Lucie Arnaz Reminds Everyone Why Casting Nicole Kidman as Lucille Ball Is a Good Plan — ‘It’s a Done Deal’
Not all I Love Lucy fans were thrilled to find out that Nicole Kidman would be taking on the part of Lucille Ball in an upcoming Aaron Sorkin biography. The highly anticipated We Are the Ricardos will take viewers on a behind-the-scenes look at Ball’s career and marriage, with all the highs and lows of both.
While Kidman does have red hair, an important attribute, she’s lacking some of Ball’s signature zaniness that fans want to see. However, the I Love Lucy star’s daughter Lucie Arnaz insists that everyone is forgetting one crucial detail.
Lucille Ball was not the same as ‘I Love Lucy’ lead Lucy Ricardo
Many fans find it hard to differentiate Ball from the character she played in the iconic sitcom she helped create. It’s true that Desi Arnaz, her real-life husband, also played her spouse on the show. But that doesn’t mean I Love Lucy represented their real life.
Critics were quick to suggest alternative actors to take on the part of Lucy. Debra Messing was floated as a replacement, and she even came forward to say, “I’m available,” making it clear she was interested. Lucie, meanwhile, stands by the decision to cast Kidman.
Entertainment Weekly reported that even though contracts haven’t been finalized yet, “It’s a done deal,” when it comes to casting.
The lead in ‘We Are the Ricardos’ doesn’t have to play Lucy Ricardo
Lucie explained that while any actor would need to emulate her mother, it didn’t mean they had to take on the character of Lucy Ricardo.
“Nobody has to impersonate Lucy Ricardo nor do the Vitameatavegamin routine, or … any of the silly things. It’s the story of Lucille Ball, my actual mother, not Lucy Ricardo, and her husband, Dezi Arnaz, my dad, not Ricky Ricardo,” she explained.
She continued, verifying that the movie would not recreate the show. “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,” Lucie continued, according to ET. “Now, of course it’s going to have I Love Lucy in it. As a matter of fact, Aaron Sorkin has set it on the stage of filming one week of rehearsal, rehearsing and filming the show. But all this other stuff takes place during that time.”
She said again that “very little of the show is actually I Love Lucy-type stuff.”
Lucie Arnaz once said her mother was much more serious at home
Lucy Ricardo was a ball of energy and laughter. However, Lucie said the real Ball was “very serious, really, sometimes to a fault.”
“She played a very funny person in her show, very crazy, outrageous person, and all my friends used to think my mother was really like that,” Lucie told the Television Academy Foundation. ”But, at home, of course, she wasn’t like that at all. She was very responsible, took care of business. She worried a lot about her household, whether the kids were being taken care of, if the garage was being cleaned out, homework was being done. She fashioned herself as a homemaker of sorts.”
Keeping all that in mind, it’s much easier to see Kidman nailing the part. Now fans just have to wait to see how this all plays out.
