Why didn t Nicole Kidman want to play Lucille Ball?
Being the Ricardos (Movie)
During a recent appearance on Live With Kelly and Ryan, the actress revealed that the immediate backlash to news of her casting as Lucille Ball in Aaron Sorkin's Being the Ricardos almost drove her from the project. "I wasn't initially [anxious]," Kidman said of playing Ball.
Being the Ricardos, 2021
To portray Lucille Ball, Kidman dyed her hair red to match Ball's famed crimson. She also wore fine-tuned facial prosthetics that helped her achieve a new nose and thinner, higher-slung brows.
Kidman's physical transformation involved makeup, a variety of wigs, and minimal prosthetics. Meanwhile, Bardem studied with a dialect coach to perfect Arnaz's distinctive Cuban accent and took on singing and conga lessons to perform Arnaz's signature songs “Babalu” and “Cuban Pete.”
Nicole Kidman will be seen in 'Being the Ricardos' after Cate Blanchett was unable to join the project owing to scheduling conflicts.
As the story goes, Blanchett was attached to play Ball in the film, but the actress left the project due to “scheduling conflicts.” And according to one of the film's producers, Lucie Arnaz (daughter of Ball and Arnaz), that took the winds out of their sails. “It just took too long and we lost her,” Lucie Arnaz said.
Cate Blanchett, the multi-award-winning actress, has spoken out about her choice to decline the part of Lucille Ball in Aaron Sorkin's Being the Ricardos.
The Aquaman star later explained that her Grinch-like clapping style is not something that happens often, but was rather a result of a very hefty piece of jewelry on her finger. “It was really awkward,” she admitted during an Australian radio interview.
Her eyes were blue.
"I went, 'What have I said yes to? ' " Kidman said of accepting the role of Lucille Ball in Being the Ricardos. Nicole Kidman almost didn't play Lucille Ball after backlash following her casting in the Aaron Sorkin movie.
At the end of its sixth season, The Lucy Show posted its highest Nielsen rating, ranking at #2. After six seasons, Ball decided to end the series, feeling that the show had enough episodes for syndication.
Who was almost cast as Lucille Ball?
When the movie's cast was first announced, some questioned the decision to cast Nicole as Lucille—with Valerie Bertinelli tweeting that actress "Debra Messing was robbed" of the role.
False lashes were originally created by makeup artist Max Factor in 1919 for a starlet named Phyllis Haver. They were popularized by Marlene Dietrich and Katharine Hepburn in the 1930s and got a big wink from Lucille Ball in the 1950s.

As MeTV posits, Ethel and Fred not being very affectionate with each other on the show could be related to the pair's mutual disdain. MeTV also notes that Ethel called her husband "ol' fat Freddy" on the series—appropriate considering Vance's opinion of Frawley.
The two would become close friends and perform on each other's shows. Burnett also shares her favorite anecdote about Lucy, which includes a great Lucille Ball quote.
When she called her mom to let her know the end was near, she put the phone up to Arnaz's ear so Ball could talk to him. "I could hear her say, 'I love you. ' Like, five times in a row," Lucie said. "And he was nodding his head and saying, 'I love you too, honey.
So, to help things along until the hens start getting into action, Lucy and Ethel decide to buy a bunch of eggs and sneak them out to the hen house. Fred's out back, so they can't just take the eggs in the cartons. They decide instead to hide the eggs in their clothes.
While most of the major events of Being the Ricardos are true—Ball's second pregnancy, Ball testifying to the House Un-American Activities Committee that she was not a communist, and a story in Confidential magazine about Arnaz's infidelity—they did not happen over the course of one week, as we see in the movie.
Known simply as “Lucy” to four decades of smitten television fans, she had undergone surgery at Cedars-Sinai on April 18 to replace part of her aorta and aortic valve and had recovered from the 6 1/2-hour operation to a point where she was eating and even walking around her hospital room.
Nicole Kidman Relies on Philip B Rejuvenating Oil for Her Curls.
Nicole Kidman, who became friends with Zellweger when Cameron Crowe cast the latter opposite Kidman's then-husband Tom Cruise in 1996's “Jerry Maguire” and then worked with her seven years later in “Cold Mountain,” says that kind of off-kilter self-deprecation is what makes Zellweger so wonderful.
