How Being the Ricardos Stars J.K. Simmons and Nina Arianda Faced Fear

J.Ok. Simmons appeared in a single episode of “The West Wing” in 2006 and hoped he’d get one other likelihood to work with the collection’ creator, Aaron Sorkin. However when that chance got here within the type of “Being the Ricardos,” Sorkin’s movie about one nightmare week within the lifetime of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz in 1952, the Oscar-winning actor wasn’t certain that it was the best challenge. Sorkin needed him to play William Frawley, the vaudeville veteran who incarnated Lucy and Ricky’s grumpy neighbor Fred Mertz for six seasons on “I Love Lucy.” The thought gave Simmons stage fright.

“After I was first confronted with the thought of taking part in William Frawley, it was terrifying,” Simmons advised TheWrap within the newest episode of the video collection “How I Did It.” “Regardless of my need to work with Aaron once more, I used to be leery of it.” However when he learn the screenplay, which Sorkin (or “the maestro,” because the actor affectionately referred to him) wrote, Simmons had a change of coronary heart. He stated to himself, “I feel possibly it’s time for me to do one thing that scares me.”

Simmons discovered his method into turning into Frawley by learning among the bodily mannerisms the actor used to play Fred: folding his fingers over his abdomen, crossing his arms over his chest, placing his fingers on his hips and in his pockets. “As soon as he was positioned, he simply form of put down roots and lived there,” Simmons stated. “That mixture of issues was very grounding, actually and figuratively, for me by way of a base to start to attempt to inhabit that character.”

For Nina Arianda, who performs actress Vivian Vance in “Being the Ricardos,” the important thing to unlocking the lady who performed Ethel Mertz, finest good friend/partner-in-crime to Lucy and lengthy struggling spouse to Fred, was learning outdated photographs of her. “I do form of visible work the place I simply take photos and I put them up, virtually like a serial killer wall, in my workplace and I’ll simply stare at them,” she stated. One picture specifically stood out: a black-and-white shot of Vance, seated and hugging her knees, with a protracted rope coiled beneath her ft. Her expression bares the slightest tinge of unhappiness.

“There was one thing in her eyes that simply actually received me,” Arianda stated. “And it received [at] this inside life that we’re exploring within the story as effectively. … A part of what’s occurring within the movie with Vivian is that we discover her at a spot the place she’s actually wrestling with the truth that she is not who she needs to be or ever will likely be. She’s form of mourning her previous self, who was an ingénue and a number one girl, and she or he’s now Ethel and she or he’s often called Ethel for the rest of her life. She by no means gave into her unhappiness, and she or he stated, ‘I’m knowledgeable, I present up.’”

When the picture discovered its solution to Sorkin, he was taken with it too. In keeping with Arianda, he took one have a look at it and advised the actress, “Play her.”

For Arianda, that meant pushing previous the jitters, simply as Simmons did. “That’s fearless to me: As sad as she might need been at instances, it didn’t cease her from giving 100% of herself,” Arianda stated. “What I received from it was: Be as fearless as attainable.”