Aaron Sorkin Latest Celebrity News & Gossip

Zack Sharf Daniel Craig and Javier Bardem became close friends during the making of Sam Mendes’ 2012 James Bond tentpole “Skyfall,” so much so that Bardem once serenaded Craig for his birthday in Marilyn Monroe fashion. True to the spirit of their friendship, Bardem did so while dressed in drag as a Bond girl.

Apparently it is the season to celebrate the iconic marriage and professional relationship of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz. Aaron Sorkin wrote and directed a penetrating, funny, revealing, and ultimately moving film, Being The Ricardos which covers a lot of ground in the Lucy/Desi world using dramatic license to place several real events in their lives all in the course of one week of production on I Love Lucy. Although starring Nicole Kidman and Javier Bardem as the iconic pair, it felt quite real and actually was as you discover watching Amy Poehler’s marvelous love letter to their lives and times in Lucy And Desi, which like Ricardos will be available on Amazon Prime, the perfect companion piece to Sorkin’s film, and a compelling documentary portrait all on its own.

There is, at the moment, no shortage of information in the culture about Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz. In just the past few months, the performers behind “I Love Lucy” have been the subjects of both a (very good) season of TCM’s “The Plot Thickens” podcast and a (very bad) Aaron Sorkin movie, “Being the Ricardos.” Now you can add to that mix “Lucy and Desi,” a new feature-length bio-documentary from actor/director Amy Poehler, which is hitting Amazon Prime in March, presumably as something of a companion piece to “Ricardos” (which the streamer/studio also financed).

Gurl, WHAT?? Kristin Davis clearly thought fans might be getting the wrong idea about her relationship with Willie Garson‘s son.

EXCLUSIVE: The Santa Barbara Film Festival will be getting a touch of Lucy and Desi by way of honoring another pair of major stars.

Michele Amabile Angermiller The awards race in the best actress and best supporting actress categories is brimming with real life protagonists getting the big screen treatment. From Nicole Kidman’s Lucille Ball  (“Being the Ricardos”) to Lady Gaga (“House of Gucci”) and Kristen Stewart (“Spencer”),  these women were tasked with preserving and presenting the legacy of flesh and blood icons, telling their stories truthfully and without judgment.“I think everyone wants to be seen as a fully realized human being, not as just a caricature,” notes Kidman, who took home the Golden Globe for her lead turn in the Aaron Sorkin biopic.Being entrusted with someone’s life story is a big responsibility, and these actresses took great care in their prep work.

Clayton Davis Cate Blanchett delivers two outstanding performances that are both in the awards conversation this year: “Don’t Look Up” and “Nightmare Alley.” The star shepherds grace and a hypnotic trance that has the viewer hanging on every single word she releases.With another impressive turn in Adam McKay’s “Don’t Look Up,” Blanchett is a contender in what is easily our strongest field of supporting actress contenders in the last 30 years. Blanchett was shortlisted at BAFTA for “Don’t Look Up,” and also picked up a SAG Award nod for Guillermo del Toro’s “Nightmare Alley.”Variety’s Awards Circuit Podcast recently spoke with Blanchett about her double dip in the awards arena this season, and having to turn down the role of Lucille Ball in Aaron Sorkin’s “Being the Ricardos,” which ultimately went to Nicole Kidman.

Joseph Reidy will receive the DGA’s Frank Capra Achievement Award and Garry Hood will receive the guild’s Franklin J. Schaffner Achievement Award at the 74th annual DGA Awards on Jan. 27 in recognition of their “extraordinary contributions” to the guild.

Dakota Johnson didn’t feel like she received a warm welcome from Jesse Eisenberg on the set of. During a conversation with Andrew Garfield, who also starred in the 2010 movie about the start of Facebook, Johnson claims that Eisenberg, who plays Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg in the film, didn't speak to her on set.«You and Jesse [Eisenberg] were so busy on that movie, and I was obviously in it for four seconds, but I spent a few days on set just watching,” Johnson tells Garfield of having a small role in the movie as a Stanford University student and a romantic interest of Napster's Sean Parker (Justin Timberlake). “I remember sitting down with you guys when you were having lunch one day, and you asked me loads of questions,» Johnson, 32, recalls. «You (Andrew) were really nice, and Jesse didn’t acknowledge me.

