Amazon Studios has released the first teaser trailer for Being the Ricardos, a dramatic biopic about one of Hollywood’s Golden Age’s most popular couples – Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz. The film takes place over one week of filming on the hugely successful I Love Lucy sitcom that premiered in 1951 and ended in mid-1957.
Oscar winner Nicole Kidman (Best Actress, The Hours) stars as Lucille Ball and Oscar winner Javier Bardem (Best Supporting Actor, No Country for Old Men) plays Desi Arnaz. Oscar winner J.K. Simmons (Whiplash) is I Love Lucy‘s William Frawley and Nina Arianda (Stan & Ollie) plays Vivian Vance. Two-time Emmy winner Tony Hale (Veep) is I Love Lucy executive producer and head writer Jess Oppenheimer. Alia Shawkat (Search Party) and Jake Lacy (Fosse/Verdon) co-star as I Love Lucy writing partners, Madelyn Pugh and Bob Carroll Jr.
In a recent interview with EW, writer/director Aaron Sorkin explained why he wrote Being the Ricardos. “The only thing better than a story people don’t know is a story that people think they know but they’re wrong. The producer Todd Black spent over a year having meetings with me to tell me stories about Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz that I’d never heard. For instance, that Lucy was accused of being a Communist. There were plenty of points of friction, and that’s what I look for when I want to tell a story,” said Sorkin.
The film will open in theaters on December 10th, 2021 followed by a release on Amazon Prime Video on December 21st.
Amazon Studios released the following description of Being the Ricardos:
“Lucille Ball (Kidman) and Desi Arnaz (Bardem) are threatened by shocking personal accusations, a political smear and cultural taboos in Academy Award-winning writer and director Aaron Sorkin’s behind-the-scenes drama Being the Ricardos. A revealing glimpse of the couple’s complex romantic and professional relationship, the film takes audiences into the writers’ room, onto the soundstage and behind closed doors with Ball and Arnaz during one critical production week of their groundbreaking sitcom I Love Lucy.”
