Aaron Sorkin and Amazon Studios have finally raised the curtain on “Being the Ricardos,” his latest directorial effort about one tumultuous week in the lives of television icons Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz.
“I am the biggest asset in the portfolio of the Columbia Broadcasting System. The biggest asset in the portfolio of Philip Morris Tobacco, Westinghouse. I get paid a fortune to do exactly what I love doing,” Ball, played by former Best Actress winner Nicole Kidman in the new film, says in the “Being the Ricardos” teaser. “I work side by side with my husband, who is genuinely impressed by me. And all i have to do to keep it is kill for 36 weeks in a row. And then, do it again the next year.”
“The only thing better than a story people don’t know is a story that people think they know but they’re wrong,” Sorkin told Entertainment Weekly about his new film. “I had this structural idea that appealed to me. I like claustrophobic spaces; I like claustrophobic segments of time. So I thought if I could tell the story during one production week of ‘I Love Lucy’ — Monday table read through Friday audience taping — and tell it mostly on that soundstage, that there might be something good there. So I tried writing it.”
Sorkin set “Being the Ricardos” during the week of production on the famous “I Love Lucy” episode, “Fred and Ethel Fight.” (J.K. Simmons and Nina Arianda portray Fred and Ethel actors William Frawley and Vivian Vance.) But to heighten the drama of his film, the “West Wing” creator and Oscar winner combined multiple major events in the lives of Ball and Arnaz together. In addition to the episode, the power couple is dealing with Ball being accused of supporting Communism and Arnaz’s private life hitting the tabloids. (Oscar winner Javier Bardem plays Arnaz in the film.)
“You want to pile as many obstacles in front of your protagonist as you can,” Sorkin told EW. “That’s what’s going to show us who they are. So if one thing would have been good, two things are better, three things great. And I chose these three things. Everything that happens in the movie happened, it just didn’t all happen in one week. I made it happen in one week.”
“Being the Ricardos” is one of the year’s last major awards contenders to release its trailer. But the film is likely in play in a number of spots, including for its lead actors and Sorkin as a writer and director. Last year, Sorkin scored six nominations for “The Trial of the Chicago 7,” including nominations in Best Original Screenplay and the film itself for Best Picture.
“Being the Ricardos” is out in theaters on December 10 before hitting Amazon Prime on December 21.
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