The actor stars as 'I Love Lucy' writer and producer Jess Oppenheimer in the flick.
Tony Hale is pinching himself over his latest role. The 51-year-old actor recently gushed to ET's Matt Cohen about getting the opportunity to portray Jess Oppenheimer in Being the Ricardos.
Oppenheimer was the writer and producer of I Love Lucy, which starred Lucille Ball and her real-life husband, Desi Arnaz. Nicole Kidman and Javier Bardem take on the roles of the actors in the Aaron Sorkin flick.
"I Love Lucy, I grew up on that," Hale told ET. "The thing that's special about this movie, is it's a drama about the making of I Love Lucy. To watch Nicole Kidman and Javier really transform into these iconic characters, obviously directed by Aaron Sorkin, I kind of had this front row seat of, 'Alright, which one of these is not like the other? Did they make a mistake in casting me?' The whole time I was just like, 'I can't believe I'm here.'"
Hale noted that the set of the flick, which was modeled after the I Love Lucy set, was the most astonishing part of the project.
"Just to look behind me and be like, 'I watched that set growing up. That's the exact set.' The art direction on it, everything, it's really pretty mind blowing," he mused.
The actor also had nothing but good things to say about Sorkin and his ability to tell the characters' story.
"One of many things he's so good at is bringing the humanity into these stories, and not doing an idea of the story... Just seeing the kind of behind-the-scenes humanity of them. He always focused on that," Hale said, before explaining how he used Sorkin's methods to delve into his own character.
"I really just tried to look at Jess and his relationship to Lucy... their relationship, and then his relationship with Desi, just to kind of find those human relationships," he explained.
Ball and Arnaz's daughter, Lucie Arnaz, has praised the project as "freaking amazing," saying that Sorkin "captured the essence of that time in their lives so well," that Kidman "became my mother's soul," and that Bardem "has everything that Dad had."
Sorkin has also celebrated the cast, telling ET in February that Kidman and Bardem 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."
Being the Ricardos isn't the only project close to Hale's heart that he has in the works. The actor is also starring as Peter Tieran in Clifford the Big Red Dog.
"Clifford the Big Red Dog was just such a staple in the house," Hale told ET. "Now to be a part of the film is very, very surreal."
Clifford the Big Red Dog will land in theaters and on Paramount+ Nov. 10. Being the Ricardos will hit theaters Dec. 10, and will be available on Amazon Prime Video beginning Dec. 21.
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