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BRINGING BEING THE RICARDOS HOME Sitting in traffic on the 405 , a dopey smile came across my face. It had been almost
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time.” Desi, on the other hand, needed to be out. Whether it was on the road with his orchestra or on his boat playing cards, he needed time away from Lucy. A few nights a week when he wasn’t anyone’s second banana. I had a structure — the film would take place during one production week of I Love Lucy , Monday table read to Friday audience taping — and I had a few scenes I knew I wanted to land on along the way. I didn’t have an ending until I was sitting in traffic on the 405 . In my head, I sketched out a speech that Lucy would have earlier in the movie about how the only place her life worked was in the Ricardos’ living room. That’s where she was adored by the man she adored. I could pay that speech off by having the Friday audience taping begin with Ricky walking in the door and saying the most famous line from the most famous TV series ever made: “Lucy, I’m home!” And the word “home” would stop Lucy in her tracks. Instead of saying her line there would be silence and a confused and uncomfortable audience. The irony would be too much for Lucy, and she’d get the exact same dopey smile on her face as I had on mine. Then I rewrote the whole thing another 14 times and we were ready to go.
two years since producer Todd Black asked me to write a movie about the relationship between Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz. There was plenty to write about. Lucy was accused of being a Communist. Desi was
accused of cheating on Lucy. There were points of friction between Lucy and her best friend and co-star Vivian Vance, between Lucy and executive producer Jess Oppenheimer, between Lucy and staff writer Madelyn Pugh, and between William Frawley and anyone. The lives of Lucy and Desi were considerably more complicated than those of the characters they played. One of those complications was that Lucy longed for domesticity. “A home,” she says. “With a family and dinner
FOR YOUR CONS I DE RAT I ON
BEST PICTURE Produced By ......................................................... Todd Black, p.g.a. Jason Blumenthal Steve Tisch
BEST PRODUCTION DESIGN Production Designer............................................. Jon Hutman Art Director ..................................................Andres H. Cubillan Set Decorator ...............................................Ellen Brill
BEST DIRECTING ...................................... Aaron Sorkin
BEST COSTUME DESIGN ..................Susan Lyall
BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY Written By ............................................................ Aaron Sorkin
BEST MAKEUP AND HAIRSTYLING Makeup Department Head ................................... Ana Lozano
Makeup................................................................. David Craig Forrest Makeup Artist ...............................................Kyra Panchenko Special Effects Makeup ........................................ Michael Ornelaz Hair Department Head.......................................... Teressa Hill Hairstylists ...................................................Yvonne DePatis Kupka Kim Santantonio BEST SOUND Sound Mixer .................................................Steven A. Morrow CAS Re-Recording Mixers ......................................Julian Slater Michael Babcock Supervising Sound Editor ..................................... Renée Tondelli
BEST ACTRESS .......................................... Nicole Kidman
BEST ACTOR ............................................... Javier Bardem
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS .......... Nina Arianda Alia Shawkat BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR ............... Tony Hale J.K. Simmons
BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY .................Jeff Cronenweth, ASC
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BEST VISUAL EFFECTS Visual Effects Supervisor...................................... Jeffrey A. Okun, VES
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THE OLD BOYS’ CLUB of Hollywood got a run for its money when Ball became the first female studio president.
