Being the Ricardos: Cast & Character Guide

Aaron Sorkin is bringing America’s most iconic comedienne back to the screen in Being the Ricardos; here’s a cast and character guide for the new drama. The movie features award-winning and nominated actors as the four performers who played the Ricardos and their neighbors, the Mertzes, on the wildly popular sitcom I Love Lucy back in the 1950s. The supporting cast is rounded out by various actors who have backgrounds in popular TV comedies.

I Love Lucy’s influence on sitcoms lives on to this day due to Ball’s legendary comedic acumen and willingness to perform stunts from which other actresses shied away, some of which will be recreated in Being The Ricardos. She and her real-life husband Desi Arnaz revolutionized the production process of sitcoms by suggesting that the show be filmed with three 35mm film cameras in front of a live audience. These things had never previously been done but many sitcoms now utilize these methods regularly.

The film takes place over a week’s production to make a single episode, providing a recreation of how things may have occurred behind the scenes of I Love Lucy. Those who love the sitcom will want to take a look at Sorkin’s (who also has television experience as a writer for four seasons of The West Wing) new drama, to see if the cast can capture the complicated relationships between one of TV’s most iconic casts. The movie will be available to watch on Amazon Prime Video on December 21st and in limited theater engagements around the country. Here are the cast and characters of Being the Ricardos.

Nicole Kidman as Lucille Ball

Despite doubts surrounding her casting in Being the Ricardos, Nicole Kidman stepped up to take on the role of showbusiness’ most famous red-head. The prolific actress has shown a transformative talent in films such as The Hours and Bombshell in which she played real-life writer Virginia Woolf (an Oscar-winning role) and Fox News reporter Gretchen Carlson, respectively. Though perhaps better known for film roles, Kidman has starred in her share of hit TV shows, including Big Little Lies.

Javier Bardem as Desi Arnaz

Being the Ricardos will feature Kidman’s fellow Oscar winner Javier Bardem in the role of Ball’s Cuban husband, Desi Arnaz. CBS was hesitant to let Arnaz play his wife’s on-screen husband but Ball insisted on his inclusion, a pioneering move in terms of Latin-American representation on TV. Arnaz and Ball had a troubled marriage but a strong business partnership in the production of the show. Bardem has recently played supporting roles in blockbusters, such as Stilgar in Dune and Armando Salazar in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales.

J.K. Simmons as William Frawley

J.K. Simmons will portray actor William Frawley who played the Ricardos’ grumpy, penny-pinching landlord, Fred Mertz. Though Simmons may not be an exact look-alike of Frawley, his best-known role as Spider-Man’s Daily Bugle editor J. Jonah Jameson (the first character of the MCU multiverse), should have prepared him for his role in Being the Ricardos.

Nina Arianda as Vivian Vance

Vivian Vance will be played by Nina Arianda. Ethel Mertz, Lucy’s TV landlady and accomplice in scheming, was played by Vivian Vance for the duration of I Love Lucy’s run; the actress will be played by Nina Arianda in Being the Ricardos. Arianda has a respectable career in both film and television that is similar to Vance’s and has a passing resemblance to her character. She has played supporting roles in other biopics, including Florence Foster Jenkins and Richard Jewell, and may be recognized from her performance as Patty Solis-Papagian in Amazon’s legal drama, Goliath.

Being the Ricardos Supporting Cast & Characters

Tony Hale as Jess Oppenheimer – Well known as the awkward Buster Bluth in the prematurely canceled Arrested Development, Hale will play Oppenheimer, producer and head writer of I Love Lucy.

Alia Shawkat as Madelyn Pugh – Another Arrested Development alum (as the conniving cousin, Maeby Funke), Shawkat will join on-screen uncle, Hale, in portraying another writer in Being the Ricardos.

Jake Lacy as Bob Carroll Jr. – Gaining recent notoriety from his role as Shane in The White Lotus, Lacy plays writing partner to Shawkat’s Pugh.

The film will also feature Agents of SHIELD’s Clarke Gregg and Veep’s Nelson Franklin as Howard Wenke and Joe Strickland, whose roles in the action of Being the Ricardos are as yet unspecified.

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