Being the Ricardos Trivia | 30 facts about the film

Being the Ricardos is a biographical film written and directed by Aaron Sorkin, about the relationship between «I Love Lucy» stars Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz.

Let’s find out more about the movie!

1. Being the Ricardos is a 2021 American biographical drama film.
2. It was written and directed by Aaron Sorkin.
3. The movie is about the relationship between I Love Lucy stars Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz.
4. Nicole Kidman and Javier Bardem star as Ball and Arnaz.
5. J. K. Simmons, Nina Arianda, Tony Hale, Alia Shawkat, Jake Lacy, and Clark Gregg are featured in supporting roles.
6. It received a limited theatrical release by Amazon Studios in the United States on December 10, 2021.
7. It premiered worldwide on Prime Video on December 21, 2021.
8. The film received mixed to positive reviews, with critics particularly praising Kidman’s portrayal of Lucille Ball.
9. The film received three nominations at the 94th Academy Awards, including Best Actress (for Kidman), Best Actor (for Bardem), and Best Supporting Actor (for Simmons).
10. It also received three nominations at the 79th Golden Globe Awards including Best Screenplay, Best Actor in a Motion Picture – Drama (for Bardem), and Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama (for Kidman), winning for Best Actress.
11. The project was first announced in September 2015, with Cate Blanchett announced to star as Lucille Ball and Aaron Sorkin writing the screenplay.
12. The film would be acquired by Amazon Studios in August 2017.
13. Production was originally given a tax credit to film in California in November 2019
14. Producers were revealed to be meeting with directors in January 2020
15. However, by January 2021, Blanchett had dropped out of the project, with Nicole Kidman in negotiations to replace her and Javier Bardem in negotiations to portray Desi Arnaz. Sorkin, having enjoyed the experience of directing The Trial of the Chicago 7, had elected to serve as director himself.
16. The casting of Kidman was met with some controversy on social media, to which Lucie Arnaz spoke out in defense of Kidman’s casting. In February, J. K. Simmons and Nina Arianda were cast to portray William Frawley and Vivian Vance respectively.
17. Filming began on March 29, 2021, in Los Angeles.
18. The production canceled filming at Chateau Marmont due to backlash against the establishment.
19. In September 2021, Sorkin stated that the film was in post-production.
20. Though Amazon does not publicly release box office grosses, the film made an estimated $150,000 from 450 theaters on its first day, and a total of $450,000 in its opening weekend
21. After seeing the movie, Lucie Arnaz released a video on her YouTube Channel on 17 October 2021, in which she called the movie “freaking amazing.” She complimented Aaron Sorkin for making a great movie that really captured the time period and had wonderful casting. She also said that Nicole Kidman “became my mother’s soul.” She also said that Javier Bardem didn’t look like her dad but, “he has everything that dad had. He has his wit, his charms, his dimples, his musicality.”
22. Desi misleadingly mentions that his family left Cuba due to the Bolshevik revolution, but in truth they left in 1933, two decades before the Castro revolution. There was a political coup in that year, but it was a different one.
23. Director Donald Glass is a fictitious person, either a composite of all the directors or representative of Marc Daniels, who directed “Fred and Ethel Fight.”
24. Linda Lavin is the only actor in the film to have actually worked with Desi Arnaz, when he guest-starred on her series Alice (1976), which was also written by the character she is playing, Madalyn Pugh Davis. It was announced that Robert Pine was also cast in the film. He would have been the only actor to have worked with Lucille Ball, on her series The Lucy Show (1962). However, Pine is not in the final cut of the film, despite still being attached to it in online listings.
25. Linda Lavin plays the older Madelyn Pugh who, many years later (along with Bob Carroll, Jr.), executive produced the sitcom Alice (1976) starring Linda Lavin.
26. Tony-winning stage actress Nina Arianda plays Vivian Vance, who herself was a seasoned stage actress prior to playing Ethel Mertz on I Love Lucy (1951).
27. In the film, after spending the night together, Lucille asks Desi to use his phone to call her fiancé and break up with him and inform him that she is moving out. In reality, Desi Arnaz was the one who was engaged and in a relationship when the two of them first met.
28. In an interview for the Turner Classic Movies podcast The Plot Thickens, J.K. Simmons confirmed he rarely chooses roles where he is to play a real-life person, but was attracted to the role as another chance to work with Aaron Sorkin, having first collaborated with the director on Broadway when Simmons was understudy to Stephen Lang for A Few Good Men, which was written by Sorkin.
29. The Friday newspaper is dated September 12, 1952, making the time span of the film from Monday, September 8 to Friday, September 12.
30. Aaron Sorkin originally wanted an undisclosed Brazilian actor in the role of Desi Arnaz, but was told by a casting consultant that it would be wrong, as she thought Brazilians aren’t Latino because they speak Portuguese and not Spanish. The actor is rumored to be Golden Globe nominee Wagner Moura.