A Former Ingenue Writes Her Own Script in Male-Dominated Hollywood LUCILLE BALL: INDUSTRY TRAILBLAZER
attention of silent-movie star Buster Keaton, who mentored her in the art of props and pratfalls. Anything the boys did, she could do too if she got the opportunity. And she often made her own opportunities. Later, Ball flexed her power by refusing to settle for anyone but Desi to play her husband in I Love Lucy , even though the network was unsettled by the idea of a “mixed marriage.” Together they insisted that her second pregnancy be acknowledged on the show. She was known as a taskmaster on set, so concerned with perfecting every CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE
starlets who provided eye candy for the studio’s films from 1930 until 1955 . Competing with budding movie stars like Paulette Goddard, Betty Grable and Jane Wyman taught Ball that beauty was not simply an asset in Hollywood — it was a requirement. “She was just another pretty girl in a long blonde wig trying to figure out how to stand out in a crowd,” says her daughter, Lucie Arnaz. “If there was a part no one else wanted, she would raise her hand and say, I’ll do it. I’ll be the girl with the mud on her face if that’s the way to get noticed — and she was right.” Ball’s comic turns attracted the
A glamorous celebrity who built a landmark business, originated an enduring television character, created hundreds of jobs and made a mountain of money, Lucille Ball continuously broke barriers for women. She became famous bringing screwball comedy to television as a housewife with a hankering for a career of her own. After becoming one of the most successful stars on television and breaking corporate Hollywood’s glass ceiling, she went on to create two more sitcoms in which she played women making their own way in a man’s world. Ball’s show-business career began as a Goldwyn Girl, a member of a group of
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show that she would work and rework gags, often to the consternation of her colleagues. According to Arnaz, Ball often said she wasn’t really funny; she was just brave. “If somebody told her she was influential, she would have been flattered beyond belief,” says Arnaz. “It would have been very meaningful to her if she thought that was true. As she got older and she was receiving awards and tributes from the Kennedy Center and the Paley Center, she had to have accepted that she did good.” Throughout her career, Ball celebrated the depth and fun of female LUCILLE BALL: INDUSTRY TRAILBLAZER CONTINUED
friendship on her shows and in her life. Vivian Vance, who played Ethel to her Lucy, was featured on every show Ball starred in — including The Lucy Show , the follow-up to I Love Lucy , in which she co-starred as the first divorced female character on television. Ball offered early support to rising comedy stars, including Bette Midler and Carol Burnett. For 70 years, her influence has been seen on television comedies featuring funny, independent women from Mary and Rhoda to Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte and Samantha. “Lucille was a committed artist who was trying not to be confined by the times or the people around her,” says Nicole Kidman. “She is mining her skill set to the best of her ability. She wants
to create a home and family at the same time she is committed to her journey as an actress. And she didn’t have another woman to stand as an example. She had to figure it all out herself.” Ball received countless awards and tributes during her career, including five Emmy ® Awards, and was the first female inductee into the Television Academy Hall of Fame. She was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame in 2001 , received a Kennedy Center Honor in 1986 and was posthumously honored with the Presidential Medal of Freedom by George Bush in 1989 . She had become one of Hollywood’s most powerful players, the unusual woman who could do anything she wanted — exactly what Lucy Ricardo longed to be.
HER RADIO SHOW was called My Favorite Husband , but when it moved to television, Ball refused to do it without her real husband.
SERIOUS ABOUT COMEDY. Known as a perfectionist, Ball would rework gags until they met her high standards.
MEET THE NEW BOSS. After Arnaz resigned as president of Desilu, Ball became the first female studio chief.
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“He was so much more than an entertainer,” says Javier Bardem, who plays Arnaz in Being the Ricardos . “He broke new ground in many ways. He had tremendous artistic and professional ambition and it made him unstoppable.” For starters, he and Ball insisted that I Love Lucy be f ilmed in their hometown of Los Angeles rather than New York, which was the medium’s undisputed production hub at that time. In addition, Arnaz requested that the performances be recorded live onto f ilm for broadcast nationally. CBS execs balked, pointing out that kinescopes (the prevalent technology, which involved f ilming through a lens focused on a video monitor) would be signif icantly cheaper, although lower quality. The couple agreed to pick up the additional expense themselves — provided they retained future rights to the show. That stipulation would turn out to be key to their pioneering role in reruns and syndication, two cornerstones of their future wealth. Arnaz also wanted to f ilm before a live studio audience, knowing that Ball delivered her funniest performances in that setting. In order to present the show without having to break for lighting and camera set-ups, he employed a three- camera system that is still in common use today. “He was ahead of his time,” says Bardem. “He had a motor inside of him that moved not only him forward but all of Desilu. He was always asking what’s next and how to do it better.” BECOMING A STUDIO The company was in the process of branching out into producing other shows when Arnaz and Ball learned that the bankrupt RKOStudios (which had previously unceremoniously released Ball from her contract) was for sale. So in 1957 , Desilu purchased the RKOmain facilities in Hollywood, the RKO-Pathé lot in Culver City and the backlot known as Forty Acres, giving the Ball-Arnaz TV empire a total of 33 soundstages — more than MGM or 20 th Century Fox.
DESI’S INNOVATIONS included filming in front of a live audience, shooting on 35mm film and negotiating for future rights.
DEEP UNCONDITIONAL LOVE. Lucy and Desi’s daughter, Lucie Arnaz, says the couple “trusted each other to do the things each was excellent at.”
