A good actor knows that preparing for a role takes work. The actor needs to truly understand the character, feel the character and breathe life into the character. While it can be a challenge for an actor to create a believable character on screen when that character is completely fiction, it can certainly be even more of a challenge when that actor or actress is portraying a character that is based on a real person’s life and very well known career.

In the 2021 movie “Being the Ricardos,” Nicole Kidman portrayed Lucille Ball. She portrayed Ball as we all remember her from the famous sitcom “I Love Lucy.” That was certainly a challenge, but she also had to portray another version of Ball, the off screen version, not the character from the sitcom – the real Ball.

Kidman approached how she prepared for this role in two different ways. She explained to NPR, “So there was the I Love Lucy show, and I just thought, well, if I can create literally a carbon copy of her in the show where I look like her, I move like her, I sound like her, all of those things — and I really studied that for months, like watching it, rewinding, starting again, getting the timing, working on it, working on it, working on the sounds with my dialect coach, if that can be accurate, that then gives me the license to do Lucille Ball, as Aaron said, with the sexuality, with messy hair, with all the things that do not make you go, oh, right, that looks exactly like her. There’s a feeling of her, but there’s a human being here.”

Kidman was referring to the film’s director, Aaron Sorkin, and the advice he gave her when she was preparing for the role. He told her that he didn’t want her to play Ball as an exact replica. His advice and Kidman’s preparation seem to have worked. She ended up winning a Golden Globe for the role.

Get a sneak peak of the film below.