Javier Bardem is playing Lucille Ball's husband and co-star, Desi Arnaz, in the flick.
Nicole Kidman and Javier Bardem are Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz! The actors transformed into the real-life pair in the first teaser for their upcoming flick, Being the Ricardos, which will tell the story of the I Love Lucy stars who married in 1940 and split 20 years later.
The teaser shows the pair both on the set of the sitcom and off, as Nicole's Lucille Ball marvels in a voiceover, "I get paid a fortune to do exactly what I love doing."
"I work side-by-side with my husband, who is genuinely impressed by me. All I have to do to keep it, is kill it for 36 weeks in a row, and then do it again the next year," she says. "You know I did this show so Desi and I could be together. I had no idea it was gonna be a hit."
The teaser came just days after the pair's daughter, Lucie Arnaz, revealed she'd seen the full Aaron Sorkin flick, which she praised as "freaking amazing."
"That guy made a great movie. What can I tell ya? He captured the essence of that time in their lives so well. He captured the heart of my mother, my father, their relationship," Lucie said of the director in an Instagram video. "He captured the love between those players on the I Love Lucy show, the tension that was brought on in this particular week when all hell broke loose."
As for the actors who played her parents, Lucie said that "Nicole Kidman became my mother's soul."
"She crawled into her head. I don't know how you do that," said Lucie, who previously celebrated Kidman's casting. "She cared very deeply about this part. It shows. I believed everything she said. She looks beautiful."
As for Javier, Lucie said he "has everything that Dad had."
"He has his wit, his charm, his dimples, his musicality. He has his strength and tenacity," she said. "You can tell from the performance that he just loved him. That's what you needed."
When ET's Matt Cohen spoke to the writer/director back in February, Sorkin similarly praised his cast, promising, "They're going to be fantastic. These are two of the greatest actors ever."
"I think that the people thought that we've cast them as Lucy and Ricky Ricardo," he said of the real-life pair's I Love Lucy characters. "The film takes place during a production week of I Love Lucy -- a Monday table read to Friday audience taping, with a whole bunch of long flashbacks which are telling the story that got us here -- and because there's a table read, there's rehearsals and then there's tape night, we do see moments of them being Lucy and Ricky Ricardo. We see moments from an episode of I Love Lucy. But mostly they are playing Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball."
Kidman agreed, telling Chris Rock during Variety's Actors on Actors that the film is "very deep," and that taking on the role was "way out" of her comfort zone.
"The strange thing about Lucille Ball is that everyone thinks we’re remaking the I Love Lucy Show, and it’s so not that," she said. "She was a trailblazer. She formed her production company. Desi was Cuban, and she had to fight to get him on the show. They had just so many things in their marriage that are so relevant today, and what she was also dealing with in terms of everything that artists deal with, where you’re up against big corporations. And you’re like, 'No, this is art.'"
Being the Ricardos, which also stars Jake Lacy, J.K. Simmons, Nina Arianda, Tony Hale and Alia Shawkat, will hit theaters Dec. 10. It will be available on Amazon Prime Video beginning Dec. 21.
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