THE DESILU EFFECT How Lucy and Desi Built a Hollywood Empire and Reinvented Television
In 1950 , the couple produced a pilot with $ 5,000 of their own money and the result, to generations of viewers’ delight, was I Love Lucy . One of the most popular sitcoms in history, the show’s breakout success ensured them a place in the entertainment pantheon as the irresistibly wacky redhead and her charismatic musician husband. It was also their initial step toward becoming the first husband-and-wife entertainment moguls and owners of
Imagine a screenplay about a Cuban refugee and a former $ 15 -a-week bit player who together help transform television from an obscure novelty into a moneymaking machine that dominates world media for decades to come. It might be dismissed as an unlikely Hollywood story, but that’s exactly what happened after Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball revamped her radio series My Favorite Husband for the rapidly growing TV audience.
what would become the world’s largest independent television studio, Desilu Productions. AHEAD OF THEIR TIME It wasn’t just the pair’s undeniable chemistry and unrelenting drive that made them the king and queen of early television, however. Arnaz in particular introduced creative, technical and financial innovations that would change the industry forever.
LONG A STAR IN HIS OWN RIGHT and the president of their successful company, Arnaz often took a back seat to his more famous wife in public.
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F O R YO U R CO N S I D E R A T I O N I N A L L C AT E GO R I E S I N C L U D I N G Best Picture Produced by Todd Black, p.g.a. Jason Blumenthal Steve Tisch Best Original Screenplay Aaron Sorkin
THE DESILU EFFECT CONTINUED
Arnaz took on more and more of the business side, allowing Ball to focus on her creative pursuits. “Desi was always in control from the shadows,” says Bardem. “He made a lot of important decisions, but he was not credited, perhaps because she was the bigger star, perhaps other reasons.” According to their daughter, Lucie, once when Arnaz was asked who deserved the credit for Desilu’s success, he responded, “‘Give Lucy 90 percent of it and split the rest between everyone else.’ I think he understood that she was the gold and he protected her very much in the way that it is written in Being the Ricardos .” As the business grew, so did Arnaz’s responsibilities. “It was all so new at the time,” says Lucie. “Jobs we take for granted today, like marketing and public relations, didn’t exist then. He was really good at what he did, but he was inventing the wheel and steering the car.” LUCY TAKES THE REINS In 1962 , two years after the couple’s divorce, Arnaz resigned as president and sold his share of the company to Ball, making her the first woman to run a Hollywood production company. Under her leadership, Desilu produced some of the most successful shows of the era, including Mission: Impossible , Star Trek and The Untouchables . Other hit series, including The Andy Griffith Show , My Three Sons and The Dick Van Dyke Show , as well as classic films such as The Americanization of Emily and The Greatest Story Ever Told , were filmed on Desilu lots. In 1968 , Ball sold the studio to Gulf & Western and turned her full attention to acting in and producing her own long-running series, Here’s Lucy . “My parents created what they did with deep unconditional love and a tremendous mutual respect for each other’s talents,” says Lucie. “They trusted each other to do the things each was excellent at. I think that was the thing that attracted them to each other in the first place.”
DESI NEGOTIATED with sponsors and network executives …
… WHILE LUCY CONCENTRATED on what she did best − making people laugh.
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DRAMATIC MATERIAL Dressing Lucy & Co. On Screen and Off
Tasked with creating wardrobes for Nicole Kidman and Javier Bardem as Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz in both their public and private lives, costume designer Susan Lyall was elated to learn about Lucie Arnaz’s documentary Lucy and Desi: A Home Movie . Packed with photos and film footage fromher parents’ personal collection, it includes a treasure trove of images of the couple spending private time with family and friends, which Lyall used as a starting point for her research. “Everybody knows Lucy,” says Lyall. “But in Being the Ricardos , we were able to explore who Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz were off camera. That is a whole lot more interesting.” Ball, a Hollywood starlet before conquering the small screen, was a sophisticated woman whose friends
included Katharine Hepburn and Lauren Bacall, explains Lyall. “Her wardrobe needed to say that. When you think of Lucy, you remember the polka dot dress. It’s burned into our brains. But off screen, she was casually elegant and often in trousers.” Lyall captures the evolution of Ball’s style as well as changing fashion trends over more than a decade. For the scenes from 1952 , the designer uses a palette of pale greens, grays and browns inspired by a Jackson Pollock mural. “For Lucille and Vivian Vance, the silhouette is very structured. The 1950 s was all about having a little tiny waist, so we used a certain-style bra and a waist cincher.” For the flashback scenes from the ’ 40 s, the silhouette and colors are distinctly different.
into this cool California entertainment mogul and bandleader,” Lyall notes. Wardrobe for the pair’s television characters presented a different set of challenges. Replicating the show’s costumes meant sourcing vintage fabrics and hand-making certain elements. Another challenge: The show was filmed in black and white. To find the right color for a blouse Lucy wears in one episode, Lyall had a textile expert re-create the fabric in blues, greens and fuchsia to see which one worked best: “So something that’s on the screen for maybe six seconds required dozens of decisions.” Visit AmazonStudiosGuilds.com for an In-Depth Look at the Costumes
ON THE SET (above), the actors stay comfortable in stylish, informal threads. Below, at their Chatsworth, California, home, Lucy and Desi’s clothes ref lect their glamorous yet casual lifestyle.