In 1952, the second season of CBS sitcom I Love Lucy set viewing records that, 70 years later, have yet to be beaten. The star was Lucille Ball, a lovable klutz from New York, and her husband Ricky was played by her real-life spouse—Cuban refugee Desi Arnaz. Together they founded Desilu Productions, soon to be the No. 1 independent TV company in America. In 1957, however, a scandal surfaced that threatened to tear it all down: Lucy was a registered Communist. Or was she? That fraught time is brought to life by Aaron Sorkin in his Amazon Studios release Being the Ricardos, starring Nicole Kidman as Lucy and Javier Bardem as Desi. Damon Wise sits down with all three to discuss the forgotten legacy of a most unlikely power couple.

Not so long ago, it looked as if the movies had firmly embraced topicality. Digital technology had radically shortened the production cycle. Ferociously reportorial writers and/or directors like Mark Boal, Aaron Sorkin and Oliver Stone were speeding toward the screen with timely, ‘ripped-from-the-headlines’ films like Zero Dark Thirty, The Social Network and Snowden even while their real-life characters and plot lines were still unfolding. It was pretty heady stuff, all caught up in Congressional scrutiny, court transcripts and debate about ongoing government surveillance of just about everyone.

The closing notice and possible return for Broadway’s Girl From The North Country was barely cold before a second major production announced its own hiatus: To Kill a Mockingbird will close this Sunday and reopen on June 1.

Javier Bardem faced many challenges in bringing Desi Arnaz to life in Amazon’s Being the Ricardos, and he is being recognized for his efforts by his peers with a Screen Actors Guild nomination for Best Actor in a Motion Picture Drama on Wednesday.

Editors note: Deadline’s Read the Screenplay series debuts and celebrates the scripts of films that will be factors in this year’s movie awards race.

EXCLUSIVE: Two-time Oscar nominee Cynthia Erivo (Harriet) is to star in and produce sci-fi feature Blink Speed for Netflix.

Javier Bardem is having a busy 12 months. Not only has he already shot a live-action version of Disney’s “The Little Mermaid,” but his Spanish dramedy “The Good Boss” made the shortlist for the Academy Award for International Film (selected over Pedro Almodovar’s critically acclaimed “Parallel Mothers” starring his wife, Penelope Cruz, no less).

Not so fast. While discussing the real-life relationship of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, Nicole Kidman shut down the notion that she was comparing the I Love Lucy pair to her marriage to Tom Cruise.

When the discussion about “Being the Ricardos” is brought up, most people talk about the casting controversy surrounding Aaron Sorkin’s picks to play Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, Nicole Kidman and Javier Bardem, respectively. A lot has already been made about the Bardem/Arnaz situation, but apparently, there’s a bit more to the Kidman situation than just fans being upset over her being chosen.

Ever since Todd Black got into the film business as a producer, he wanted to work with Aaron Sorkin.

Marlo Thomas Guest ColumnistFor Variety‘s Writers on Writers, Marlo Thomas pens a tribute to “Being the Ricardos” (screenplay by Aaron Sorkin). There is a wonderful scene in “Being the Ricardos” — Aaron Sorkin’s wrenching chronicle of the pioneering TV comedy series “I Love Lucy” — in which Lucy drags two of her co-stars to the studio at 2 a.m., during a thunderstorm, to re-block a comic moment in a dinner scene that hadn’t gone well in rehearsal.

The director of “Being the Ricardos” is pushing back on criticism of the film’s casting.

Academy Award-winning actor Javier Bardem experienced a reawakening while becoming intimately acquainted with Desi Arnaz, the I Love Lucy star who Bardem brings to life in Amazon’s Being the Ricardos. And it all happened while the past and present collided during multiple musical numbers including “Babalu” and “Cuban Pete,” and while listening to private audio recordings shared by Lucy and Desi’s daughter, Lucie Arnaz.

