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It was announced at the start of the year that Nicole Kidman had signed on to portray Lucille Ball in the forthcoming feature Being the Ricardos, opposite Javier Bardem as her husband Ricky Ricardo.
It’s not quite a biopic, as the movie depicts a specific time frame in their lives, when getting their famed show I Love Lucy off the ground and onto TV, spanning just one week.
In the 1950s series, Ball portrays a fictionalized version of herself. A housewife, mother to a young son, and married to an entertainer, who is a band leader at a nightclub.
In I Love Lucy, Lucy Ricardo comes across as riddled with self-doubt and in search of affirmation.
But, in the new trailer, she is all confidence.
We hear Kidman narrate the first look footage as Ball, saying, “I am the biggest asset in the portfolio of the Columbia Broadcasting System.” At first, it’s Kidman’s voice that we hear, but as the trailer progresses, it does sound a bit more like Ball herself, with a little bit of that “crackle” in her inflection.
We hear a lot of Kidman as Ball, but we don’t get to see all that much. At least, not until 00:52 in the trailer, when Kidman recreates the now famous scene of the TV star stepping into a vat to stomp grapes.
The declaration made by Ball may sound a little bold, but it ends off with her saying, “I had no idea it was going to be a hit.”
Ah, that’s the Lucy we know from the series, ambitious but also humble.
Written and directed by Aaron Sorkin (The Social Network), Being the Ricardos will premiere December 21 on Amazon Prime.
Is this going on your watch list?