COSTUME DES I GNS by Susan Lyall ensured that Kidman put her best foot forward as Lucille Ball and Lucy Ricardo.
“We pulled in jewel tones. It’s straightforward Hollywood glamour for evening dresses. The shoulders are wider, the dresses slinkier.” Arnaz, she says, was “sartorially gifted,” and his costumes include suits, tuxes and pieces from his stage act. “He always looked like a million bucks, which Javier embraced. He transformed
N I NA AR I ANDA’ S wardrobe goes from frumpy to fashionable in her dual role as housewife Ethel Mertz (right) and Emmy ® -winning actress Vivian Vance.
AS LUCY, Ball was one of the first women on television to wear trousers.
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Acclaimed Cinematographer Jeff Cronenweth Shoots 1952 from a Distinctly 2021 Perspective A LENS INTO THE PAST To convey Lucille Ball’s deliberate and precise approach to I Love Lucy ’s zany comedy, Being the Ricardos re-creates a few unforgettable moments from the groundbreaking sitcom. Writer-director Aaron Sorkin and director of photography Jeff Cronenweth agreed the goal was to evoke the feeling of the show without replicating the look of its three-camera shooting style. According to Cronenweth, I Love Lucy cinematographer Karl Freund used massive amounts of flat light to offset the extreme contrast levels introduced by broadcast and television set technology of the time. “If you had walked on the sets, it would have been all gray tones with hundreds of lights,” he says.
“But I believe audiences today are so sophisticated that unless there’s a good reason to mimic the style of another era, you have to present it with the kind of detail and contrast younger people are familiar with.” For the black-and-white footage, Cronenweth used the compact RED Ranger camera system with the Monstro monochrome sensor and Arri DNA lenses, which use vintage optics to give each lens its own unique personality. “The Monstro sensor has all the pixels dedicated to black or white,” Cronenweth explains. “It has this beautiful silver tone, 50 ASA quality. The Arri lenses have some artifacts and aberrations that can be a bit unpredictable but add texture and quality you might not normally get. As far as I know, it’s the first time someone’s used the Arri DNA glass with the RED camera.” Ironically, for Being the Ricardos’ behind-the-scenes drama, Cronenweth often did employ multiple cameras. “When you’re filming an Aaron Sorkin script, the pace and the energy are so strong and the performances tend to overlap to create tension among the characters. In order to make it possible for an editor to cut that, whenever possible we used more than one camera to cover a scene from different angles.”
TUNGSTEN , LED AND NATURAL L I GHT combine to add warmth and a sense of authenticity to the visuals.
SORK I N ASKED CRONENWETH to find new ways of using lighting and cameras to enhance the story.
V I NTAGE GLASS lenses mounted on cutting-edge digital cameras help create the film’s unique look.
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FROM CARS TO CURTA I NS , no detail escaped set decorator Ellen Brill’s painstaking attention.
A REFUGE F I T FOR THE QUEEN OF COMEDY. Lucy’s feminine and regal dressing room was one of production designer Jon Hutman’s favorite sets.
HOLLYWOOD HOT SPOTS AND HISTORIC HAUNTS Award-Winning Production Designer and Set Decorator Combine Research and Imagination to Re-create Lucy and Desi’s World
THE R I CARDOS ’ I CON I C APARTMENT will be instantly recognizable to fans.
In Being the Ricardos , production designer Jon Hutman and set decorator Ellen Brill take audiences on a trip to a more glamorous era, when stars seemed to live in an extravagant universe all their own, as well as into the more prosaic reality of a couple shooting as many as 35 episodes a year of a groundbreaking TV show. “Defining each of the film’s different worlds was compelling for me,” Hutman says. “Lucille and Desi’s private life is one piece. Their professional relationship is another. Making I Love Lucy is a third. Each has a unique emotional core.” Brill used color to help define the film’s different eras and as a barometer of the state of the couple’s tempestuous romance. “When Lucille meets Desi, everything is colorful and passionate, so we featured reds and deep, vibrant colors,” she says. “As their relationship starts to change the palette gets paler until it becomes completely neutral.” Since the I Love Lucy sets would be familiar to most audiences, Hutman and his team pored over reams of material to ensure their authenticity. Lucy and Desi’s cozy New York apartment was also painstakingly re-created. “We reframed and re-matted art,” remembers Brill. “We found some very
close matches and some that were exact. We also rented pieces for the kitchen and re-created the bedroom set, down to the same wallpaper.” But when photos revealed that Ball and Arnaz’s ranch in Chatsworth was surprisingly modest, Hutman took some artistic license with the location. “I cheated a bit to add that movie-star quality,” he explains. “We found a house with acres of land and a living room that conveyed the simplicity, but with enough scale and architectural detail to feel glamorous.” Landmark locations like Hollywood nightclub Ciro’s, where Arnaz courted Ball, were re-created on the retired ocean liner the Queen Mary, a masterpiece of Art Deco design. The CBS network offices were reimagined at the historic Ebell of Los Angeles, a women’s organization in the tony Hancock Park neighborhood. Its blend of Spanish Revival and Art Deco features provide a sense of Los Angeles’ history. “My favorite set is Lucille Ball’s ultra-feminine dressing room, complete with a copy of a portrait from the Lucille Ball Desi Arnaz Museum in New York,” Hutman says. “We got permission to put Nicole’s face onto it.”
