March 29 (UPI) -- Amazon Studios announced Monday that Being the Ricardos has begun production. The studio confirmed that Nicole Kidman and Javier Bardem are playing Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz.
Aaron Sorkin wrote the film and is also directing. Amazon says the story occurs from Monday to Friday, one week in the production of I Love Lucy. The TV sitcom starred Ball and Arnaz as Lucy and Ricky Ricardo and lasted six seasons from 1951 - 1957.
Ball and Arnaz were a real-life couple and divorced in 1960. Their children, Lucie Arnaz and Desi Arnaz Jr., are executive producers of Being the Ricardos.
"This is a story of our folk's real-life passionate, tempestuous and complicated relationship and not a recreation of I Love Lucy," Lucie Arnaz said in a statement. "[Sorkin has] chosen to illuminate a snippet of time during an incredibly intense period of their show's enduring success."
Being the Ricardos is filming in Los Angeles, Calif. J.K. Simmons and Nina Arianda play William Fawley and Vivian Vance, the actors who played Lucy and Ricky's neighbors and landlords Fred and Ethel Mertz.
Tony Hale will play I Love Lucy producer Jess Oppenheimer. Alia Shawkat and Jake Lacy play Lucy writers Madelyn Pugh and Bob Carroll Jr.
Clark Gregg, Nelson Franklin, John Rubinstein, Linda Lavin, Robert Pine and Christopher Denham play undisclosed roles. Amazon Studios is producing the film with Escape Artists Productions.