Did Hugh Grant and Nicole Kidman get along?
The stars have known each other since they were in their early 20s. Nicole Kidman and Hugh Grant tapped into their longtime friendship in order to get into character for their upcoming HBO thriller series, The Undoing.
Lucille Ball is perhaps the most famous redhead there is, though her hair didn't always have that firey hue. Her hair apparently got its color from a henna dye, which was a closely guarded Hollywood secret — so closely guarded, in fact, that according to Huffington Post, the dye was kept under lock and key.
Lucille Ball wanted to try something new with her hair this season, so her hairstylist, Irma Kusely, ordered some longer wigs. She styled them into a bouffant that made it easier to conceal the lift tapes that Ball often wore to keep skin taut.
Away from the set, she uses very little makeup, often just a light film of pancake foundation which gives a nice finish to the skin, plus lipstick. Brushes and more brushes are another of Lucille's beauty secrets. She uses them for nails, hands, elbows, feet and back, having a special kind for each purpose.
Ball and Arnaz got a lot of attention because they were an interracial couple on television. I Love Lucy also caused a stir by showing a pregnant woman on TV. The duo almost ended I Love Lucy after they received baby news. During that time, it was considered controversial for a visibly pregnant woman to be on TV.
Ball was her inimitable self in both the first episode and the pilot, trying to audition for Ricky's show as a clown and keeping the audience in stitches with her antics. However, there was one big difference between the two appearances. In the pilot, she was six months pregnant with her daughter, Lucie Arnaz.
Lucille Ball was the first woman to appear pregnant on one of the three major television networks. Desilu Studios consulted with network censors and leaders from different religious organizations to determine that Lucy Ricardo would be described as “expecting” rather than “pregnant.”
Lucille Ball was six months pregnant with Lucie Arnaz at the time of the filming of the pilot.
She was aware of a backlash online from fans who opposed her casting, some of whom wanted the role to go to the “Will & Grace” star Debra Messing. “I'm not on the internet and I definitely don't Google myself,” Kidman said.
It was I Love Lucy director, Marc Daniels, who suggested Vivian Vance for the role of Ethel Mertz. “I have this woman I think would be great,” Daniels pitched to Oppenheimer and Arnaz. The three went to see Vance performing in a production of The Voice of the Turtle, in La Jolla, California.
Who was supposed to be in Being the Ricardos?
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Being the Ricardos | |
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Language | English |
Box office | $450,000 (estimate) |
Nicole Kidman will be seen in 'Being the Ricardos' after Cate Blanchett was unable to join the project owing to scheduling conflicts.
Nicole Kidman's 'Being the Ricardos' Transformation Included Wigs, Prosthetics, and Lowering Her Voice. For actors, undergoing a transformation in order to make a movie role come to life is par for the course, but some makeovers are more stunning than others.
While most of the major events of Being the Ricardos are true—Ball's second pregnancy, Ball testifying to the House Un-American Activities Committee that she was not a communist, and a story in Confidential magazine about Arnaz's infidelity—they did not happen over the course of one week, as we see in the movie.
Yes. The true story behind Being the Ricardos confirms that the Cuban-born Desi Arnaz faced racism in his career. Lucille Ball commented on this later in life during an interview with Barbara Walters. "I knew what he had suffered, really, and how he did not deserve that.
At the end of its sixth season, The Lucy Show posted its highest Nielsen rating, ranking at #2. After six seasons, Ball decided to end the series, feeling that the show had enough episodes for syndication.
After almost 70 years of I Love Lucy, Lucille Ball is still one of the most recognizable faces in entertainment. But behind the red curly hair and bright blue eyes, there's a lot people don't know about this iconic woman.
On I Love Lucy, Lucy and Ricky, a married couple both on-screen and off, famously never shared a bed. Instead, they slept in side-by-side single beds. As it turns out, their TV sleep style may have been an unwitting precursor to a 21st-century trend: the sleep divorce.
Fred Mertz: “You don't think she's a kleptomaniac, do you?”
Enrique Alberto Ricardo IV, better known as Little Ricky, is a fictional character from the American television series I Love Lucy (1951–57, with Ricky Jr. becoming a part of the show as of his birth in 1953) and The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour (1957–60). Little Ricky is the son of Lucy Ricardo and Ricky Ricardo.