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THE BACKSTAGE OF THE DES I LU PLAYHOUSE features a vintage makeup table.
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mapped out in the script, according to Baumgarten. “But I can sometimes find ways to tighten things up even further without losing anything important. Aaron is very specific as to how he wants things to happen, and I can sometimes accelerate them through the editing.” TIMING IS EVERYTHING The editor says he is especially pleased with his role in creating one small touch in the film. “I love the transitional title cards that indicate what day of the week it is. I found some wide shots of the set with nobody on the stage at different moments, turned those into black and white and put the titles over those. It tied thematically into the fact that, for Lucy, that set and that stage were really her home, the patch of ground where she felt most comfortable.” Editor Alan Baumgarten on Finding the Rhythm of Being the Ricardos
According to Alan Baumgarten, working on one of writer and director Aaron Sorkin’s whip-smart, vibrant scripts is a once-in-a-lifetime experience, a satisfying and challenging opportunity to dig in and help shape a great story. And he’s done it three times! While they were finishing up 2020 ’s The Trial of the Chicago 7 , Sorkin offered Baumgarten the job of editing Being the Ricardos . His response, even without reading the script, was an immediate and enthusiastic “Yes!” “All I really knew was that it was going to be a drama about the lives of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz,” he recalls. Having also edited Sorkin’s Molly’s Game , Baumgarten believes he has a sense of what the director is looking for in any scene. “I know what he likes in terms of performance, timing and pacing, which are the most important things for an editor to get right in a film,” he explains. “Aaron’s work typically features fast-paced dialogue and dynamic rhythms, so we also have to find moments to let the film breathe. There’s always a lot going on.” The overlapping conversations and “walk-and-talk” scenes that are one of Sorkin’s trademarks are largely
ED I TOR ALAN BAUMGARTEN worked with Sorkin to find moments to slow down and bring out the emotion of certain scenes.
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TALK I NG THE TALK . Sorkin’s signature fast-paced and overlapping dialogue is accentuated through editing.
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J.K. SIMMONS AND NINA ARIANDA as William Frawley and Vivian Vance, who played the Ricardos’ quarrelsome neighbors, the Mertzes.
SUPPORTING THE RICARDOS A Handpicked Ensemble of Acclaimed Actors Inhabit the Roles of I Love Lucy ’s Supporting Cast and Creative Team
With Academy Award ® winners Nicole Kidman and Javier Bardem heading up the cast and Aaron Sorkin in the director’s chair, Being the Ricardos had no trouble attracting a group of top-notch actors with shelves full of Oscars ® , Emmys ® , Golden Globes ® and Tonys ® of their own for its meaty supporting roles. “I was so amazed by the level of this cast,” remarks Kidman. “But when Aaron Sorkin calls, everyone says, “Yes.” Every actor was handpicked by him. His writing requires such skill with language, you always have to be on your toes.” In the role of William Frawley, the vaudeville veteran who played cantankerous landlord Fred Mertz on I Love Lucy , Sorkin cast Oscar ® winner J.K. Simmons. Although he had never appeared in one of the writer-director’s films before, he played Lieutenant Colonel Nathan Jessup in the Broadway debut of A Few Good Men early in both men’s careers. “Any actor who
reads any Aaron Sorkin script has to be astounded and excited,” Simmons says. “The words on the page are the words on the stage. You don’t mess with Aaron Sorkin’s words.” Frawley was already a veteran character actor when he joined the cast of I Love Lucy , notes Simmons. “I thought I knew who he was, but some aspects of his life surprised me,” he confesses. “There aren’t a lot of clips of Bill Frawley being himself, which was frustrating at first but ultimately kind of freeing. There are a few specific things about the way Fred Mertz carried himself that I tried to incorporate into the scenes within the scenes. As with any character, I try to be consistent and not put too much of myself into it.” Simmons, who won an Oscar ® , a Golden Globe ® , a BAFTA and countless critics’ awards for his role as an abusive jazz bandleader in Whiplash , counts himself lucky to be part of
TONY HALE AND ALIA SHAWKAT trade jokes and barbs in the writers’ room as longtime collaborators Jess Oppenheimer and Madelyn Pugh.
