NEED TO KNOW
Lucie Arnaz, the daughter of the late Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, is not a fan of Aaron Sorkin’s 2021 movie Being the Ricardos.
The film starred Nicole Kidman as Lucie’s famous mother and Javier Bardem as her father. Lucie and her younger brother, Desi Arnaz Jr., served as executive producers on the movie — but during a recent talk at a screening of the 1993 special Lucy & Desi Home Movies in Hollywood, California, Lucie claimed that she disagreed with several of Being the Ricardos’ plotlines.
“I tried to work on it and correct the incorrect parts, especially [my mother’s] relationship with the writers,” Lucie, 73, said at the event on Thursday, June 5. “Totally wrong, right? She adored those people. They got along so well; none of that backstabbing, crazy, insulting stuff.”
Lucie called that storyline “such a crock of poop,” adding, “It was so wrong.”
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Lucie also said that the portrayed tension between the characters of Vivian Vance and William Frawley, who played Ethel and Fred on I Love Lucy, was “overly done.”
And while she claimed she attempted to speak with writer and director Sorkin, 64, about what she perceived as inaccuracies, the famed couple’s eldest child said he wasn’t receptive.
“You can’t talk to Aaron. He’s Aaron Sorkin,” Lucie said, noting that he said he’d be open to “meaningful consultation” only to conclude, ” ‘Well, what do you know? You were 15 months old.’ ”
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Actor Keith Thibodeaux, who played Little Ricky on I Love Lucy, was also featured on the panel discussion, saying of Sorkin’s film, “It’s well done and all that, I just didn’t get it.”
A rep for Sorkin did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment on Monday, June 9.
Being the Ricardos received three Academy Award nominations, including acting nods for both Kidman, 57, and Bardem, 56.
In 2022, Bardem told PEOPLE that he felt Desi’s spirit while he was working on the film.
“When you play a character like him, you are invoking his spirit and essence, and you have to be respectful with that. … Every time I would come back from the shoot, I would talk to him. I would look at the stars and let him know how the day went,” Bardem said at the time. “And I would ask for his blessing and permission to go for the next day.”
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Lucie previously praised Kidman, telling Palm Springs Life in 2021 that the Oscar winner is “extremely classy and first rate,” and praising the cast as “really great performers.”
“Nicole did a spectacular job,” Lucie said at the time. “What she did was astounding. She’s got such poise and class.” But during that same interview, Lucie admitted that there were “certain scenes” of the film that she “wished” Sorkin hadn’t included.
“I couldn’t get my way and have them taken out, but they weren’t accurate. And I thought, ‘That shouldn’t be in there, because that never happened. That’s not true,’ ” she said at the time.
“And it’s not just theatrical license, it just wasn’t true,” Lucie continued. “And the day they shot the scene, the sprinklers went off on the set and destroyed the whole set.”
