Where To Watch
Here's who's playing Fred and Ethel in the upcoming I Love Lucy movie
'Being the Ricardos' is now filming.
We've been reporting on the upcoming Lucille Ball biopic for years. Six years, to be exact. Originally, Cate Blanchett was linked to star as the iconic sitcom pioneer. However, in January, after half a decade of development, Nicole Kidman was inked to play Lucy in the Aaron Sorkin film.
We knew then that Javier Bardem would portray Desi Arnaz. Now, the rest of the cast has been filled, as cameras have started rolling on Being The Ricardos, according to Empire. The movie will take place across a week of production on I Love Lucy, detailing the disintegrating relationship between the two stars.
Lucy fans would love to hear who is playing Fred and Ethel, right? JK Simmons, a familiar face from Farmers Insurance commercials and superhero films, steps into the shoes of William Frawley / Fred Mertz. Tony-winner Nina Arianda, who previously portrayed Stan Laurel's wife Ida Kitaeva Laurel in Stan & Ollie (2018), takes the role of Vivian Vance / Ethel Mertz. Those two actors are 30 years apart in age, which mirrors the age gap (22 years) between Frawley and Vance.
The rest of the cast includes Tony Hale (Arrested Development) as I Love Lucy producer and head writer Jess Oppenheimer and Alia Shawkat (also Arrested Development) as show writer Madelyn Pugh.
Lucie Arnaz, daughter of Lucy and Desi, serves as an executive producer on the movie and explained her attachment to the Amazon project to Empire: "My brother Desi and I signed on because this is a story of our folk’s real-life passionate, tempestuous and complicated relationship and not a recreation of I Love Lucy — no one could do that."
Related
13 Comments