KEEPING IT REAL. Sorkin focused on the characters’ humanity and relationships, says Hale.
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what he calls “an unbelievable group of actors.” His character serves as a sage advisor to Ball and a constant irritant to his Lucy co-star Vivian Vance, played by Tony Award ® -winning actress Nina Arianda. “Nina may not be as well known as some of the others, but she is genius in that role,” he says. Arianda recalls watching I Love Lucy with her entire extended family as a child. “I love the show and I love Vivian,” she says. “It was scary to play such a beloved public figure. I didn’t want to disappoint anyone and I certainly didn’t want to do a disservice to her.” The actress was relievedwhen Sorkin said hewas not looking for an impression of Vance, who became a close friend of Ball’s and reportedly never got along with Frawley. “That took a little bit of pressure off. I did work with a dialect coach. I watched videos of Vivian as herself. I found one picture in particular that I thought nailed her. She had a pensive, introspective quality that I didn’t associate with Ethel. That gave me something to focus on that not many people know about her.” Another aspect of her character’s life that informed Arianda’s performance: Vance had been known as a glamorous Broadway singer and dancer before joining the Lucy cast. “She had played ingénues most of her career,” explains the actress. “She had a whole line of Vivian Vance beauty products. It was quite jarring to go from that to playing Ethel Mertz. Being the butt of jokes about her appearance and age was deeply frustrating.” Tony Hale, a two-time Emmy ® winner for his role on HBO’s acclaimed sitcom Veep , plays JessOppenheimer, executiveproducer and head writer of I Love Lucy . “Jess and Lucy have a long history together,” Hale notes. “They went through a lot together. They had a respect and trust for each other that was unique.” SUPPORTING THE RICARDOS CONTINUED
Sorkin’s strength, in Hale’s opinion, is finding the reality in every situation. “Rather than focus on how these characters are typically played within the era, he consistently focused on their humanity and their relationships,” the actor observes. “It’s always exciting to look behind the curtain.” The actor’s favorite moments in the film are the scenes in the writers’ room where Oppenheimer, Madelyn Pugh and Bob Carroll Jr. hash out story ideas for I Love Lucy . As Hale, who has firsthand experience in that world, explains, “In any writers’ room, you are pitching jokes and ideas. You are hoping that the star of the show likes the ideas. It can get competitive, but you’re also feeding off each other as you build the scene.” Pugh worked on every episode of I Love Lucy . One of very few women writing for television in the 1950 s, her responsibilities included road-testing some of Ball’s wacky stunts. The award-winning actress who plays her, Alia Shawkat, is also a writer, producer and director. “It’s really crazy to realize how many genius episodes she wrote, one after another.” An avid fan of I Love Lucy and Ball, Shawkat loved the idea of a film dedicated to Lucy and Desi’s marriage and creative partnership. “Aaron is a very gifted storyteller,” she says. “Madelyn is given a whole other arc that was so much fun to play. She is trying to talk to Lucy about a woman’s perspective through the eyes of a younger generation. She wants to convince her not to always play a woman who is just appeasing her husband and his rules.” Shawkat says she is honored to be part of such an illustrious cast. “I’m a fan of every actor in this group. They were so passionate about what they do. And they’ve all done huge projects. It made me feel like I had to make sure I knew what I was doing!”
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Sweetest thing since pure molasses!
Nothing says class and wisdom like a freshly fashioned, finely combed, French-pressed felt fedora. Wrap up one of these crisp crowns with a silken headband and you might as well call it a bow, tied atop the best gift money CAN buy. William Frawley ( I Love Lucy ’s Fred Mertz) swears by ’em. And who can argue with him (other than Ethel)?
Pour on the best-kept, sweet secret to a tasty breakfast since the invention of jam. Formulated from the Knepps’ generations-old family recipe, BUTTERSWEET SYRUP is the perfect mix of 100% pure maple flavoring and quadruple-churned butter substitute. The result is the thickest, quickest, finger-licking syrup south of Canada. Stack your flapjacks in your flavor, take the awful out of your waffle and drench your whole breakfast in yum!
Pugh (Alia Shawkat) and longtime friend and co-star Vance (Nina Arianda).
