic, deeply loving.”
Helping add some assurance that their portrayals of the marriage felt truthful, Kidman says, was the involvement of Lucy and Desi’s daughter, Lucie Arnaz. As an executive producer, alongside her brother, Desi Arnaz Jr., Lucie had input on the casting and script, and she visited the set.
In telling the story of Ball and Arnaz, the film establishes their business savviness and immense contribution to the entertainment industry. “I Love Lucy” was a hugely influential series that revolutionized the small screen as the first sitcom filmed with three cameras in front of a live audience. Arnaz and Ball launched their own studio, Desilu Productions, that turned out such network hits as “The Untouchables,” “Mission: Impossible” and “Star Trek.”
“They were a great team,” Kidman says. “They had demons, they had passion, they had all those other things coming at them, but the basis of what they could achieve together as a creative team and as a couple was extraordinary. And really set the path for so many other people to follow.”
Bardem adds: “Lucille was very brave in going ahead with putting her husband near her at a time where that was absolutely denied by the society because he was an immigrant, and for giving him that space he deserved as a businessman. It seems like no big deal in hindsight. But it was. And (in the film,) you really get a sense of what Desi meant to the business of Hollywood.”
One of the dilemmas explored in the film is when Ball became pregnant with their second child, Desi Jr., in 1952. At a time when on-screen married couples slept in separate beds, pregnancy was considered a taboo topic for the airwaves. Ever the trailblazer, Ball had her pregnancy written into the show. Forty-four million viewers — 72% of all TV homes at the time — tuned in to watch Lucy give birth to Little Ricky.
“They were revolutionaries,” Bardem says.