Lucille Ball’s lookalike daughter bites back after Nicole Kidman casting backlash

Lucille Ball’s daughter Lucie Arnaz has come to Nicole Kidman’s defence after fans were left unimpressed with the casting decision for the upcoming film about the 1950’s Hollywood icon. The movie is set to follow the story of Lucie’s famous parents – Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz – with Nicole Kidman and Javier Bardem set to fill the leading roles.

However, fans weren’t very happy with the decision with many saying Will and Grace star Debra Messing would have been better suited. In a video shared to Facebook, Lucie, 69, told fans that she felt she needed to “calm the waters” following the backlash adding that the casting decisions for the film Being the Ricardos were a “done deal”.

“The contracts aren’t actually signed, which is why I haven’t said anything publicly about it,” she said. “But I felt I should just at least try to calm the waters here. There seems to be a lot of discussion about Nicole Kidman. It should be Debra Messing. It should be Carole Cook, I don’t know.”

Lucie said although Lucille’s most-iconic role as Lucy Ricardo in I Love Lucy would be appearing throughout the film, it wouldn’t be the star of the show.

“Here’s the deal. You should understand. We are not doing a remake of I Love Lucy. No one has to impersonate Lucy Ricardo nor do the Vitameatavegamin routine, or the chocolate factory routine or any of the silly things. It’s the story of Lucille Ball, my actual mother, not Lucy Ricardo, and her husband, Dezi Arnaz, my dad, not Ricky Ricardo.

“There will be humour in the film, but it is a story of the two of them and how they met and what went right with finding the show, what went wrong, their relationship, their love affair. Now, of course, it’s going to have I Love Lucy in it — as a matter of fact, Aaron Sorkin [the director] has set it on the stage of a filming one week of rehearsal, rehearsing and filming the show — but all this other stuff takes place during that time. Very little of the show is actually I Love Lucy-type stuff. I don’t think you will be disappointed with that, however.”

Lucie went on to compliment the work of director Aaron Sorkin saying that the film will be “a little slice of life in their journey, it’s not the whole story”. She finished her message by telling fans that there was essentially no point in making any new casting suggestions anymore.

“So I hope I can set the record straight here, and just say, stop arguing about who should play her,” she said. “Just trust us, it’s going to be a nice film, and PS. the voting is over. I love all of you.”