BALL SURROUNDED HERSELF with talented women throughout her career, including Emmy ® -nominated writer
WHISK YOUR LUCY AND FAMILY FAR, FAR AWAY (AND EXPLAIN IT TO THE BOSS LATER!) T I N S E L T O W N
You deserve a vacation, so enter to win an all-expenses-paid trip to sun-soaked Hollywood, California, the real-life home of power couple and laugh-a-minute superstars Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz. Explore the wilds of the Hollywood Walk of Fame, the Chinese Theater, the Wax Museum, and seemingly endless palm trees. Get away, escape, and take off to paradise near the Pacific. We wish you were all here, but of course only one very lucky family will be. Enter at your own whisk.
Put Your FunnyWhere Your Mouth Is!
The first thing many Lucille Ball fans picture when they think of the actress is her trademark red hair styled in the “poodle cut” she made famous as Lucy Ricardo on I Love Lucy . Nicole Kidman’s hairstylist Kim Santantonio is no exception. “Styling the ‘Lucy’ wig is what excited me the most about this job,” she confesses. “My brain just went straight to figuring out how to get it to look like that. How do you get those curls on top of her head? We needed to get the bangs right for the perfect Lucy look. I remember watching the show as a kid and couldn’t wait to see Nicole in that wig.” Santantonio started by fitting Kidman for a series of custom wigs, all crafted by renowned wigmaker Peter Owen. “They’re all human hair, colored to our exact specifications,” she says. “Samples went to Nicole in Australia, her makeup artist Kyra Panchenko in New York, and to me. We Zoomed to pick a couple of colors for red and brown wigs. They took about six weeks to fabricate and then I cut and styled them. I wet-set them all, because that is what would have been done at the time.” Santantonio notes that in the film Kidman is most often seen in what she refers to as the “table-read wig.” “It’s a soft red, more like an apricot, rather than the bright red associated with Lucy Ricardo,” says the stylist. “There were also two brown wigs, a light one and a darker one, for flashback scenes from Lucille’s younger days.” The biggest challenge, she recalls, was simply time. “We were all operating at double speed while getting Nicole ready each day,” she says. “It was a blur of activity. Her wigs were always styled in advance so we could fit them on very quickly.” LUCY’S CROWNING GLORY Nicole Kidman’s Longtime Hairstylist Tells All When Nicole Kidman’s longtime makeup artist Kyra Panchenko learned she would be transforming the Oscar ® -winning actress into one of the most beloved and recognizable women of the 20 th century, she says her mind zoomed in on one thing — eyebrows. “Nicole has these modern, full eyebrows that don’t work for Lucille Ball,” she says. “For me, Lucy is all about the eyes, and I wanted them to be right.” In keeping with Aaron Sorkin’s preference that the makeup team create impressions rather than exact replicas of the I Love Lucy stars, hiding Kidman behind a wall of prosthetics was out, Panchenko says. Instead she found small but significant ways to reference Ball’s appearance. “I contoured Nicole’s face to make it look fuller. Nicole’s almond-shaped eyes were made to look rounder, and long lashes make them appear larger. I hand-drew the eyebrows. Lucy always overdrew her lips, so we overdrew Nicole’s lips as well. It’s very subtle but it all adds up to Lucy.” Sorkin wanted her to emphasize that Kidman is playing Lucille Ball, not Lucy Ricardo, explains Panchenko. “He wanted a different Lucy than anyone has ever seen. The one in the writers’ room. Or the one that was alone with Desi. When she’s not on the show, which is most of the time, I made her a little softer and a little prettier.” Because Kidman wanted as much rehearsal as she could fit in, as soon as the actress got into the makeup chair, the glam team would pounce while the actress ran lines. “While I was doing her face, her hairstylist Kim Santantonio was fixing her wig and somebody would be doing her nails. With as many as four of us working at the same time, it took a lot of coordination. We eventually got it down to just under an hour!” THE LUCY WE HAVEN’T SEEN Makeup Artist Kyra Panchenko Helps Nicole Kidman Capture a Different Side of the Television Icon
AN ARRAY OF HANDMADE WI GS traces Lucy’s style evolution through more than a decade.
QuipService ™ From the face that launched a thousand laughs, Lucy’s lips could sink shiploads of surly sailors, but her superstar smile smirks at such silliness. She’s in it to grin it with Ricky and every color under the rainbow from Quip Service’s fresh lineup of TechniChroma ® Cinema Sticks. Pick your perfect hue for that special you-know-who today!
PUTT I NG THE F I N I SH I NG TOUCHES on Kidman’s transformation into Lucy Ricardo.
True Love IsNever Just Lip Service!
