Nicole Kidman is ready to let the world see her as Lucille Ball.
A trailer for the film “Being the Ricardos,” in which Kidman plays the pioneering comedian, was released Tuesday.
The trailer opens with Kidman, as Ball, doing a voice-over in which she comments on how successful she is while gushing that she gets to work on her sitcom, “I Love Lucy,” with her husband, Desi Arnaz, played by fellow Oscar winner Javier Bardem.
“I get paid a fortune to do exactly what I love doing,” she says, as we get a look at the set of their show.
“I work side by side with my husband, who is genuinely impressed by me. And all I have to do to keep it is kill for 36 weeks in a row, and then do it again the next year.”
“You know, I did this show so Desi and I could be together. I had no idea it was going to be a hit,” she adds as we see a clip of Kidman playing Ball in black and white while shooting a scene on “I Love Lucy.”
Fans had already seen glimpses of Kidman tackling the part of Ball. In April, she was snapped in costume while shooting the film, which came a few days after she and Bardem were photographed in character.
Kidman may be a critically acclaimed actor with an Academy Award on her mantle, but portraying Ball presented a challenge for her, with her telling Chris Rock earlier this year for Variety that the role is “way out of my comfort zone.”
“Being the Ricardos,” written and directed by Aaron Sorkin, traces the relationship between Ball and Arnaz during one week of shooting “I Love Lucy.”
“The strange thing about Lucille Ball is that everyone thinks we’re remaking the ‘I Love Lucy’ show, and it’s so not that,” Kidman told Rock. “It’s about Lucy and Desi (Arnaz) and their relationship and their marriage. It’s very deep, actually.”
Ball and Arnaz’s daughter, Lucie Arnaz, has given the project her blessing.
“Aaron has done a wonderful job of bringing these characters to life, and it’s just a little soupcon,” she said in a Facebook video in January. "It’s a little slice of life in their journey. It’s not the whole story. It’s not a biopic from cradle to grave. It is a two-hour feature film about these two people and some of the remarkable things that they lived through."
“Being the Ricardos,” which also stars Oscar winner J.K. Simmons, Clark Gregg, Nina Arianda, Alia Shawkat and Tony Hale, hits theaters Dec. 10 and becomes available to stream Dec. 21 on Amazon Prime Video.
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