While some fans of Lucille Ball are skeptical about Nicole Kidman’s appearance in “Being the Ricardos,” Ball’s daughter, Lucie Arnaz, thinks Kidman will do her mother justice. In an interview with Palm Springs Life, Arnaz said that she visited Kidman on the set of “Being the Ricardos” for two days and described what she saw as “extraordinarily classy and first-rate.” She also praised the cast as “really great performers.”
Arnaz applauded Kidman specifically for her portrayal. “Nicole did a spectacular job. The two days that I watched, though, were both little flashbacks, so she was playing Lucy in the late ’30s and mid-’40s. She wasn’t Lucy of Lucy Ricardo fame yet, so it was a trifle different,” Arnaz said, before adding, “…what she did was astounding. She’s got such poise and class.”
And in January, Arnaz posted a video on her Facebook page denouncing the criticism over the casting. “There seems to be a lot of discussion about Nicole Kidman. It should be Debra Messing, it should be Carole Cook,” she said in the video. “We are not doing a remake of ‘I Love Lucy.’ No one has to impersonate Lucy Ricardo, nor do the Vitameatavegamin routine, or the chocolate factory routine, or any of the silly things. It’s the story of Lucille Ball.” At the end, Arnaz asked fans to “stop arguing about who should play her” and reassured them that “it’s going to be a nice film.”