From The Makers of Silver’s Cream for The Silver Screen
KYRA PANCHENKO AND K IM SANTANTON I O kept Kidman picture-perfect throughout filming.
BALM-SHELL MOISTURIZING!
PUT YOUR FACE ON…FOR PRIME TIME!
LUCY’S LIPS SINK QUIPS!
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SCORING THE RICARDOS A Celebrated British Composer Evokes Lucy and Desi’s American Dream
Composer Daniel Pemberton’s lush and romantic orchestral score for Being the Ricardos evokes the Golden Age of Hollywood, with all its glamour and longing for a better, more perfect world. Pemberton captures the film’s rich and complex range of emotions and timeless elegance, using a 69 -piece orchestra recorded at Abbey Road Studio One in London. “Even though the story at its core is about the relationship between two people, it’s also about something somuch bigger,” Pemberton says. “So we got the biggest orchestra we could get into a studio during COVID. I wanted to remind audiences of how big a star Lucille Ball was. I wanted a score that would represent the world in which she and Desi lived.” The idea of dreams, he says, is central to the film and the score, and Ball’s dream of having a home and a family is at the top of the list. “But in some ways, it is also about the American
Dream and a moment in time when it was probably at its most potent,” according to Pemberton. “ I Love Lucy is a cultural touchstone in America and so is the story of Lucille and Desi, who both came to Hollywood with very little and became stars. I wanted to reconnect the audience with that sense of emotion and hope, with the dream of a simpler time that might not ever have really existed.” Perhaps the most challenging but crucial element for the score was to help transport the audience inside Ball’s creative process. While the film does re-create some classic moments from the television series, Sorkin was adamant that the scenes weren’t there for comic relief. “He wanted them to showcase Lucille’s creative genius and hard work. The music was a big part of trying to make it all feel effortless. As with her comedy, a lot of effort goes into making something feel effortless.”
When Desi Arnaz wants to be whisked away to his native Cuba, all he has to do is drape his luxurious, loose-fit silk suit over his lithe frame and the next thing you know he’s hearing the distant beat of congas and bongos beating down his door. Part silk, part smooth, all man! Slip on the true style of Cuba and soon the ladies will be lining up at your Havana cabana before you can say “hola!”
SOUND DECISIONS
Award-Winning Sound Editor Renée Tondelli Helps Usher Audiences Into the Mind of a Comedy Genius
and even in Lucille Ball ’s imagination. The job of creating distinct sonic landscapes for each of these settings went to supervising sound editor Renée Tondelli, whose work on Aaron Sorkin’s previous f ilm, The Trial of the Chicago 7 , earned her a Motion Picture Sound Editors (MPSE) Golden Reel Award. One of the thorniest questions facing Tondelli was how to signal the transitions out of the writers’ room and into Ball ’s mind’s eye as the actress visualizes proposed scenes for upcoming episodes of her sitcom. “Lucy has this uncanny gift of knowing whether the audience is going to laugh at a gag or not,” explains Tondelli. “We talked about how to make a sonic change from the room where they’re pitching her an idea, into her head where she imagines herself on set performing it, and then back to reality.” Tondelli and her team presented Sorkin with numerous approaches before hitting on a solution. “One of the things we ended up doing was diminishing and dissolving the sound of the scene with all the people talking to her and then going into her head with various reverbs, reverse reverbs and sound effects before centering on the imagined set, where we change the sound pressure of the audience and ambience.” For the transition back to reality, Tondelli says she used a sharp sound, like the f lick of a Zippo lighter or a music cut. “Something that would snap us out and then we would go back into another transition. It was one of our big challenges as far as sound design and a lot of fun to work on.”
The central drama of Being the Ricardos unfolds during a single week in 1952 . But the story also takes place in multiple f lashbacks and f lash-forwards, in re-creations of I Love Lucy and the 1940 movie musical Too Many Girls ,
Don’t forget your pocket square like Desi’s!
Lucy loves the conga-cut of his jib!
A suave style to beat the band!
MAK I NG I T B I G . Composer Daniel Pemberton used a 69-piece orchestra to underscore Lucy and Desi’s momentous achievements − and the daunting challenges they face in the film.
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FORYOUR CONSIDERATION IN ALL CATEGORIES INCLUDING BEST PICTURE Produced by Todd Black, p.g.a. Jason Blumenthal Steve Tisch BEST ACTRESS Nicole Kidman BEST ACTOR Javier Bardem
J.K. SIMMONS as William Frawley
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS Nina Arianda • Alia Shawkat BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR Tony Hale • J.K. Simmons
TONY HALE as Jess Oppenheim
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