Matt Donnelly Senior Film WriterFollowing a limited theatrical release and a well-received bow to awards voters,”Being the Ricardos” finally dances its way to Amazon Prime Video subscribers on Tuesday.While Nicole Kidman and Javier Bardem topline the Aaron Sorkin drama, one of the major takeaways in both critical reviews and early audience reaction has been the unexpected potency and drama of Vivian Vance — portrayed by “Goliath” and “Billions” star Nina Arianda.Vance was best friend to Lucy

While the film doesn’t seem to have the awards season legs that Amazon hoped it would, “Being the Ricardos” is still gaining a lot of attention, particularly for the lead roles played by Nicole Kidman and Javier Bardem. However, those casting choices also came with a fair amount of controversy, particularly with choosing the Spanish Bardem to play real-life Cuban actor Desi Arnaz.

Nicole Kidman stars as Lucille Ball in the upcoming Being The Ricardos opposite Javier Bardem.

Here’s a collection curated by The Associated Press’ entertainment journalists of what’s arriving on TV, streaming services and music platforms this week.MOVIES— Nicole Kidman and Javier Bardem star as Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz in Aaron Sorkin’s “Being the Ricardos,” a smart and quippy showbiz pic that takes audiences behind the curtains of a tricky relationship on an especially fraught week of “I Love Lucy.” Neither of the stars especially look like the icons they’re portraying, and the

Kate Aurthur editorFor Variety’s FYC Fest, screenwriters Aaron Sorkin (“Being the Ricardos”), Paolo Sorrentino (“The Hand of God”), Adam McKay (“Don’t Look Up”), Tracey Scott Wilson (“Respect”) and Kenneth Branagh (“Belfast”) gathered virtually to discuss their own individual movies, as well as the state of the film business.McKay kicked off the conversation by talking about how he’d adjusted “Don’t Look Up” — his Netflix comedy-tragedy about a comet hurtling toward Earth — because of COVID-19,

Nicole Kidman is portraying one of the most iconic TV stars of all-time, Lucille Ball, in her new highly anticipated film, Being the Ricardos. And on Wednesday, the actress' husband Keith Urban and mother Janelle gushed over her performance in the Aaron Sorkin directed outing.

Nicole Kidman and Javier Bardem hit the panic button a month before they were scheduled to begin filming .

For Javier Bardem and Nicole Kidman, the pressure of taking on one of the most iconic sitcoms of all time came with a lot of pressure.

Being The Ricardos.The actor plays the iconic performer in Aaron Sorkin’s new film alongside Javier Bardem, and recently told NPR about why the stakes felt so high.“Sometimes there is a thing where you go, ‘OK, can we just do it? And then if you guys want to destroy it, fine, we’ll accept that.

Jon Burlingame editorDaniel Pemberton’s score for Aaron Sorkin’s “Being the Ricardos” is unlike anything he’s written to date — a surprising choice for this think-outside-the-box composer, but one that would fit comfortably in the 1950s milieu of the film itself.“I felt it needed a kind of classic score that echoed the golden age of Hollywood,” Pemberton says from his London studio.

Succession’s Jeremy Strong. The story in The New Yorker provided an entertaining if not somewhat troubling look at the actor’s eccentric approach to getting into character.

A recent profile from The New Yorker on Succession star Jeremy Strong, which revealed the unusual lengths he goes to for his craft, has sparked quite a lot of conversation online…

Anne Hathaway is the latest star to speak out with support for Jeremy Strong after his acting method was criticized on social media.

Succession actor Jeremy Strong following a divisive profile in The New Yorker.Speaking about playing Kendall Roy in the HBO series, Strong said: “To me, the stakes are life and death. I take him as seriously as I take my own life.”Those claims were backed up in the article – written by Michael Schulman – by Strong’s co-star Brian Cox, who said: “I just worry about what (Strong) does to himself.