Nina Arianda on the ‘surreal’ moments making ‘Being the Ricardos’ and the legacy of Lucille Ball
Nina Arianda walked onto the set of her new film as a Tony-winning star but quickly became a starstruck little girl.
The actress grew up watching “I Love Lucy,” so it was such a memorable experience working on “Being the Ricardos,” a movie about Lucille Ball, Desi Arnaz and their seminal sitcom.
“It was so surreal, especially as a fan,” Arianda told the Daily News. “I got to go to the stage before anybody had been there. They were still doing finishing touches. I thought I was going to lose my mind as an adult. I couldn’t imagine what the 7-year-old in me would’ve felt like. It was so spot-on, it was spooky.”
“Being the Ricardos,” now in theaters and streaming Dec. 21 on Amazon Prime Video, offers a behind-the-scenes glimpse at the lives and marriage of Ball and Arnaz as they navigate a series of hardships during a week of production on “I Love Lucy.”
Arianda plays Vivian Vance, who starred on “I Love Lucy” as Ethel Mertz, the best friend and frequent scheme partner of the show’s title character. Her goal was to authentically portray Vance as both an actress and person.
“Someone sent me a video of her,” Arianda, 37, recalled. “It was [only a few] seconds, but it was Vivian being introduced by Desi before the show started ... and here comes this woman sauntering downstage with the longest spine you’ve ever seen. Here’s a woman with her shoulders back. She was so aware of her hips. A dancer walks out, and I said, ‘Who is that?’
“And then that same woman goes backstage, drops her weight a bit, collapses her spine, and goes into Ethel. I thought that was brilliant.”
Directed by Aaron Sorkin, “Being the Ricardos” also stars Nicole Kidman as Ball and Javier Bardem as Arnaz.
“I Love Lucy,” which aired from 1951 to 1957, averaged tens of millions of viewers each week, with episodes centering on the eccentric antics of Ball’s character, Lucy Ricardo, in New York City.
“She is the physical comedian of our time, and a clown in the best sense of the word,” Arianda said of Ball.
“My family came to the United States in the late ‘40s, early ‘50s, and only one person in the family had a television,” said Arianda, who has Ukrainian roots. “So everyone would go once a week to this uncle’s house, and they would all watch ‘I Love Lucy.’ And what’s wild is my mom said, ‘Don’t forget, nobody spoke English.’ It just goes to show the strength and power of the series in how it related to so many people.”
The show became a smash in syndication, entertaining generations of viewers such as Arianda, born decades after it stopped production.
Arianda, who won a Tony Award in 2012 for “Venus in Fur,” relished working with Kidman on the movie, calling her performance “compassionate, thoughtful and transformational.”
“It’s so respectful of who Lucy was, who Lucille was,” Arianda said.
The Manhattan-born star, who has degrees from the Eugene Lang College of Liberal Arts at The New School and New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts Graduate Acting Program, hopes the film connects with audiences of all kinds.
“The play within the play, so to speak, is going to be really fascinating for people who know the show, who are fans of the show,” Arianda said. “But the story is also going to touch people, and I think the younger generation, that don’t know it. I hope that they get to love the timeless quality that the show has.”
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