I was personally shattered when I read a few months ago that Cate Blanchett wouldn’t be playing Lucille Ball in Aaron Sorkin‘s Being the Ricardos, but that Nicole Kidman would. I’m still very sorry about this.

Blanchett is more imbued with that combination of skill, genius, magnetism and whatever-else-you-want-to-call-it than Kidman is…sorry but it’s true. That same spark of nervy madness was in Ball herself, which is why Blanchett would’ve been a perfect fit. Plus the 53-year-old Kidman is too old to play Ball when she and Arnaz first met (during the shoot of 1940’s Too Many Girls, when Ball was 29 and Arnaz was 23).

Javier Bardem as Desi Arnaz will be great…love it.

“It’s the story of Lucille Ball, my actual mother…not Lucy Ricardo. There will be humor in the film, but it’s the story of the two of them and how they met, and what went right and what went wrong [with] their relationship, their love affair. So stop arguing about who should play it, her nose isn’t the same, she doesn’t look like her, she isn’t as funny….just trust us, it’s gonna be a nice film.” — Lucie Arnaz in a Facebook video, posted on or about 1.18.21.